Vanessa Gordon first tasted the bitter side of mom groups after joining a walking community following the birth of her first child in 2014. The 37-year-old Hamptons-based luxury events planner noticed the fellow moms were making judgmental comments about everything from parenting styles to what stroller brands were socially acceptable. “We would go exercise and work out together,” she says, “but then I felt the women were so cliquey.”
It didn’t stop when her two children, Sarah, now 12, and Ben, eight, started school. There would be confrontational WhatsApp groups, cutting remarks (“I wouldn’t let my daughter wear that”) and competitive conversations about expensive summer camps. When she and her husband filed for divorce, she felt judged by the other moms. “I could sense this feeling of, oh yeah, ‘That’s Ben’s mom over there, she’s going through a divorce. I could feel the isolation. My son is so social and he's so well-liked, but you could tell that I'm not as welcome.”
