“Important pregnancy milestone: he ties my shoes now.”
Ashley French, born Ashley Tisdale, best known for her childhood acting roles on Disney Channel, is opening up about the difficulties of finding and maintaining a group of mom friends.
The actress and beauty brand founder first opened up about the challenges of mom group drama on her blog “By Ashley French.”
There she wrote a post titled “You're Allowed to Leave Your Mom Group” detailing her experience.
“When I became a mom, I craved connection almost as much as I craved sleep,” she explained in the blog post. “So I did what a lot of us do. I joined a mom group.”
She then went on to write that what at first seemed like a perfect bubble of swapping advice and cute photos of their kids quickly turned into tricky group dynamics and petty behavior.
“Mom groups can turn toxic,” she wrote. “Not because the moms themselves are toxic people, but because the dynamic shifts into an ugly place with mean-girl behavior. I know this from personal experience.”
After her blog post sparked conversation, French decided to write an opinion piece for The Cut going into further detail about the experience.
In the article, she explained that she and most of the other moms in the group were feeling desperate for connection due to being pregnant during the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We hadn’t had baby showers or prenatal yoga, and hardly anyone had held our newborns,” she wrote. “But finally, we were able to be together, and our kids were able to be together, and it all felt right.”
However, she soon started to be excluded from certain hangouts without explanation.
As the occurrences became more and more frequent, it became clear that the group excluding her was intentional, but still no reason was given.
French knew it was time to speak up and remove herself from the group.
She wrote, “I kept thinking, ‘Aren’t we supposed to be teaching our kids to speak up for themselves when their feelings are hurt? When they get left out on the playground, aren’t we supposed to teach kids to include each other?’ I knew that I had to speak up for myself, just like I would want my daughters to do.”
The group did not receive French’s straightforward text message saying “This is too high school for me and I don’t want to take part in it anymore” well.
Some members made half-hearted attempts to apologize, only to go back to ignoring her soon after.
But French knew staying away from the group was the right thing to do.
“You deserve to go through motherhood with people who actually, you know, like you,” she concluded. “And if you have to wonder if they do, here’s the hard-earned lesson I hope you’ll take to heart: It’s not the right group for you. Even if it looks like they’re having the best time on Instagram.”
In a joint Instagram post with The Cut, French shared the release of the article on social media.
In the comments, French’s fans and followers praised her for speaking up about such a difficult topic.
“Good for you Ash takes a lot for people to confront the bullies 🙌” one fan commented.
“When people show you who they are, believe them the first time. If they do it to someone else, they will do it to you too. And yes, most likely we'll never know why we were excluded,” added another.
