A few weeks ago, Ashley Tisdale French wrote a blog post on her personal website titled, “You’re Allowed to Leave Your Mom Group.” She talked about how her own mom group had turned “toxic” and that shifting dynamics had resulted in “mean-girl behavior.” So, Ashley decided to break up with them. Last week, she published a lengthy essay in The Cut, in which she elaborated more about what went wrong and why she decided to speak up. After being left out of side-chats and group hangs one too many times, she texted her now-former mom friends to tell them that they’d become “too high school” and that she was out. The full essay is long, but here’s some of it.
What I remember most from those early days was how impressed I was by those women and all of the amazing things they had going on. They were building brands, running their own companies, launching creative projects. They just happened to also be mothers of young kids. I was running my own company too, and I felt energized by being around women who understood the challenge of feeding a baby while taking a Zoom call. I felt a sense of belonging. And it made me hopeful about finding the balance between fulfilling work and family life, since all these cool women were able to do it. Maybe we’d be able to share our secrets to success. By the time we started getting together for playdates and got the group chat going, I was certain that I’d found my village.
But over time, I began to wonder whether that was really true. I remember being left out of a couple of group hangs, and I knew about them because Instagram made sure it fed me every single photo and Instagram Story. Another time, at one of the mom’s dinner parties, I realized where I sat with her — which was at the end of the table, far from the rest of the women. I was starting to feel frozen out of the group, noticing every way that they seemed to exclude me. At first, I tried not to take things personally. It’s not like people aren’t allowed to get together without me — and maybe there were perfectly good reasons that I hadn’t been invited. We were all busy, life was hectic. I told myself it was all in my head and it wasn’t a big deal.
And yet, I could sense a growing distance between me and the other members of the group, who seemed to not even care that I wasn’t around much. When everyone else attended a birthday dinner together, I was met with excuses as to why I hadn’t been invited. I still don’t get why I wasn’t at the girl hang that they all planned at my daughter’s birthday. As I increasingly felt left out, I remembered something. Or rather, someone. During the early days of the group, there was another mom who often wasn’t included. I’d picked up on hints of a weird dynamic, but at the time, I didn’t dwell on it too much. I was just so happy to have found these incredible, smart, funny women. Now it seemed that this group had a pattern of leaving someone out. And that someone had become me.
Why me? The truth is, I don’t know and I probably never will. What I do know is that it took me back to an unpleasant but familiar feeling I thought I’d left behind years ago. Here I was sitting alone one night after getting my daughter to bed, thinking, Maybe I’m not cool enough? All of a sudden, I was in high school again, feeling totally lost as to what I was doing “wrong” to be left out.
I went to a regular high school and had the typical teenage experience of trying to figure myself out. Lately, I’ve been thinking about how being a new mom has emotional echoes of high school. It’s an exciting time of discovery and growth, but it’s also a time of feeling vulnerable and unsure. You’re thrust into new situations with new people, wondering if they could be the friend who can walk beside you in this new time in your life — and there’s no way to know for sure unless you put yourself out there. And in both cases, your hormones are all over the place.
Even though it had been decades since tenth grade, the experience of being left out felt so similar. Back then, I would have quietly retreated and avoided confrontation because I wasn’t confident enough to speak up for myself, hoping to be invited back and ready to pretend nothing ever happened if I was. But I’m not in high school anymore. I’m a mom. And it’s because I’m a mom that I couldn’t stay quiet. I kept thinking, Aren’t we supposed to be teaching our kids to speak up for themselves when their feelings are hurt? When they get left out on the playground, aren’t we supposed to teach kids to include each other? I knew that I had to speak up for myself, just like I would want my daughters to do.
So that’s exactly what I texted to the group after being left out from yet another group hang: “This is too high school for me and I don’t want to take part in it anymore.” It didn’t exactly go over well. Some of the others tried to smooth things over. One sent flowers, then ignored me when I thanked her for them. Another tried to convince me that everyone assumed I’d been invited to gatherings and just hadn’t shown up. Then why didn’t anyone ever ask where I was?, I wondered. To be clear, I have never considered the moms to be bad people. (Maybe one.) But I do think our group dynamic stopped being healthy and positive — for me, anyway.
Surely, it would have been easier to disappear without explanation — and that would have allowed all of us to convince ourselves that we simply “drifted apart.” But from the feedback I’ve received since I started talking about this, I now know I’m far from the only mother who’s been brought to tears by members of a group that’s supposed to lift everyone up. I had more than one friend reach out and say, “You’re so brave.” I thought that was such an interesting response. Why, I wondered, is it so scary to talk about this? Motherhood has enough challenges without having to wonder if the people around you are on your side. You deserve to go through motherhood with people who actually, you know, like you. And if you have to wonder if they do, here’s the hard-earned lesson I hope you’ll take to heart: It’s not the right group for you. Even if it looks like they’re having the best time on Instagram.
I’m sorry that Ashley felt this way. I think we’ve all been there at one point in time, especially when there is a large group dynamic. It’s always nice to be invited or included and it hurts to feel left out. The older I get, the more I realize that life is too short to deal with drama or people who don’t share my values. Sometimes, it’s best to just cut ties and find friends that gel with you better. I wouldn’t have announced my departure like that, but that’s just me. If anything, I probably would have spoken privately to whomever I was closest with.
I’m lowkey dying to know who Ashley is shading when she says that “maybe one” of the women is a bad person. She never names any of the offending moms, but social media presumes that the group in question involves Mandy Moore, Meghan Trainor, Hilary Duff, and several other non-celebrity women. It was formed after they all had babies in early 2021. Since then, they’ve all posted pictures and Insta Stories of their playdates, spa weekends, dinners, and more. While we don’t know for sure that this is the group that Ashley is talking about, she deleted pictures of their mom-dates and stopped following Hilary and Mandy on Instagram.
Note by CB: There’s speculation that Ashley brought this upon herself by posting a tribute to Charlie Kirk last year. She also is said to have failed to check in with her friends after the devastating fires in LA affected several of them. Mandy Moore even lost her home. TMZ has a denial from Ashley’s rep, who claims this isn’t about politics because Ashley is a Democrat and that this isn’t about her famous friends. Oh really? Then why did she delete photos and unfollow them on Instagram?
Photos credit: Getty, Nikki Nelson/WENN/Avalon and via Instagram
Not a very diverse group of women.
It’s so important for women to have support in other women, and as mothers. But I will say this, this sense of community in child rearing amongst women just *is* in other cultures whereas in white women circles it feels much more like an identity foothold that nurtures this kind of catty behavior on all sides.
Is it me, or does T’s essay itself feel wildly high school itself?
She feels what she feels, and I’m sorry she felt left out and excluded, but…she airs out a lot of very specific and detailed grievances about her friends in a public essay? When she knows that even without including their names, social media will know who she means *because she herself comments* on how social media repeatedly made everyone aware of her Mom group?
If that’s not petty mean girl behavior, I don’t know what is? (I know she couches it as advice to others in similar situations, but if that were her real aim…the editor should have worked with her to focus more on how/why/when to leave a friend group, what to do next, etc., and not a laundry list of grievances about all the times her friends hung out without her. They become the clear focus of the article.)
(Also, if you knew from the jump your group was excluding people but didn’t care as long as you were included…maybe you contributed to the toxic environment?)
And that’s even before we consider a tribute to Charlie Kirk.
I would stop talking to someone who posted a Charlie Kirk tribute. Also, sometimes you just don’t gel with a group. Maybe it’s rude to exclude her from events but would it have been better for them to say out right that they don’t like her? I met someone once who seemed cool. Once we hung out a couple of times, I realized that I didn’t really like her and stopped reaching out.
Yes. Breaking up with friends is hard, but it is far kinder to be direct than to just ghost and phase someone out. Not doing so, and then inviting everyone except for one person and posting it to social media is passive aggressive immature behaviour at best. It’s also more realistic and adult to have the conversations. Sometimes I hang out with my large group of friends. Sometimes I have lunch with one or two because I’m craving some closeness or want to give them more direct space. We have 3 people in our group who went to high school together and sometimes want their own time too. The difference? We are all transparent and honest about it. When there are conflicts we have that conversation and come to resolution like adults. It’s honesty, integrity and effort that make friendships last. And if a friendship truly should end the kinder thing to do is to have that uncomfortable conversation and honour the time you had together in life that must come to an end. Would you be cool with a romantic partner doing this? It would be far more mature to say “we have decided that your one post about Charlie Kirk has offended us so much that we don’t feel it’s right to remain friends with you” . Posting on social media that she was excluded is throwing a stone while hiding your hand. Unless it is unsafe to do so, avoiding a little bit of discomfort by just ghosting on someone is the cruel choice and shows a lack of moral character.
I think two things can be true – Ashley Tisdale could be a tough hang, and this does totally happen in mom groups. It’s astonishing how many adults revert to high school behavior in school/mom social groups.
Amanda Seyfried had a response to Charlie Kirk’s death that made sense to me. That’s all I got.
We have all been there. Facebook hurt. Instagram hurt. For whatever reason, you didn’t fit in. You didn’t get it. If you went, you’d probably have a lousy time.
Always helps to look at your own behavior. I can’t help wondering if Ashley is the critical type and may have been a downer and/or made tactless remarks. Was she openly MAGA or was the Charlie Kirk remark a one-off? Would love to interview the friends.
In any event, there’s only one solution: Find different friends. May take a while. It’s painful.
The Kirk thing wasn’t even a tribute. She’s not been openly maga and supported Biden/harris.
I would cut ties with her for posting a Charlie Kirk tribute, for sure. And checking on your supposed friends after devastating events in their lives is the bare minimum.
The group might as well be toxic, sure, but I don’t think Ashley is necessarily the innocent victim of the mean moms here.
so she says that she herself used to be part of the group that would exclude someone else and there’s no indication she did anything to try to include that person…..so when the toxic dynamic* turned on her, she was surprised?
*I dont know if this group dynamic was toxic or not. I’ve been in too many mom groups -mostly online – where the victims are always innocent and never did anything wrong and its always someone else – their mother, MIL, husband, friend, etc – who is in the wrong. One person posted this morning about how sad she is that she lost most of her friends from before she was a mom and then said something like “I know I stopped texting and responding to invites and reaching out to them but I still wanted to be included.”
but i know some can be very toxic and high school. I had a good friend group for a few years that imploded bc of stupid HS like drama and one person who wanted to be the Queen Bee and caused drama when she wasn’t. We’re all acquaintances still (I live in a small suburb type town) and see each other and are polite but aren’t friends. So I’m not discounting Ashley’s entire experience. I just think a lot of times there is more to the story.
It sucks when a group of people you feel like you get along with, don’t really like you anymore.
And when someone stops liking/loving you- there’s nothing you can really do about it.
Maybe they thought she brought too much drama. Maybe they’re mean girls.
Her text to them doesn’t give me a good feeling about her.
I have had friends who drifted away, and i just let them b/c it becomes obvious when people aren’t making an effort to include you.
And the reasons don’t actually matter.
But it does feel crappy when it happens.
How do I know what I would do, because I don’t group hang. I have individual friends, and I like it that way. That being said, I’m sorry she got her feelings hurt, but holy guacamole, why not ring them all up for lunch and then tell them how you feel. Tell them directly that when this happened, I felt…..I think it is poor judgement to involve a whole group of women in a tell all without first confronting them, or at least calling up one woman and trying to talk it out. Was it easier to write the essay than to call one or have a chat with them all? Probably, but in the long run, maybe not. It seems cowardly, and I can’t picture anyone from the group, whether they are right or wrong, appreciating her going to press before talking it out, or trying to, with them. One thing about it: if she skipped that part of the process, she also skipped any feedback. Which is really a shame. I can see breaking up with a group you’ve grown apart from, but she might have been able to salvage one or two individual friendships, and she might not have pissed off a whole group. She may be entirely right, but I think she was cowardly if she didn’t try to talk to them first. And then there is the option of just drifting away. Which I probably would have done.
“She may be entirely right, but I think she was cowardly if she didn’t try to talk to them first. ”
It depends on the situations. It sounds like these women were intentionally leaving her out. I’d doubt they weren’t aware of it. There’s probably no point in bringing it up.
Now, if it was a close, one-on-one friend, I would probably have said something directly. If there was something she was doing that was really hurt my feelings.
“And then there is the option of just drifting away. Which I probably would have done.”
I would have done that. Calling out their immaturity … it’s not going to change the situation or have them suddenly say, “Oh, you’re right. We’re sorry.” It’s not going to provide them any kind of lightbulb moment into their behavior. They are who they are.
The Charlie Kirk tribute is definitely problematic. But this is diabolical, and I applaud her pettiness: “To be clear, I have never considered the moms to be bad people. (Maybe one.)”
Genius ploy to include that parenthetical lol.