Feeling alienated by stay-at-home mom cliques at school —> anxiety in dealing with other parents

Feeling alienated and just need a little vent. I just saw a post about parent guilt regarding working moms and dads being unable to attend mid-workday school activities (e.g. Thanksgiving lunches, Christmas parties, parent-teacher conferences, etc.). I am very fortunate in that I work an 8-5 job, but have flexible a lunch period. My boss is also very family-oriented, and I work very close to my son’s school. So for all these reasons, I can make it to most little parties and whatnot for at least a few minutes. I also try to volunteer every time to bring/send something and contribute.What I cannot do, however, is volunteer at the school. I can’t help hang art from 10-11am and I can’t read to his class at 2pm on Mondays. I can’t help setup the play backdrop at 3pm and I can’t have random lunches with him at 10:30am. At the beginning of the year, we had a group meeting where the teacher announced that a parent visiting for lunch would now sit with his/her child away from the class at the peanut-allergy table. You’d think she just told some of these moms their children all flunked out! Apparently this was a big deal, and made me realize that many of the moms in particular eat lunch with their kids regularly.All this to say, when I go to his school events, I feel very estranged. I am younger; I am also not married. His dad is around but I usually attend events alone. It’s probably a combination of all these things (I live in the Bible Belt) but damn, it sucks. It’s like the cliche pretty, popular high school girls clique- except now it’s the stay-at-home-moms, and I’m the ugly outcast. None of my friends have kids yet, so I was hoping to fit in with these ladies. But it’s just not happening.The worst part about feeling like this is that it doesn’t help my anxiety towards play dates. When I was little, slumber parties and going over to friends’ houses were the absolute shit. Now the thought of having to coordinate and meet up with another parent to make this happen for my son nearly brings me to tears. Thankfully he hasn’t asked yet, but I know it will be coming soon.We also live in an apartment, whereas I’d imagine most of his buddies do not. We went to a Halloween party last year in an absolutely gorgeous home. I hate feeling this way, but I’d be embarrassed to have his little friends here. I know as a child I never noticed or cared what my different friends’ homes looked like- but I never considered until now how the parents felt. I don’t think it’d help my feelings of inadequacy.Anyways, thanks for reading and for any advice offered to quell these disparaging thoughts. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2S5ciXw