![<i>Illustration: John Shakspeare</i>](/web/20150930044541im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/1/m/h/e/3/0/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.1meje5.png/1428576269767.jpg)
Illustration: John Shakspeare
I'm hearing a lot of the phrase "mummy mafia" while I click around the "mummy"-related parts of the internet trying to find healthy school lunch options that everyone will eat (I'll save you the time: it's a Vegemite sandwich) and I get the concept.
The idea is that when you walk through the school gate, there is some kind of Mean Girls power pack of '"mummies" who won't talk to you.
Poor you. Poor you in your slightly rumpled Target clothes with mascara down one side of your face, dragging your kids in after the bell, ponytailing as you go. Left out for not achieving the unwritten standard of the playground.
Put simply, nearly all the time, you are not left out. You are not the victim. You are not being deliberately excluded.
People don't talk to you because they don't know you. Or they don't have time. Maybe they are in the middle of doing something else. Maybe they are just plain out of the energy it takes to begin a conversation with a stranger. Occasionally they might be in the company of an actual real-life friend, deep in conversation and not even notice you.
Seldom, if ever, have you been purposefully rejected. Seldom, if ever, are you that important.
Life with a young family can be hectic, confusing and embarrassing. There's the misheard assembly announcements, the normal school day that turned out not to be pyjama day after all or the birthday party invitation that may not have been lost but in fact never existed. Then there's the accidental morning news confession ("My dad has not had any beer in TWO DAYS now!"; "I am wearing yesterday's undies inside out"; "Mum keeps things she gets given on the present shelf and then she gives them away to people who don't like them either").
You NEED these people. The school mums are your best hope. The last thing you can afford to do is be a lone wolf, because the lone wolf does not find out when the class Christmas party is until it is too late.
So here is my big tip, one of the three pieces of parenting advice that I feel qualified to give (along with "don't give birth in your own clothes" and "don't let yourself run out of nit shampoo"). Make the effort. Do the small talk. Ask polite questions that you already know the answer to.
The idea that some people are qualified to make polite small talk in the playground and others aren't sounds pretty convenient for those who claim they aren't, doesn't it? "I'm just not polite small talk kind of person! Engaging with other people is hard for me! And anyway, they're all so snobby, why would I?"
How convenient – now you don't have to do it and it's someone else's fault! Blame it on the mummy mafia!
Take it from me, in my rumpled Target clothes with mascara down the side of my face, running late and ponytailing as I go – the social contract is DIY.
Mostly it fails when you fail, but it's your safety net. You don't want to be attempting these moves without a net.
Heckler is back in business. No issue is too small to raise Heckler's hackles. Readers can send pieces of about 400 words on what's got their goat to heckler@fairfaxmedia.com.au. Chosen submissions will be published online at smh.com.au/comment. Please include daytime phone details.
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