Trula Kids » Community

How to Deal With An Alpha Mom

Trula — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 15:35:00 +0000

When making friends with other mothers it’s important to understand that people carry their personality issues with them into motherhood. Becoming a mother does not usually lesson an aggressive personality. On the contrary, it may actually increase how aggression manifests in someone with this personality. For the purposes of this post, I define an Alpha mom as a mother who is consistently aggressive and competitive with other mothers. She monopolizes conversations and insists upon leading any mother or child-oriented group she is a part of. She portrays herself as being ‘direct’ when really she is just rude.

The Alpha mom was often popular OR unpopular in high school and has usually remained stuck in teenage patterns of relating to other people. She interacts with other mothers in the same way she did with other teenagers when she was in high school. She uses the same methods, often subconsciously, to rank herself against other mothers and to establish a pecking order within her social group. She is consistent with being aggressive with people right from the start.

When you are involved with a new school, neighborhood, playground, or other mother-child setting, you may feel the easiest way to make friends is to befriend the Alpha mom, since she seems to know everybody and be involved with everything. Watch out. The Alpha mom may seem nice at first, but her friendship comes with the high price of your compliance. If she cannot control your opinions or steam-roll you into silence, she will, in her mind, become your enemy and feel the battle-lines are drawn. Why? The Alpha mom, like all controlling personalities, has a tenuous grasp on her self-esteem and core identity. She feels most strongly connected to the world through other people. Thus when she can’t control or subjugate people she comes into contact with or loses control of people she comes into contact with, it feels very emotionally painful to her. So because from her perception you deeply hurt her feelings by not agreeing with her (on whatever) she feels that you are against her.

What do you do if an Alpha mom decides you are her enemy? Cease communication while waving the white flag. Remember that to her you two are rivals, enemies, bitterest foes, while in your mind she’s just some woman you had a minor disagreement about staying home with kids versus working outside the home. Or whatever. You can become an enemy to an Alpha mom over an argument about home-baked cookies versus store-bought cookies, really. The Alpha Mom needs to dominate to feel connected to the world, so if she sees you as being not dominant or passive she may see you as being unconnected or not worth bothering with, and may then leave you alone. Show her you have no interest in dominating her or taking over her position as Alpha Mom by retreating from any argument or fight she tries to start with you. After a few times she will be satisfied that she has shown you she’s boss and that she has ‘punked you out’, and she will leave you alone. Remember it’s unimportant if she thinks you are weak. The goal is to get her to leave you alone.

The Alpha mom does not handle rejection very well. The emotionally mature adult understands that not every person they like will be interested in friendship with them. The Alpha mom does not understand this, and will take a rebuff of friendship as a deep personal insult. What do you do if an Alpha mom decides she wants to be your friend? If you are very secure with yourself and emotionally healthy, you may feel able to handle a friendship with someone like this. Alpha moms often have attractive traits and can be fun to be around occasionally. You may feel it’s worth your while to be her friend. But if you are struggling with self esteem issues and/or you are working to become emotionally healthy, a friendship with an Alpha mom can consume your free time and make you feel tired, nervous, depressed, or anxious. If this is the case, you can gently rebuff or get out of a friendship with an Alpha mom by placing all the blame for your negative interactions with her on yourself. Try telling her that you are immature and you simply cannot handle talking with her or being her friend. She may get upset and call you names and in general throw the adult equivalent of a temper tantrum, but keep in mind she would have done this anyway, or else driven you crazy with her domineering and aggressive personality. By using this tactic you have cut the crazy short and saved yourself from engaging in useless debates as well as painful arguments with her.

It’s ok to do this.You have a right to pick and choose who you want to be friends with. You do not have to be friends with someone who is aggressive just because they are another mother.

Subscribe to Mama Specific Productions by email

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

How to Help Trula’s Blog

Trula — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 16:49:00 +0000

If you like this blog, here are some ways you can help me with it:

Post Comments
Your comments on my posts are invaluable feedback. Comments let me know what people think and feel about what I write. I also get an idea of what people want featured on this blog. This helps me to make this blog the interactive resource I want it be. If you have a blog, commenting here will help you as well because you will get traffic coming to your blog from your link. As long as you don’t post anything hateful or just a spam comment, I will leave your comments up.

Link to it
Link me! Mention it on your blogs, blog comments, on mailing lists, talk about it with your friends, on wikis and social media sites like Digg, etc. Please don’t spam my blog – link to it where appropriate. If you linked to this site, feel free to email me about it with a link to a place where it was linked to.

Advertise on This Blog
You can advertise through Google here. You can also advertise directly through me by purchasing ad space here. It does cost more to advertise directly but you get a static placement which guarantees more views. Questions on advertising email me: trula at mspmedia dot net or get started now by buying ad space.

Tell Me What Needs to be Fixed
Send me an email or comment on the blog if you detect any problems such as:
Spelling errors (I’m using American English spelling on this site.)
Grammatical errors
Busted links
Bad Code (HTML/XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc.)
Let me know either by commenting or emailing me: trula at MSPmedia dot net
Due to my ethnic background, some of my content may contain African American slang or syntax. Do not contact me about these. I do not view them as being problematic. They are culturally-specific features which add texture to my speech.

Suggest new content
Let me know what you would like to see here regarding the topics of writing, motherhood, and/or marriage. While I am by no stretch of the imagination an expert on any of these topics, I am delighted to share my experiences with you. I have been a writer for over 20 years, a mother for 18 years, and married for going on 9 years (been with my husband for going on 12 years). I have years of knowledge and experience on these topics and have been successful (well, I guess that would depend on how you define success ha ha) with them in my life. Let me know what I can write that may help you or others.

Visit often or Subscribe to My Feed
Stop by often to read the freshest content. You can bookmark this site as a favorite or better yet, subscribe to my site feed via a reader or email! New content will then automatically come up in your feed reader or email. My feed subscribe address is here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/trula

Donate
Why should you donate? This blog has over 500 posts regarding writing, raising, kids, and marriage which include tips and problem-solving ideas in each of these areas, all provided free for your use. If you like my blog and visit it often donate to help keep it running. You will be supporting a prolific, independent writer and all the cute wonderful kids in the header. Best of all, you decide how much to donate!

I’m a member of a few online communities and I need to cut back. I think this will help me to be more productive in my work. I used to think I didn’t spend that much time on message boards, visiting blogs, etc. but just for one site alone I was spending about 15 minutes a day….or 1 hour 45 minutes a week I could have used for work. My new plan is to spend 30 minutes a week doing that and 5 hours a week online actively marketing and promoting my business. and 1 hour a week on 43things, because this is not fooling around. Keeping track of my goals really helps me and I am encouraged by the cheers and I love cheering others.

See more progress on: Spend less time fooling around on the net and more time actually working

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Cave Canem

Trula — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 16:21:00 +0000

Cave Canem: a home for black poetry
http://www.cavecanempoets.org

In 1996 poets and teachers Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady began a weeklong summer workshop/retreat designed to counter the under-representation and isolation of African American poets in writers’ workshops and literary programs. From the beginning, Cave Canem has offered a safe haven for black poets—whether schooled in MFA programs or poetry slams—to come together to work on their craft and engage others in critical debate.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Why I should not Waste My Time on Message Boards

Trula — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 18:02:00 +0000

I have been really good about not visiting or limiting my time on my favorite boards because this is a busy time of year for me and I have a lot of work to do. Some boards are really addicting, and this is a prime example of why I should not visit so much. I get into arguments too much with people (my screen name there is Mercury):
Mindful Mama: Testimonies-Equality

In short if you don’t want to read the whole thing, one (religious) woman posted a thread about trying to see the divine in everyone and two other (atheist) women blow-torched her for it because they hate religion and like to jump bad at her religious posts. That ish worked my last nerves, have mercy, and I am not a religious woman myself. Folks just acting mean and ugly and attacking someone who is just trying to be nice and positive! Ugh!

I need a great big hug and cheek kisses after all that ickness, mean folks got me like:

Not good! So I am sending all everyone a great big hug and kiss and a smile! Feel the Trula love and let’s all chill the f*&k out. Excuse my language ha ha ha!

I have mass work to do but I need to relax so I’m off to do some yoga, drink a nice big mug of blueberry tea, and then get back to work after I have released my mean-spirited feelings. I’ll pop in later, Smooches! and hugs:

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.