Who's the adult here?

So I've seen it plastered across the mommy blogosphere for ages -- well maybe not ages, exactly. So not ages, but definitely as long as there have been mommy blogs, there's been a definitive warning floating about the internet:

Stay far far away from mommy groups. Far. Away.

Yes, but what's a bored mother to do? A socially deprived one? Suck it up.

Well not me. I joined one. A few even. Along time ago. Hell, I even assist in organizing one at present. But where does the madness end?

My first ever experience with play group ended in heart ache, and a less than nice break-up letter. There were tears on my end; gloating on the other, I'm sure. It almost feels like I woke up one day and decided that everything in my life presently is wrong. Really -- I am feeling that way. But how do you sort out what really is wrong, and what just feels wrong -- for the fleeting moment? How do you do that?

I got an email from a member (now ex-member) of our group today. She was explaining how she was leaving our group (and going to another), but didn't want that to effect our friendship. Over the course of her membership in my little groupie-group we've become good acquaintances. She and her son even came over to a Nascar party my husband and I were having. She's coming over in February for another. We'd email occasionally; message back and forth on MySpace. All of that, and now she was leaving. Why? She said she was starting to feel uncomfortable in our group.

What started as a feud between a few members of our group is now starting to spill over into the group's day-to-day business. It's apparently effecting people and making them feel uncomfortable. I won't get into the details of the feud, other than to say it ended with a new-ish member being removed, whereby she started her own group and dragged some of her friends from our group along with her. Now there's some sort of battle of the mommy group thing going between the two groups. There is nastiness on both sides, and with many of the issues it's hard to see where one indignity ends and the other begins. All in all, most of the problems are a load of bullocks. Chock it up to women acting more like their unruly toddlers than adults.

It's enough to make anyone feel uncomfortable...no matter the degree of separation. With friends now on both sides of the field, it's become more than impossible to voice my true opinions surrounding the whole jumble. Even in my own blog. The lines between what I think and know are right and wrong are becoming blurred -- if only because my allegiances lie on both sides of ally and enemy lines. I just think it's a bit sad that I'm having to see a friend off and out of my group because she's come to feel more comfortable with what she views as a rosier situation.

But what am I even talking about? It's a freakin' mommy group. It should be all about the kids...not moms acting like kids.