Lost on the Playground: Dealing With "Queen Bee"

The kids race off, chasing dandelion fluff and each other, while I stand in the middle of the playground. Backpack slung over one shoulder, water bottle dangling from my hand, I'm confused, squinting in the sunlight, not quite sure where to go. The trouble is I don't really fit in. I try, but my timing is always a little off, my interests not the same, my clothes not exactly right.

Yeah, I hear you when you say you've heard it before, that you know the story. Find your niche, you advise. You don't have to be like the others, it will be okay, you're aching to say in reassurance. Everybody has a hard time finding their place, but in the end we all find a group of friends to chase dandelion fluff with, you tell me with a knowing smile.

It's all great advice. Hackneyed and a little clichéd, perhaps, but great advice nonetheless. For a kid. But I'm not a kid. I'm thirty-four years old. The backpack slung over my shoulder was shoved at me by my six-year-old as he ran off to play Star Wars with his friends. The water bottle is his. The social awkwardness? That's all mine.

I'm not the only mother on the playground, of course. There's a cluster here and a cluster there, all literally circled around the Queen Bee. We all know the Queen Bee, right? She's a little older than the impressionable first-time mothers and uses that to her advantage. She's dressed in expensive casual and her make-up is just so. She knows everybody's name (well, at least the names worth knowing) and all the children's names. They spill from her lips drenched in the lightest taste of gossip and Knowledge with a capital K, so that the worker bees know she's paying attention. After all, that's important, isn't it? If the Queen doesn't know what's going on with your child, how will you ever stop circling the hive?

It's amazes me that ten, fifteen, twenty years out of high school people are still playing the silly little clique game. At this point, though, it's beyond silly--it's almost dangerous. What are those kids learning? That it's okay to exclude people who don't live up to your standards. That it's fine to make others feel left out. That there are some people more worthy of your attention.


Well, Queen Bee, I say "Check out the precedent you are setting and buzz off!"