To ask for things that happen on MN that you’ve never seen happen IRL

@BlondiePortz I so agree 😂 I can honestly say I have never had any school gate related dramas whatsoever nor have I ever felt that the 2 minute task of dropping and collecting at school gates could ever cause as much drama and bad will as so many on MN experience. 🤷‍♀️ I really don't get it.

I have also never posted nor seen anyone post anything outrageous on a school WhatsApp group. But then I've seen a recent thread on MN with mums posting about sitting a male teacher's face 😱 not something I have ever seen in my boring school WhatsApp groups about lost property/PTA collections and homework.

I have strict limits on my children’s screens, so do most parents I know. How would you possibly know without going in to everyone’s homes and discussing g it with them. You’re not going to find out walking down the high street! 😂

How could I forget, went to school and dropped off and picked up my child said hello sometimes if it happened and not other times that is as much drama as I had

If a child drops a pencil while in sight of another parent it was a secret message to the parent of the child that was ignored 2 years ago while a jacket fell off a hook and the pencil child's parent is now judging the other parent because their father didn't invite their 3rd cousin to a BBQ last summer while their wife having their 14th child and their MIL looked shifty, clear as mud?

Oh god yes. Every time there's a SAHM thread, you'll get endless posts stating one of the reasons they can't go to work is " WHO WILL DO ALL LIFE ADMIN" which apparently takes hours each week to do and they have husbands who are completely incapable of this ardous task or in fact any household task without a detailed spreadsheet of the time it takes a women to complete these tasks.

But there's never any mention as to what these mystery life admin tasks are whereas in the real life most of us pay bills direct debit and can book appointments within 5 mins on our lunchbreak.

I also forgot to add nurseries. People seem to think on here nurseries are some awful victorian institutions where abuse and neglect are rife where there are hoards of psychologically damaged children with attachment issues. And there will all be numerous posters claiming they've worked in nurseries and will never put their children in them.

Whereas in real life, myself and every other working mum uses them without issue. Our kids are happy and well adjusted. I've known many people who work in nurseries who put their kids in them and people ranging from doctors to social workers who have vested interest in attachment and child development also use nurseries. And the kids I know that are now in their teens having been to nursery are well adjusted normal teens with no differences to those that had SAHMs.

DH’s who are seemingly incapable of/unwilling to be jointly responsible for running the home or raising their children.

Life admin - never heard of it in RL - it’s just things we do without thinking about it.

On MN everyone has a dog hatred/phobia/allergy.

In the real world people adore dogs for the most part. I’m in hospital ATM and when the dogs come in, (guide dog owned by one partner, and now therapy dogs) the patients are clammering to see/stroke them.

Never met anyone who has been screamed at by MIL/SIL etc.

Never met anyone who begrudges their MIL’s very existence.

And all this going NC with family over wanting to let the baby watch television or give them snacks….

Things I don’t see and I’m all over cities and towns working with people:

Age gap relationships and marriages
The plethora of women who are size 8. Average definitely 16 as the stats say
People judging SAHMS
Parents putting strict limits on screen time
Parents restricting junk food and only serving really healthy stuff
Women being invisible as they get older.. I see them become more visible and a part of the community

Never seen anyone getting sick and faint and having an instant migraine because they're within 100m of anything remotely fragranced.

Not aware that I ever met anyone IRL who loved Boden.

I met one set of parents in my life who tried & liked Gina Ford methods; nobody else ever talked about them. They switched to another parenting guru for their child No.2.

Never encountered... any trans person being obnoxious about using "single sex" space that not = their biological space. I wish I could say I never met an obnoxious trans person at all, but there was a guy who got banned from our store (USA) in late 1980s for shoplifting... I say guy, but presented as rather feminine. Don't know or care about their gender identity. I'm sure being trans doesn't prevent someone from being obnoxious.

I may have had sepsis 16 years ago (!) My interest in knowing is about 8%. I got better with a lot of antibiotics. Exhausting but not harmed. I can't think of anyone else ever ill like I was.

I’ve done this loads of times.

I am surprised at the number of threads where a MIL, Mum or other female relative decide to call the baby a different name or not use the name. It's really common

I've never come across it in the wild.

Yes, and the husbands are always "working away" until a few days later, so the OP can't confront them until the thread has built up a nice head of steam.

not the point of the thread but you must not have any speeding cameras around! I got ticketed at 24mph so now I religiously stick to the limit too 😆

Husbands that conveniently & repeatedly leave their laptops or phones accessible for the partner to come back multiple times and drip feed the latest update to their snooping tale.

Always the language used by people who claim it happened as well, chowed down, snaffle etc. 🤔 It seems on mumsnet vegans are either preachy and evangelical or snaffling/chowing/gobbling/wolfing down/stuffing their face etc on meat. One poster said a vegan came to her house and shoved not 1, but 2 whole roast chicken in their mouth. Sure Jan.

I don't know anyone who wouldn't let a tradie use the toilet.

I don't know anyone who thinks their dc are fully formed adults when they reach 18.

I don't know anyone whose teenagers were set a curfew on week nights. It wasn't necessary, on week nights they had home work/sports practice/matches/rehearsals, etc. Similarly I don't know any parents who didn't let their 15 plus teens have the odd beer or glass of wine.

People using ridiculous loopholes to invite themselves to weddings or other celebrations; like they’re up in court and trying to get off on a technicality. I’m thinking of the woman recently who took her very much uninvited child to the breakfast the day after a wedding AND tried to feed him there, crying “But it wasn’t the wedding! It was the next day! There was LOADS of food and he was staaaaarving!!!” Or the famous thread where the OP was told in very clear terms that her brother’s lunch party was NOT the time to introduce her new boyfriend’s children - so turned up with them at 4pm because “lunch would be over by then” and was utterly bewildered to find out they were unwelcome.

Literally everyone I know in the real world who isn’t invited to something just doesn’t go! Because, you know, sanity.

Also, I don’t know any grown women who are as squeamish about swearing as some of those on MN. Using twee little words like “gosh” and “goodness”, as if they live in an Enid Blyton book. Who are these people?!

One group of people I did think only existed on MN were nosy pearl clutchers who want to “report” everything to some unspecified all-powerful body. Once my friend introduced me to the madness of our local Facebook groups I realised they really do exist in real life!

I've been to a few child free weddings but it isn't something that bothers me. But I've never met people get up in arms about an evening invite or be mortally offended by it and refuse to go to the wedding. I've been an evening invite to a wedding a few times and we have evening guests at ours too. Absolutely no one caused an issue over the status of their invite.

And as I said on another thread, I've never known anyone in real life who is a son or has a son who has abandoned their own family in favours of their girlfriends family when they have a wife and children. I have a lot of male relatives, male friends and my own husband and all of them have retained the same relationship with their family as before and those that have kids, their kids are loved equally by both families.

Similarly MIL. I have perhaps one friend who didn't get on with her MIL, but everyone else seems to have drama free relationships with theirs with only the odd grumble but reading on here practically every mum hates their MIL.

People using weekends as "family time only" and not socialising outwith their nuclear family. Absolutely no one I know does this and people are more than happy to socialise with other families at a weekend.

Similarly not seeing visitors for months on end once a newborn arrives. Anyone i know that's had a baby (myself included) as loved the opportunity to show them to friends and family as soon as possible!

Packs of feral dogs pooping and peeing everywhere in coffee-shops, shops and restaurant.

This!
You'd think receiving an invite to a wedding, hen party, or God forbid a baby shower, was akin to getting a nicely monogrammed envelope inviting you to go fuck yourself with a rusty chainsaw from the reactions on here.

There is a hilarious thread running now where the OP asked "does anyone actually like hen parties" and got the usual pile on from posters eager to announce how much they hated them, the irony being most of them said something along the lines of "I've never been to one but I can't think of anything worse" or "I've only ever been to one but it was awful"....Hmmm I wonder why you aren't getting invited to fun parties on the regular?

Whereas in the real world people tend to - gasp - actually enjoy spending time with their friends - so either say yes and look forward to it or if they really don't fancy it politely decline, no drama.

It sure is. A close relative of mine got sepsis as a result of leukaemia which he didn’t know he had. He died 6 days later.

I was the births of 3 of my grandchildren ( 2 daughters) When my eldest was born it seemed the world and his wife were there ( including my own brother popping in) Only person that wasn't was baby,s dad

Me too. I was three when my appendix burst. I remember crying for my mother every night I was in hospital.