Mean Girls

Mean Girls….

Living in a small town has a lot of plusses and a lot of minuses; the fact that everyone knows everyone happens to fall into both categories.  What amuses me is the way that so many people forget this simple truth.  My theory is that if someone has a home and education similar to mine we know ALL the same people, therefore I engage politeness and the ZERO disclosure policy 100% of the time (think, “The Real Housewives of St. Mary’s”). 

So, let’s get dirty and tell a few mean girl stories…



When confronted with their transgression...
(actually, not kidding, seriously irritated)

My personal favorite is about my “friend”, let’s call her ‘dip$hidiot’ for fun.  She thought it would be clever to continuously speak “unkindly” of me behind my back as though it would not get back to me.  To be clear, by unkind I really do mean vicious.

For those of you who knew me in high school and college you know that I looked at smoking as a favorite hobby and perfect snack food.  However, when I would get pregnant I was always very clear, I am still a smoker, just on sabbatical (not smoking) for the next 40 weeks.  Well, stillbirth #1 was due to the fact that my baby Sarah had the umbilical cord wrapped twice around her neck and once around her ankle.  A clot formed between the two from the pressure and she either died from strangulation or a lack of circulation due to the clot, we are not sure.



Dip$hidiot thought it would be super cute to tell everyone that I had clearly smoked through my pregnancy and had essentially killed my child all on my own…after all there was a clot in the cord.  Never mind the pathology report (you know, the authority on this...not dip$hidiot) which declared me nicotine free, or the 50+ (yes FIFTY) hours of labor I had just gone through, she was morally OK with informing the world that I murdered my sweet baby girl. 

Classy lady.

Is anyone on board with my mean girl theory?  (Or her ignorance that I would not hear her words echoed back to me by maybe 30 of the 300 people she told her theory to?)  You do this in a small town and think I won’t find out, the poor thing may be full of herself but is probably not too bright. 

Mean girl judging, brutal huh?

The reason I bring this up is because as we age and continue on our life journey mean girls never change. 

When I explain mean girls to my children for some reason I try to let them off easy.  “Oh, they are going through a rough time (divorce, moving, changing schools, blah, blah, blah), they will settle down and be a good friend again soon.”  I think I am doing my children a terrible disservice.  Overtime I think you can change but some people are just inherently mean.  My children are not  perfect, but they are sweet and kind.  I am certain that if they were mean I would be able to explain it away in a heartbeat, “their mom is always in the hospital.” Simple.

I am aware that we cannot always be 100% sweet and kind and we shouldn’t be.  After everything I have been through I have a lot less patience with people and seperate myself from those who create any chaos in my life.  I am not sure if this means I am mean or that my life is too hard and unpredictable to let anyone in my inner circle who adds any “swirl” or ruckus to my day.

How you can spot a mean girl:

Mean girls often travel in packs...

Mean girls always tell you how nice they are.  They never actually do anything or say anything kind, they just keep reminding you of their sweetness and constantly replay the one or two good deeds they have completed in their lifetime.

Mean girls tell tales and name names.  Dip$hidiot was always telling me horrible things about other women, even her fairly close friends.  At first I thought I was simply a trusted ally, WRONG.  When someone is constantly putting others down, rest assured, they are not leaving you out.

That moment you realize you told all of your secrets to a mean girl.

Another way to spot them is the ½ compliment for you and ½ compliment for them.  “I love your new shoes, they are almost exactly like mine…you have such great taste.”  My advice, take your cute shoes and start running.


If anything even remotely dramatic happens they are intimately in the center of it (no matter how peripheral they are to the actual event).  They love to place themselves in the apex of all dramatic swirls.  I learned this after having Clara, my circle of friends expanded exponentially, it very happily went back to include just my real friends when things settled down.



What should happen when mean girls
put themselves in the middle of the chaos.

NICE girls will continually tell you all of the mean things they think they have done because they are consumed with guilt over the tiniest social faux pas and cannot seem to recover from it.

In the end true friends are not petty, cruel or divisive.  They love you for you and do not accuse you or ANYONE in your family of being inappropriate.  I will never say who was unkind to me or what I truly think of them (my mother erased that vocabulary from my brain with a mixture of soap and water), but suffice it to say I am better off without them in my life.

Do you have mean girls in your life?

Are you the mean girl or the nice girl?

Would love to hear your stories.