‘Mom groups’ are a real thing… and this particular one is INTENSE

Meeting up with old friends when you're a parent is hard.

Making new friends when you're a parent is even harder. Lucky for us, 'Mom groups' have become increasingly popular over the past few years, making it that little bit easier to meet people who understand the trials and tribulations of parenthood. Most mom groups boast of being a place where women can come to relieve their anxieties, bond with other mothers, and discuss aspects of parenthood they otherwise might not get a chance to talk about. However, certain mom groups are not so chill. One woman has recently shared her experience of a mom group she was almost a member of, and to be honest, it seems a bit like Mean Girls. Reddit user carlinha1289 shared her story of almost making it through the recruitment process of being becoming a fully fledged member of a mom group, only to fall at the last hurdle and never hear from the women again. She begins by saying that she met a mom at a park a few weeks ago, and that after a few play dates, the woman asked if she wanted to meet her other mom friends. In total, there were three moms in the group, with eight children between them. Carlinha1289 says that the first two times she hung out with the mom group, she had a great time. However, the third time that the group asked her to meet up, things started to get intense.

"I said I couldn't go, because it was really far for me and I mean... we had met already twice in 4 days. That's when one of the moms reached out to me and asked me what my "mom friends goal" was and how I was going to get there. I was pretty perplexed at that question (...) So I asked her what did she mean and she said that to put it simple, they had criteria for their mom friends and that they just wanted to make sure I was on the same page. Ok."

According to the post, members of the mom group said that they needed to meet at least three times a week for "play dates and chit-chats." They also said that this was what separated them from "playground moms" because they had a strong friendship that other women supposedly did not. Like most mothers, Carlinha1289 explained that she was too busy to meet up three times a week. That's when the mom group got angry.

"One of them actually got mad at me and asked me "why I had joined their group if I wasn't willing to commit." (...) That's pretty much the last times I heard of them."

Reddit users were quick to point out the clear similarities between the actions of this three-person mom group, and the plot of Mean Girls. One user 'Ralliah' commented saying: "Christ, high school never ends for some people. Do they also wear pink on Wednesdays?" Another responded saying that this was "so so not fetch." 'NiteNicole' decided to stay away from pop culture references and instead questioned how any mom has the time to meet up with their friends three times a week. "I don't think I have a meal with my husband that often," she wrote. While mom groups seem like a nice way to meet new people, this whole thing seems far too intense for us. We'll leave cliques to teenagers in school.