AIBU to feel disheartened by the lack of support and the presence of a crab bucket mentality among some women on here?

I disagree. I have also been here a long time under various names. Have had immense support in the many sub-forums. If you just want to vent about something, rather than get a ton of advice or criticism, post in Chat.

So people can never experience enlightenments throughout their life at differing points? We must all feel the correct feeling and understand exact injustices as and when they arrive, whether with direct experience or not? Human beings don't work like that.

Lobbying government aside, someone is entitled feel anxious over money if they have those feelings. And they aren't necessarily tied to being ungrateful or unaware or ignorant.

MN is not and never has been a supportive place, not unless your face and story fit and pull the right heart strings. I've been here nearly 20 years now.

I think that people sometimes post on here when they are feeling vulnerable and some random posters jump on them which is very weird and pathetic that keyboard warriors who would never dream of saying any such nonsense in real life can post.
Other posts are full of practical advice and thats when you get 5🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 support.
Emotional support is very hit and miss.
Not sure why so many men are on Mumsnet. You can tell them a mile off!!
Keep Mumsnet for Mums who have "been there and done that" thats where experience is most beneficial!

Is that what you think you’re being criticised for? Maybe read the thread again.

Everyone has a different life experience. It's all very well having empathy for someone poor but then you read about the poor life choices they have made and continue to make.

You want to support a woman who's posted about how miserable she is because she's overweight and then you read she's only made half hearted attempts to diet and exercise and is moaning as she can't afford a gastric band which to her is the only way she'll ever lose weight and your sympathy wains.

A woman posts about how truly awful her husband is to her and goes on and on about all the dreadful things he says and does to her and you offer help and advice but her heels are dug in as she states she won't leave because she enjoys the lifestyle with her husband. You feel annoyed that you posted links that could help her leave.

There is also of course, that we have our own views and opinions and just blindly supporting someone may go against personal beliefs.

Sometimes someone with a sob story is in a mess because of their own doing and it does not serve them well to be patted on the back and their hand stroked, they need a kick up the arse and be told to get a job or stern words to tell them it's they who are in the wrong and should apologise to their sister in law or whoever they have rowed with.

Painting women as all being in the same light is a huge disservice to them.

We are individuals and your post is very condescending.

Not really.

I work f/t from home and have plenty of time on my hands. I don't have kids and my work is very flexible and I'm paid for my skills and experience, not a clock in/clock out situation.

Some days I'm busier than others. I am also, admittedly not on MN or other sites all the time, just when I fancy.

I think MN is heavily populated by high earning women or women who have married into money. It's on the main, a very middle class forum.
Those who think a 120K salary is on the low side, how anyone can become a high earner if they just 'put their mind to it' kind of thing. It isn't really reality. I wouldn't take it all so seriously OP. It would be nice if it were a more supportive and kind community but unfortunately I don't think it will ever be.

Ah, the old “but he’s a Great Dad” Mumsnet bingo.

The beauty of this site is that it gives access to the experiences and perspectives of people whom you might never meet in real life. And sometimes you realise that you only think he is a Great Dad because you are surrounded by other examples of shit fathering as the norm and have no idea what a “Great Dad” actually looks like.

I've started of thinking of Mumsnet as every school playground in the country at pick up time combined - you've got everyone here. And yet, if we were actually physically standing in that playground, the truth is there are some people you wouldn't go to for support or advice, not in a million years!! The forum obscures this truth. I use this to better manage my expectations now.

I think MN is very supportive but you will get posts that disagree or are just mean for the sake of it it's up to the user to just scroll past and realise not everyone is going to be sympathetic or think you are right, or even have a problem.

@clairelouwho

Excellent post. If something is causing you pain then you need to look at possible solutions for it.

I dont really get how constantly whining about it and superficial sympathy from strangers online is helping anyone- thats not changing anything, it's not lessening the bills each month. It's just marinating in a "well this is shit and it will be like this forever" mentality. How is that helping anyone?

We are individual and human and its unfair to expect us to be part of some sort of "sisterhood" and not have our own views.

This

It can get wearing when you see people repetitively posting about issues (relationships, finances etc) and being given loads of thoughtful, sensible advice, and watching them stick their head in the sand because they don't like it.

Some people come on here clearly looking for an echo chamber, looking for people to sympathetically agree with everything. Mumsnet isn't that.

On a societal level it feels people are getting less resilient. Less able to accept changes, tackle a problem, be willing to make sacrifices to get what we want, cut losses whem something isn't going well. Everyone expects someone else to come along with a solution.

It's worrying

This is so true, and so many of us have been there before, and recognise a shitty, imbalanced relationship instantly. Posters will say they are miserable, but 'he's a great Dad' then it turns out he really isn't.

Great post. I’m not a high earner but due to the privileges I’ve had in life haven’t really had to worry too much about money. Things are tight now and while my DH and I will moan about it to each other, I’m not discussing it with friends or on MN because I’m well aware that some have always had to struggle in a way that I have not.

And as for MN being supportive (or not), I’ve been here about 16 years and there have always been threads moaning that MN isn’t supportive and the women of MN are mean etc. 🤷🏼‍♀️

MN has always been a place where people tell the truth and don’t sugarcoat things. But I have also seen people receiving wonderful support through some of life’s biggest challenges (terminal illness, bereavement, DV etc.)

Sorry to tell you but it's the internet, and with that, there's going to be different opinions and some opinions that you won't like.

I'm not sure what getting angry at the government is materially going to do to help a person. We can rage at the government all we want but it's not going to reduce the cost of food at the supermarket, is it?

So, instead, people present solutions to people and ultimately, it's up to them if they want to take the advice or leave it.

As I see it, if you have someone making £100k per year and living in SE and struggling to make ends meet-they have a few options:

1. Try and boost their income through overtime, side hustles
2. Reduce their expenditure-move into a smaller property with a smaller mortgage, cut out any expensive cars on finance, and so on
3. Relocate.
4. Put up with it and keep whining at the moon and hoping for it to change.

There's only three out of the four options there that will actually help the person.

It's not that I don't think that people on that much money can struggle, they absolutely can, however, they likely have more options to fix it and struggle less than those on benefits, for example.

People may not want to relocate and that is understandable-but ultimately, that person then needs to acknowledge that they've chosen to prioritise family ties (for example) over affordability.

The 'tough love' excuse is trotted out regularly and always has been

It depends what people mean by tough love.

Tough love is about delivering a necessary truth that can be difficult to deliver and difficult to receive. Being an arsehole is never 'tough love'. It's being an arsehole.

MN has always been relatively straight talking. It's never been a fluffy "you go girl" site. There's always been trolls that go from thread to thread kicking anyone down on any topic- the names and style often become familiar. There's smaller boards where the quietness doesn't feed the trolls' need for attention and where better quality support is avaliable.

It does have some blinkered posters with little grasp of the world beyond their experience, but is generally less of an echo chamber of most doorsteps. It's a broad society, goes beyond the UK, biased towards females and the above average end of education/ literacy, and a greater representation of SNs (either by the poster or their family) than average.

Women don't owe each other to be nice coz they're women. Don't be a dick is generally a good policy though.

When I found it over a decade ago, the direct style and ability to swear properly were quite refreshing.

Exactly.

It’s a forum which means it will be over populated by those who have more time on their hands. Nowadays that’s pensioners and those who don’t work. People who work don’t have the time to be frank, to sit online posting all day. Therefore the biggest voice will come from those who do. As these people rely on the taxes of workers to fund their choices, they get very angry at anyone who works for living and has done well for themselves. Which is all very ironic.

A lot of people complain about the seemingly quick leap to a chorus of LTB when a woman posts about her husband with what seems to be, on its face, a minor problem.

However there is usually enough detail in the OP or follow-up posts to create a clear picture of what is really going on. Sometimes people can’t see the wood for the trees and I find MN on the whole very clear-sighted about getting to the bottom of the real issue. Posters don’t always like it because they were in denial.

My stupid ignorance for thinking this would have been more of a supportive place.

It is supportive if you post in the right places.

But, funnily enough, people don't take kindly to being told they're doing everything wrong and will react accordingly.

I’m only on this thread to learn about the mentality of crabs which is something I know nothing about.

The 'tough love' excuse is trotted out regularly and always has been.

Along with 'Netmums might be the place for you' and the old trope about how we're mostly all educated independent women who don't suffer fools gladly so you'll get 'robust' replies.

They're all excuses to just be unpleasant and nasty. And I'm guilty of doing that at times in the past too, I just won't attempt to justify it.

Social media can be really toxic. You have to accept it or not engage in it is the conclusion I've come to. Railing against it or attempting to change it never helps. It just provokes defensive replies and here, these kind of threads have always happened regularly so also, people are bored/pissed off by them and that also influences the replies.

I know I said I wouldn’t bother replying after the flurry of rude messages, which kind of proves my point that people are quite rude on here, but you’ve said what I was trying to articulate.

Thijg is, I don't think those messages were rude.

In your op, you made a sweeping generalisation and people responded to it.

You might not like the way it was dome or what was said but that doesn't mean people were rude.

You also seem to not realise that some people have been here for a very long time. I've been on here for around 15 years. Soe have been here longer. Some left because they didn't like the way it evolved once it became a more popular site, others joined because they like the robustness.

Most people can tell.when someone is being a dick deliberately and just ignore those posters. Some people just resent being told that they're doing being on Mumsnet wrong because it didn't match with a newcomer's expectations.

Would you join any other group of people (women) who'd been doing it a certain way for years and tell them how disappointed you were that they were doing it wrong? Probably not.