Have you ever felt wronged by another woman? Have you ever had your secrets shared without permission? I can’t see your hands, but I’m guessing they’re raised as high as mine.
Let’s call these women the ‘Barbara Walters’. They are reporters. Their job is to gather facts and share them. They listen to you talk, copying script on their invisible pad, and then repeat it back to anyone willing to listen. Sometimes they even attach the required prayers and worry so what they say seems less gossipy and more sincere.
‘We need to pray for Stephanie. I heard her marriage is on the rocks…’
The Barbaras are smart. The Barbaras are cunning. The Barbaras are our friends.
I graduated from high school eons ago, and somehow survived the sorority cliques of my college years, so I assumed that meant I was in the clear from cattiness. That advancing age automatically gave you maturity. That once you birthed a baby, us women were all on the same team.
But a few months into new motherhood, I learned the hard reality that mean girls still exist—they just become mommies too.
The majority of these women are easy to spot, they have closed-knit groups as oppose to close-knit groups. But I was so desperate as a new mother, so lonely and isolated, I was willing to conform. I was willing to accept friends that liked every single one of my Facebook posts, rather than truly liked me.
Last year was one of the toughest for me yet. My husband was diagnosed with a genetic heart condition, one with an unfortunate prognosis, and both of my children were diagnosed with autism. During this time, this extremely vulnerable time, I felt checked on and accounted for by the group of Barbaras more than anyone else. It was nice that someone was thinking of me during such hardships.
But then I started to notice that any tidbit I shared was leaked into the community. Faraway acquaintances suddenly knew intimate details of my husband’s heart and my mental health. Months later, when the dust began to settle, these TMZ mothers let everyone know that my child had switched schools.
