This is a different kind of mom-shaming.
Ashley Tisdale is calling out a “toxic” mom group including the likes of Hilary Duff, Meghan Trainor, and Mandy Moore.
People who were supposed to be her social circleinstead made her feel like a bullied high schooler at the age of 40.
But she cut ties with the not-so-supportive group, and soon learned that she’s not the only one who felt the cold shoulder of the “mean girls.”
Sometimes, new moms want a social circle that understands exactly how they’re feeling
Tisdale, who rose to fame as a teenager and young adult as a Disney Channel star and a singer, first wrote about leaving her “mom group” on a more personal blog.
“Breaking Up With My Toxic Mom Group” is a more confrontational take, but that’s the title of her The Cut essay in which she details the process.
The process began, Tisdale shared, when she found what she believed was a group of like-minded moms in similar circumstances.
“I needed to talk to someone else who related to what I was going through,” she explained.
“The mood swings, the late nights, saying good-bye to who I used to be,” Tisdale listed. “And getting to know my daughter and the new person I was becoming.”
“During the early days of the group, there was another mom who often wasn’t included,” Tisdale recalled in her essay.
She admitted: “I’d picked up on hints of a weird dynamic, but at the time, I didn’t dwell on it too much.”
Tisdale observed: “Now it seemed that this group had a pattern of leaving someone out. And that someone had become me.”
This, she wrote, led to eerily familiar self-doubts: “Here I was sitting alone one night after getting my daughter to bed, thinking, Maybe I’m not cool enough?”
Tisdale reflected: “All of a sudden, I was in high school again, feeling totally lost as to what I was doing ‘wrong’ to be left out.”
Being a mom at 40 should never make you feel like a teenager
To be clear, Tisdale is a 40-year-old woman. Even if she were not very famous, this would be a strange way for her to feel.
“I texted to the group after being left out from yet another group hang,” she revealed, after listing numerous incidents of exclusion and seemingly accidental oversights.
“This is too high school for me,” she wrote to them. “And I don’t want to take part in it anymore.”
Unfortunately, Tisdale shared: “It didn’t exactly go over well.”
The efforts to apologize or win her over fell flat, she explained.
To Tisdale’s judgment, some of the moms seemed to feel bad about how she was feeling. But not enough to change things — and not enough to have missed her when the group met without her.
“To be clear, I have never considered the moms to be bad people,” Tisdale assured, before slyly adding: “(Maybe one.)”
She continued: “But I do think our group dynamic stopped being healthy and positive — for me, anyway.”
After she first began speaking on the topic, she shared, she has heard “feedback” from other moms.
Tisdale wrote: ‘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.”
She also admitted that some called her “brave,” which puzzled her. What, she wondered, does she have to fear?
‘It’s not the right group for you’
“You deserve to go through motherhood with people who actually, you know, like you,” Tisdale affirmed.
(Not to distract from the point, but this applies to most things — your friends, your partner, family gatherings, and more)
“And if you have to wonder if they do, here’s the hard-earned lesson I hope you’ll take to heart,” she expressed.
Tisdale wrote: “It’s not the right group for you. Even if it looks like they’re having the best time on Instagram.”
Ultimately, she did not choose to name-drop anyone. But while Tisdale follows Meghan Trainor, she is no longer following Hilary Duff or Mandy Moore on that platform.
Interesting!