‘What We Said’ Weighs In on the Viral Mom-Group Drama—And Why It Feels So Personal

If you’re chronically online like the rest of us, you’ve probably been watching the “toxic mom group” drama unfold in real time. Long story short, Ashley Tisdale shared an essay about joining a mom group she was genuinely excited about—one she bonded with quickly. Then the invites slowed down, plans started happening without her, and Instagram turned into a highlight reel she wasn’t in. Eventually, she hit a breaking point, sent a “this is too high school for me and I don’t want to take part in it anymore” text. 

On What We Said, best friends and co-hosts Jaci Marie Smith and Chelsey Jade Curtis use the situation as a jumping-off point—not to pick sides, but to talk about why this kind of exclusion hits so hard as adults and what actually helps before you burn the group chat to the ground. “I have many thoughts,” Smith says. “It’s 2026, we’re ripping off the Band-Aid.” 

Why mom-friend drama hits like high school again

“Friendships within motherhood, it’s harder because you’re dealing with things that are heavy and that are a lot of times very bonding,” Curtis explains. “And so you kind of get this attachment and these expectations so fast.”

That speed is the problem. Mom friendships don’t flirt—they trauma-dump and commit. “You’re talking about things like your mental health…scary things that happen, maybe your birth stories, just things that you bond on that seem so heavy and so emotional,” she continues. “And then you don’t get invited to lunch and it feels like that bond is broken…like [they’re] betraying me on a much deeper level.”

This is how one missed invite turns into a spiral. The lunch stops being lunch and turns into a full internal investigation about where you stand, whether you were ever really included, and if that closeness you felt was one-sided the whole time. Mix in exhaustion, hormones, and a feed full of receipts you didn’t ask for, and suddenly you’re back in high school, overanalyzing social dynamics you swore you were done caring about.

The accountability check (aka the pre-spiral checklist)

Once you’re in that headspace, the instinct usually goes one of two ways. You either sit with it and overthink every interaction until it turns into a full personality indictment, or you fire off a dramatic exit text that feels empowering for about ten minutes and awkward forever after. Neither one actually gets you answers.

The move here is a pause. Not to gaslight yourself, but to zoom out. If this is the first time you’ve felt excluded by this group, it might be timing, logistics, or a moment that feels bigger because you’re already running on empty. But if this feeling keeps showing up across different friend groups and different phases of life, that’s worth paying attention to.

“If everyone has the same takeaway about one person, I usually think there is a good reason for that,” Smith says. “In my personal life, if pretty much everyone feels the same way about one person, there has always been something that they’re doing—a personality trait—something about them is making people not want to invite them [to] places.”

That doesn’t mean blaming yourself. It means doing an honest check before deciding everyone else is the problem: 

• Have you legitimately reached out first, or are you waiting for an invite that lives only in your head?
• Are you replying to texts, or leaving people on read for three days and calling it self-care?
• Do you say yes sometimes, or do you cancel last minute and hope people keep inviting you anyway?
• Are you making plans, or just reacting to other people’s plans?
• Have you been showing up lately, or emotionally clocked out but still expecting closeness?

Smith admits she’s had to stop herself mid-spiral more than once. “I’ve checked myself many times with things like that,” she says. “I’ve been like, ‘Oh, that person hasn’t reached out.’ And then I’m like, ‘I haven’t been reaching out at all to them.’ So I can’t expect that if I’m not doing the same thing.”

That’s why Tisdale’s reported “this is so high school, I’m done” text didn’t exactly earn applause. It might feel like standing up for yourself, but it skips the part that actually matters. “That’s not healthy communication,” Smith points out. “That to me is giving victim mentality. Like, ‘You’re just excluding me. This is high school. I’m over it.’ Or you could healthfully communicate to them, ‘Hey guys, I’m feeling super left out. I don’t know if it’s something I’m doing and I want to be self-aware about that. If there’s something that I have done, please be very honest with me because I’d like to work on that.’”

It’s uncomfortable. It’s vulnerable. And yes, it’s awkward. But it gives you something spiraling never will: clarity. Even if that clarity tells you it’s time to move on, at least you’re dealing with reality instead of filling in the blanks on your own.

Want to hear the full conversation? Tune into What We Said, streaming now wherever you get your podcast

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