MN makes me feel bad

Some words of wisdom a friend told me once - the kind of people who spend their time giving advice on a parenting forum are not the kind of people you should take advice from.

I think MN is great for insight and advice sometimes but the standards people hold themselves up to are insane.

Just remember its different people, the person who showers twice a day and is appaled that your sink isn't bleached every day isn't the same person who doesn't let their under 2s see a screen, the person eating raw salads and working out 4 times a week isn't the person who is caring for elderly parents while caring for two disabled children. We all have different priorities and circumstances, if you prioritise one thing something else has to give.

As a high earner, I agree three year olds shouldn't be having screen time.

It makes me feel the opposite quite honestly. Yes, I'm sure I'm eating too many upfs, my kids have too much screen time etc etc but I never realised how chilled out I am until I came on here. There are so many people on here stressing about nothing, unhappy and judgemental and unable to connect with other humans

It makes me feel better about myself too! I'm glad i'm a don't really give a fuck type of person, because the alternative is asking strangers for their opinions on your choice of xmas tree lights, and fuck me that's just sad.

Snap.
I pop on to remind myself that my husband isn't a twat, my kids are polite and I really like my family and friends.

I stick to Aibu for this very reason

Smug performance parenting is a perfect description of it 😂

Oh OP you really need to stop thinking everything you read on here is true. So you're worried your 3 year old is watching blippi on the TV? My 2 year old is watching marble run videos on YouTube on a tablet as I type this🤭 all bets are off with a toddler and you do what works for you. Many kids grew up with a TV on all day and didn't turn into violent psychopaths so please stop worrying

People are total bullshitters on here though. I take absolutely no notice of the smug performance parenting

Stay away from AIBU. It is definitely the worst board on MN. IMO. There are many excellent boards that offer kindness and support, like bereavement and special needs, for example.

I think the main thing to remember is that people answer the threads they want to answer. Which probably means it's something they feel they do well. Eg if my child has a good nutritious diet but has lots of screen time, I'll pop up with advice on a thread about healthy eating but not one about screen time - maybe because I'm a bit embarrassed about the latter, or maybe just because I feel I haven't got any wisdom to add. I don't think everyone is lying but it's selective.

It makes me feel the opposite quite honestly. Yes, I'm sure I'm eating too many upfs, my kids have too much screen time etc etc but I never realised how chilled out I am until I came on here. There are so many people on here stressing about nothing, unhappy and judgemental and unable to connect with other humans.

This site is also a perfect illustration of money not buying you happiness. So many people on 6 figure salaries whining about how they don't have enough money. I used to envy people who earned that much, imagining that their lives must be pretty care free but apparently not. No matter how much you earn you still feel skint and worry about money!

How reflective do you think MN is of real life?

I think it’s reflective of white, wealthy middle class women from wealthy middle class backgrounds in the south east. If, like me, you’re not all of those things, it’s probably not reflective of your real life.

Compared to my RL friends and family there are a much higher ratio of people in MN who are:
Obsessive about hygiene in an irrational way
Unwilling to answer the door
Afraid to walk alone, go out after dark, spend the night alone in their home, drive on motorways
Likely to take things personally and get offended
Have ‘boundaries’ which apply even to closest family members about visits, where people can go in their house, etc

Possibly a huge group of people who spend significant time on an internet chat board are not, by definition, typical of the whole population.

On threads about eating and weightloss you are getting a single issue view into someone’s life and beliefs. Observe as if you were David Attenborough watching a creature in it’s natural habitat from a safe distance, and decide whether the info / perspective is interesting or useful to YOU

You can’t tell the parameters a mum is working to. Someone who stays at home all day while the husband works and the kids are at school has all the time in the world to make quinoa and chickpea frittatas and do 2 hours of yoga and a run. If you are a single parent working full time and caring for your parents, fish fingers, chips and beans is a good dinner.

All the families that I know who have toddlers tend to have the tv on in the background most of the time.
Certainly some of the posts on here about hygiene are hilarious.
I do occasionally wonder how my children survived and were able to have children of their own! But they did!
Don't let MN make you feel bad. Pick and choose what you read, and talk to other humans face to face.

I think you’re asking the wrong question. It’s irrelevant whether Mn represents a statistical reflection of RL. If it’s affecting your peace of mind for whatever reason, step away now.

A good friend of mine, a regular for years, left a long time ago because she was having an anxious period with difficult young children and feeling fragile, and she found that the more intractable, scolding voices of Mn (‘how dare you let your child stand in a trolley?’ ‘How dare you let your child disturb other people in a cafe?’) amplified the negative bits of her own internal monologue and turned it into a chorus, so that she felt everyone looking when her three year old threw a back-arching, screaming tantrum in Sainsbury’s was a potential judgemental Mner storing up details for AIBU. So she left and hasn’t been back.

If Mn is having a negative impact on your mental health, don’t hang about.

Hehehe I think that too.

Also - if you're in such an important full on job where you're working all hours being brilliant - how or why do you have the inclination to post on every single thread about salary etc??

To be fair, I don’t think MN is very representative of the general population; it seems to be quite middle class and London centric.

Oh yes, like me you probably have 'low standards'. Lol

But you are the Queen of Wilko so you are winning. 👸

MN used to be less anonymous and therefore more supportive generally. Now you post something quite ordinary and people are attacking from all sides. It's crazy. But you are right, you don't know them. I know an influencer whose life is completely fabricated. It's total bollocks.

Why do you feel bad?
There must be something in these messages that make you feel like you should be doing something else.
Use the messages to inspire you. You'll feel better.

It has a disproportionate amount of people who don’t have people to talk to/complain to/get advice from in real life. So that’s why you see so many ‘I have no friends’ posts, so many MIL posts, so many angry closed minded people and so many people who love an argument.
I’m here because like them I used to be lonely, and MN was great for canvassing opinions when I had no one else. But now I’m addicted and it’s a habit I need to break! It makes me feel bad too. Always reels me back in though as it’s so much better than Google for a lot of quick, realistic and more in-depth answers to specific issues.
Also years ago MN was much more helpful and less bunfighty, it’s definitely changed in the last say 5 years.

You're not doing your life wrong. You're doing your best in your current situation and a little screen time is not going to harm a 3 year old, unless they're glued to it all day without human interaction.

Maybe you should have a little break from the site, as it's making you feel bad about stuff that you really shouldn't feel bad about x

Oh god OP, I spend the vast amount of my time on this site laughing at what people think about all those things. This is pure entertainment and as someone else said, you've answered your own question.

I find the food section very helpful for queries about cooking though.