Forget cliquey faculty mums…I used to be a dad in a poisonous WhatsApp parenting group and felt like I used to be being held hostage – they even known as my 8-year-old son a misogynist

When Disney star Ashley Tisdale recently outed her ‘toxic mom group’ in an article for The Cut, it opened the floodgates for other women who feel ‘frozen out’, judged and bullied by fellow mothers who are meant to be their friends. 

Tisdale’s story shows that being a celebrity doesn’t make you immune from being, in her words, ‘left out’ and made to feel ‘not cool enough. 

And nor does being a man, according to one father who said his experience of a parents’ WhatsApp group felt like being ‘held hostage’.

Speaking to the Daily Mail, father-of-one Mark*, said that the experience can be even more toxic for fathers because women will at least be polite to each other’s faces, while men are outright confrontational. 

The Scottish photographer and his wife had decided to homeschool their eight-year-old son and found a group of 200 other parents in the same position locally. 

But what started as a welcoming community quickly became a source of pressure, and Mark felt he was being slowly pushed out for not meeting the other parents’ high standards.

‘It was really quite unpleasant,’ he recalled. ‘There was this saccharine smiling on the outside, but actually underneath the subtext was: “Do what we say, or your child doesn’t get to come back next term”.’

Mark recalled one bizarre incident where he was asked at the last minute to make 100 clay snails to be handed out at a Christmas market for local children.

He got the sense that if he didn’t help, his child would be excluded from future events and felt bullied into complying.

He said: ‘There was this silent command, which was; “If you don’t help, you don’t get to come back”. It was never quite said like that, but there were carefully chosen words that implied that parents who were actively involved in this Christmas market would be given a preference.’

He added that he felt ‘held hostage’ by the other parents and found the task very stressful.

‘Obviously you want to do your best for your child, and you want them to be able to socialise in that group, and get the benefit of that group, but it was really, really stressful,’ he said.

After that encounter, Mark and his wife began to reassess their involvement in the group but continued to participate in activities where they could.

However, he explained they were ‘frozen out’ of some meet-ups after failing to produce the requisite 100 clay snails.  

‘When we stopped playing ball, that group, they just shut the door on us, and suddenly we weren’t being messaged,’ he revealed.

‘We just found that there were fewer invites, and then all of a sudden, there was just no conversation. Now they kind of give us a smile and walk off.’

But other parents were more direct in their approach towards Mark and his wife. 

Mark said he was left stunned after one of the mothers in the group chat accused his son of being a misogynist. 

Recalling the incident, the photographer said he had taken his son for a swimming lesson when he tried making conversation with another parent and joked that his eight-year-old didn’t seem interested in playing with any girls.

He was then met with the accusation that his son was a ‘future incel’.

Mark told the Daily Mail: ‘I was laughing about how our son doesn’t like girls – he’s at that boy age where he just wants to be with boys. 

‘And this mum gets really really offended, and said “He sounds like a future incel to me”, and “What a misogynist”. I tried to explain that I was like that at his age, but she was so angry.’

He added: ‘She was really quite shockingly rude, and I just thought, “You’re a mad person. I don’t even know you well enough for you to accuse my son, whom you don’t know at all, of being an incel”.’

Mark said he was left reeling from the encounter and confessed that while he still sees the mother at other activities, he doesn’t chat to her anymore. 

This was just one of several strange encounters with other parents who he described as ‘oddities’ and ‘professionally angry people’. 

He added that he had to constantly ‘watch his Ps and Qs’ and remove himself from frustrating situations so as not to get into an argument. 

‘Sometimes there are times when I really want to say something, and I’ll just bite my lip, and try and remind myself that it’s better not to go looking to make enemies if you can possibly help it,’ he said.

But despite his best efforts, Mark did inadvertently upset others, and there was one encounter in particular that led the father-of-one and his wife to step back from the WhatsApp group.

Mark confessed he had forgotten to pay the monthly fee for a class his son was taking with the other children, as organised by the group. 

Rather than being approached about it privately with a reminder, he claimed he was ‘outed’ in the public WhatsApp chat with more than 200 members. 

‘One of the dads running the class put a really inflammatory burn post up, naming and shaming the two or three parents, of which we were one, and saying we hadn’t paid the fees,’ he explained. 

He added that, out of the blue, a chart appeared with colour-coded names and those who hadn’t paid were filled in in red. 

Mark claimed he responded to the chart saying he hadn’t realised he hadn’t paid and politely asked that future requests should be made personally.  

He added: ‘There was no communication. We went straight from him expecting a payment, that I didn’t know he was expecting, to him burning us on social media, and trying to get all the other parents to be cross with us as well, by telling them.

‘I told him it was totally uncalled for and unethical. How dare you write people’s names down before you even contact them and say, “Could you pay that, please?”.’

The Scotsman confessed that the exchange quickly became heated and ruined his holiday to Mexico with his family.

Rather than enjoy his time away, he said he was glued to his phone, locked in a back-and-forth until the other father apologised.

‘It really got out of hand,’ Mark said.  ‘Eventually he said, “If I offended you, I didn’t mean to”. It wasn’t really an apology, but let’s leave it at that.’

Mark said he still sees the father from time to time, but has decided to let bygones be bygones because he already has one child to deal with.

He explained: ‘It feels like I have to manage my son’s behaviour, now I have to manage these people’s behaviour. 

‘I have to tread carefully on eggshells and through a minefield in case of upsetting or offending people.’ 

And while many of these groups can be mum-heavy, Mark revealed that his local WhatsApp group was fairly mixed and that in most cases, it was the fathers getting heated and difficult. 

He said: ‘The mums will be quite smiley, but they might, behind your back, say “oh, he’s awful”, or whatever –  they’re quite passive-aggressive. 

‘Whereas I think I’ve probably had more confrontations with dads than I have with mums.’

Although Mark has found himself in the middle of some tense showdowns with other parents, his advice for other parents would be to bite their tongue.

‘Nothing good or beneficial comes from getting involved. It’s usually better to just smile and nod and get out as quickly as you possibly can,’ he said.

‘More drama doesn’t usually mean more happiness. I would always say, avoid the drama if you possibly can.’

* Names have been changed to protect identities