What has Mumsnet taught you you've been doing wrong all of your adult life without realising?!

I'm Irish and had never heard of cake to take home in party bags until MN. Cake is always eaten at the party where I am. You bring out the cake, sing happy birthday and blow out the candles, slice it up and eat it. I'm still not clear on whether the candles and happy birthday song still happen when it gets sent home in napkins. Do they?

I live in the south east. A lot of people say silly things I find annoying but I probably am a bit intolerant. The worst I've heard recently is a doctor on YouTube saying "supposebly "

I used to hate the napkin cake as a kid. How to ruin a good slice of cake by wrapping it up to get squashed, hot and sweaty in a party bag and then have to pull bits of napkin off it too eat. I'm much more in favour of handing the cake around at the party.... And don't forget to offer some to the adults too!

They end up in the sea and wash up on the beach. Though I remember the instructions saying to flush them and why would anyone re-read the instructions years later and who would expect the water companies to just pump everything into the river and seas unprocessed.

Those would never be my words, but I might suggest you take account of the fact that 'proper' speech has been very arbitrarily defined in this country and that there is nothing innately inferior about non-RP or non-standard Southern British English variants. Dislike of 'haitch', in particular, can be seen in some contexts as sectarian.

I can answer this...if you get into the habit of washing everything after one use, including towels your washing machine is literally on 24/7
I'm not joking. And yes it's probably unnecessary

I'm one of the haitch haters...apparently I'm an intolerant scumbag

I'm not in the UK and it was common to eat the birthday cake at the party here also, along with the rest of the party food, although a piece might be given to guests to be taken home as well.

Tampons are small compared to the other objects, and while they swell they don't actually swell that much. Have you missed all the many threads on here which have pointed out that flushing them was the accepted way to dispose of them several decades ago? When I started my working life there was no other way when at work, and certainly no notices about not doing so. I was still flushing them at the end of my time of using them - and no blocked loo. I'm not in the UK, maybe we had better plumbing here!

It is where I am…

I’m really surprised that anyone hadn’t experienced napkin birthday cake throughout a British childhood! I mean, it’s definitely not the only way, but it was very, very common when I was a child, and I’ve also seen it loads as a parent. Maybe it’s a regional thing?! I’m in the Midlands.

I’ve seen it all over Facebook groups in my local area where it is most definitely not part of the dialect!

The problem with washing machines is they’re all different. I’ve been using washing machines for years but didn’t know how to use my mum’s and had to ask her. 😖

Boiling an egg is quite a skill, unless you just want it hard boiled. I bet everyone has cracked open an egg where the white hasn’t cooked enough or the yolk isn’t runny 😬

I admit I probably have ‘mothered’ too much but luckily they seemed to work these things out themselves. 😁

Actually, I think doing it like that, and being snarky about other people doing it like you do but daring to call it a different name that you've decided is somehow over-dramatic is actually peak Mumsnet. So don't worry - being infuriated by inoffensive and commonly-used words and phrases is actually doing it right by MN standards.

Parents who work full time outside the home have someone else to do the childcare - they don't don't both childcare and work simultaneously.

Full time childcare is a job. The reminders about life admin (which is absolutely a thing when you are doing it for everyone, not just yourself) mostly arise on threads where the "SAHM" triggers and expectation for 24*7 work covering every job a household needs on top of childcare hours.

Any women who has the temerity to be a SAHM should be on her knees in gratitude to the mighty male who does a real job which earns £££ and therefore should do nothing in the home beyond collecting his pipe and slippers at the door. No expectation on him to provide scad loads of unpaid labour outside of office hours.

The SAHM bashing on here beggars belief at times. Ditto handmaiden threads where posters happily throw other women under the bus because they don't think they will ever need protections put in place for all women. The patriarchy is alive and well in 2024 and still has women competing with each other all too often when we should be supporting each other.

@Bellaboo01

I don't actually believe a single word of my own post - I was merely answering a PP's question about why MN gets in a froth about children standing in trollies.

I don't need a "good option" as I am a rational adult and don't spend a second of my life fretting about such nonsense.

This isn’t from Mumsnet but I was shocked when I went to university and met so many young adults with zero life skills. As in could not boil and egg, needed me to show them how to turn on the machine and do laundry.

And was shocked later discussing that with people and them finding it normal to be an adult and have zero life skills. As one girl told me “why would you know any of that if you had a mom?”

Wild!

I doubt their shoes would all be caked in dogshit.

So you are happy to pop your food into a trolley which you think may have been sprayed in Rat piss?

I suppose in this situation if you are worried about germs then - the trolley bags that you put your produce in once you have scanned it would be a good option for you.

Sounds a bit hyperbolic, if you ask me. 😉

@MartinCrieffsLemon I remember seeing a thread, a little while ago, that was on this topic.

I'm not sure if the thread was slowly degenerating into competitive 'something', but posters were then saying that their young children (8 y/o) were regularly making their own dinner.

That when me and my DH have a night out, we’re actually having a ‘date!’

This!

They shouldn't be expected to do anything until 18 but also should have 20 chores by the time they are 8 and at 18 they should be kicked out of the house but anything they do before 25 is because their adult brain hasn't yet kicked in...

I'm not using the word hyperbole nearly enough

The part about SAHM doing life admin is strange as that IS part of their job. For mom’s who work outside the home they have to do it on top of a full time job and childcare hence of course they find it more exhausting.

Well I shall continue to call it life admin and continue to find it time consuming, stressful and have to work myself up to get round to it!

I need a PA.