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Ashley Tisdale made headlines recently for leaving her celebrity mom group because of what she described as a toxic environment. People were divided on whether she should have announced it publicly, but I understood exactly where she was coming from.
I also had to leave a mom group. Actually, two of them. For similar reasons.
I didn’t expect to leave a mom group the way I did. No announcement. No long explanation. No dramatic exit. I just… stepped away. Quietly.
At first, it felt anticlimactic, almost wrong, like I was skipping a step everyone else seemed to expect. But as time passed, I became more certain that the quiet was the point.
I joined my IRL group for the same reason most of us do: our kids were friends. They talked about each other constantly, playdates happened naturally, and friendships between the moms followed. I’m still friends with many of them, by the way. I just don’t want to be part of a group setting with them anymore.
At first, everything felt fine. We had relationships with one another both inside and outside the group. But over time, a few things happened. Some behavior crossed lines. The Eaton fire brought out sides of people I hadn’t seen before. And there was an unspoken tension that suggested if our kids weren’t friends, we wouldn’t be either.
There were also microaggressions — something I’ve spoken about before — and once you notice them, they’re hard to unsee.
That feeling grew louder during a group activity over the holidays. It became impossible to ignore when the new year began. And when I was accused of something I didn’t do because people chose gossip and telephone over simply asking me directly, I knew it was time to step away.
I thought that would be the end of it.
Almost immediately after, unrelated drama surfaced in an online mom space I’m part of. I wasn’t involved. I wasn’t mentioned. I wasn’t even adjacent to it in any meaningful way. But there it was again: speculation, outrage, commentary, people refreshing feeds for updates about situations that had nothing to do with their own lives. I caught myself reading along out of reflex, then stopped.
That’s when it clicked.
I don’t want to be in the room when things implode. I don’t want to analyze other people’s conflicts or watch situations escalate in real time. I don’t get energy from it. I don’t feel bonded by it. If anything, it drains me faster than almost anything else.
Some people process stress through discussion and debate. Others need to vent, dissect, and revisit every angle until something breaks open. That’s valid. It’s just not me. I’m not built for drama, and I’m definitely not built to consume it as real-life entertainment. Reality shows? Fine. Real people’s unresolved issues? No thanks. Even when I’m not directly involved, the noise costs me something.
For a long time, I thought opting out meant avoiding growth or discomfort. I believed staying signaled maturity, resilience, or loyalty. But I’ve learned that discernment doesn’t always look loud. Sometimes it looks like recognizing patterns early and choosing not to participate.
There’s a quiet pressure, especially among women and especially among mothers, to stay. To work things out publicly. To smooth situations over. To be endlessly understanding. To remain accessible, even when a space no longer feels healthy. We’re taught that leaving is rude, dramatic, or selfish — that disengaging means we’ve failed at community.
I don’t believe that anymore.
Community isn’t measured by proximity or constant engagement. It’s measured by how safe you feel being yourself. By whether your nervous system can relax instead of staying on high alert. By whether you leave interactions feeling supported rather than depleted.
I don’t need to be where things are happening. I need to be where things are steady.
Stepping away didn’t make my world smaller. It made it quieter. And in that quiet, I noticed how much room there is for things that actually matter to me: deeper one-on-one friendships, meaningful work, time with my family, and rest that isn’t interrupted by someone else’s crisis.
I’m allowed to opt out of spaces that feel loud. I’m allowed to step back when the energy shifts. I’m allowed to decide that watching drama unfold — even from a distance — isn’t how I want to spend my emotional bandwidth.
There was a version of me that believed staying was proof of strength. Now I understand that leaving quietly can be just as powerful. Not because it sends a message, but because it doesn’t need to.
This season of my life is about protecting my attention and my calm. About choosing environments that align with who I am now, not who I felt pressured to be. I don’t need front-row seats to chaos to feel connected. I need peace, consistency, and space to breathe.
I’m not closing myself off from connection. I’m refining it. Choosing depth over noise. Presence over performance. And if that means my circle looks smaller or simpler for a while, I’m okay with that.
Some chapters don’t end with fireworks. They end with clarity. With a soft exhale. With the understanding that you listened to yourself in time.
That’s enough.
I’m learning that not every lesson has to be learned the hard way. You don’t always need a final straw or dramatic ending to justify walking away. Sometimes noticing your own fatigue is enough. Sometimes boredom with conflict is wisdom, not apathy.
There’s also freedom in not needing to be perceived as “right.” I didn’t need to explain myself to be understood. I didn’t need to stay long enough for the narrative to resolve. I trusted my internal signal and followed it — a muscle I’m intentionally strengthening.
As adults, especially as parents, our time and attention are finite resources. Every space we occupy takes something from us, even the good ones. I want my emotional labor to benefit my real life, not be spent parsing situations that don’t move me forward.
If this resonates with you, know this: you don’t owe every group access to you forever. You don’t have to wait until things explode to choose differently. Quiet exits are still exits. Boundaries don’t need witnesses to be valid.
For me, this choice wasn’t dramatic or brave. It was honest. And honesty, practiced consistently, has a way of quietly reshaping your life for the better. That’s where I’m choosing to stand now.
