Preschool Pariah

Lunch today with a friend, catching up on gossip, she tells me about this incident:
Kids are playing. One girl walks up to another girl and throws sand in her face. Mother of sand thrower goes to sand victim to care for her. Mother of sand victim goes to sand thrower and FREAKS OUT. Screams at child and says something like, "Nothing will happen anyway because there is no discipline." Storms away. At this point in the story, I interrupt.

"Oh my God. I would lose my shit if somebody said that to my daughter."
"Yeah. But both victim and perpetrator and mothers just ditch the playdate-- I'm left with the fourth mom who I don't know very well."
"Was she aghast at the mom's response?"
"No. Apparently Sand Thrower has a reputation. Fourth mom says sand thrower had it coming."
"Huh? How's that?"
"I don't know. I've never seen a problem, but apparently Sand Thrower has done this type of thing before to other kids. But I think this time the sand went in the wrong kid's face."

My friend went on to describe the social structure of her preschool. How the victim's mom is a Queen Bee at the school and how Sand Thrower's mom is soon to be the recipient of many cold shoulders and much fewer playdate invites.

Which is crazy. This mom is awesome and fun and lovely to be with. But-- and here's the weird mom-drama-- when you befriend a mom you also befriend the children. And, sure, some kids have phases, but some kids never grow out of their phases or they just move into another sucky phase.

There's a whole continuum of mom friends vs kid friends dynamic to work out. In an ideal world, you and your kid will be attracted to the same type of people, but in reality you'll love the mom and the kid will be boring/aggressive/controlling/a biter. Or the kid is awesome and the mom is smelly/overbearing/no sense of humor/a baby-talker. And then, when you all decide to like each other, there's parenting differences to work out. The snacks and amount of tv and allowable language and what is considered backtalk. It's a parenting landmine. At some point your kid is going to go through a crappy phase or you'll drop the f-bomb in the wrong crowd and Bam! Your whole family is preschool pariah. Mommy roadkill.