What drives you mad about MNers?

[omafiet]

I woke up grumpy today and reading some posts is making me grumpier. Perhaps I'm turning into a curmudgeon. But sometimes I read posts and think "Good grief, woman, you don't help yourself, do you?"

The gems that seem to pop up with alarming regularity: "We live rurally and I don't drive" in a post complaining of a lack of access to, well, anything really.

Or: "We don't have any family close by to babysit so DH and I haven't been out on our own since 2004." Do what we all do then and pay for a babysitter!

Ugh. This heat is making me grouchy. Anything make you want to shake another MNer?

So many of these chime with me.

• the posters who do the ' so does lick the toilet bowl clean every day? Though not ' thing. If you are asking a question , ask, don't presume to know the answer.
• I too hate the double standards. When a husband-partner has cheated it's all their fault when a wife does the same it's all her husband's fault. Same goes for a lot of the MIL threads where there's a distinct undertone that it's purely BECAUSE it an MIL who's done whatever, rather than what they've done/not done, that is the issue.
• The seeming inability of some posters ro read and understand the OP and updates. Usually swiftly followed by a poster making up their own narrative (I find myself scrolling back to find the relevant info from OP, only to discover it's a work of fiction from another poster whose comprehension is lacking).

Probably more things I could mention, but these are the ones that annoy me most.

Posters who scream transphobia but who are never willing to give definitive criteria of what constitutes transphobia.

Why should they? People are left to call out racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia and disablism without having to give a definition of these terms every time. Transphobics only demand "definitive criteria" in order to nitpick and find a means to attack people who call them out on their transphobia.

Not at all, Isatis, why is it so hard to provide an accepted definition of transphobia when you are accusing someone of being transphobic? It is never a problem to provide that when accusing someone of racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia or disabalism.

London/SE-centrism - inability to think outside this bubble to realise there IS the rest of the UK! Also that 'The North' is all 'cheap' so all problems associated with living in London or the SE can be instantly solved by moving to 'The North'.

Anti-Americanism. Every negative trend or cultural thing is 'American'. Generalisation about America, a country with 350m+ people from media or telly shows (a bit like assuming everyone in the UK is like the people on Eastenders or Downton Abbey).

“Why should they? People are left to call out racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia and disablism without having to give a definition of these terms every time.“

Yes they are. People are always being asked to define these words. Particularly racism and ageism. All.The.Bloody.Time.

I'm still to see all these transphobic threads on MN. The threads I assume people accuse of transphobic are usually just women not capitulating to men.

The fact that some of the most blatantly transphobic threads and posts are deleted doesn't mean that they never existed, and that those views (albeit phrased more carefully) aren't being shared and encouraged here.

If there deleted when reported that’s surely fine? People post vile things. That doesn’t make mumsnet a transphobic place. There are lots of mumsnetters. Some of them are racist and homophobic and transphobic. MBHQ is pretty good at splatting them.

I really hate when posters go on the feminism board and slag off feminists. If you have no interest in feminism, indeed if you see no issue with the threat to women's rights, surely there are enough subjects on MN to interest you?

Trolling the board with anti feminist and men's rights rhetoric is just as rude as someone with no interest in pets going on the litter tray just to start a fight with all the cat lovers. But no one does that.

Anyone would think the anti-feminists had an agenda.

A classic example of a poster who asks for advice, get it and then calls people rude and judgemental when he doesn’t like the replies!

Utter nob!

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/3651510-Advice-needed

Those who are rude in their reply. It's ok to disagree, just don't be rude about it.

Those who are rude in their reply. It's ok to disagree, just don't be rude about it

Depends who’s saying it. Some posters get away with being really rude and nobody bats an eyelid.

Food ones that quickly degenerate into competitive orthorexia

The people who refer to "orthorexia" because I have to look it up every single time. And now that I have looked it up (again), I clearly don't have it

People who make up etiquette, for example, “don’t you know it’s rude to take shoes off/not to take shoes off” or “don’t you know how rude it is to start an email with ‘Dear’”…

SAYS WHO??

Could of

Bare with me. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO it's bear. BEAR. BEAR. BEAR. I think I have read it in at least 5 different posts today. It can't all be down to autocorrect.

...and breathe

• People who use mumsnet when it would've been much quicker and easier to think for themselves. There was a lady who was asking what she should cook for tea - there was nothing in the fridge but food in the cupboards and she didn't know what to do. Posters had to advise her to look in the cupboards. In the end it turned out there were potatoes and she had JPs. Why spend half an hour replying to people on a thread, listing the contents in a cupboard etc etc when you can just think to yourself to open the cupboard and pick something!

• People who are extremely young and desperate to have a baby RIGHT NOW but can't e.g. because OH not on board. There are lots of good suggestions of things like waiting and saving money for just a couple of years but to the OP that is just awful and unthinkable, it has to be a baby right now or nothing else.

• Similar to the above point, people who end a post with 'I'm asking for advice here, AIBU?' they then get a unanimous YABU but refuse to change their ways or listen to any of the advice. Why bother asking in the first place?!

• people who use mumsnet instead of asking a medical professional e.g. midwife or doing a pregnancy test (kind of related to my point about people not thinking for themselves properly).

• the general rudeness and bitchiness you can get on here.

• teacher bashing.

I could go on!

*Could I be pregnant? I had unprotected sex and have missed my period. Then yes! You could be! But a group of strangers on the internet aren't going to be able to confirm it for you...take a test and find out!

*Arrange to work from home. Great idea, but clearly not possible in every job, which some posters just don't seem to be able to understand. Military, hospital staff, teachers, fire/police/amb staff clearly can't just work from home. Sorry kids Mrs Smith needs to work from home today so all 22 of you students will have to go around hers for the day. Sorry I know you've made a GP appointment for today but the doctor is working from home, so you'll have to pop around theirs. Sorry I know you've reported a burglary, but the PC is working from home today so you'll need to go to theirs to give crime details.

Not RTFT but the food and weight ones do my head in. Are there really so many women who are 8 stone and morbidly obese because they're only 5 inches tall? Should I purge my diet of all potatoes, bread, rice, dairy, eggs, meat and everything except quinoa, organic lettuce and pollution free carbon neutral fresh air from the Canadian mountains? (Exaggerating a bit, obviously not that much)

The frankly inefficient and unsatisfactory way MNHQ deal with trolls, derails and plain nasty posters who should have been banned or restricted years ago - just leaves them open to charges of favouritism.

'Is there a doctor/midwife/dentist here!' Yeah, you can really believe anyone on the internet when they say they're a doctor/midwife/dentist and real ones are really going to risk their jobs giving advice on the internet for free to randoms. If you need a doctor/midwife/dentist go and find one!

Posters who announce on page 16 of a thread when the OP hasn’t posted since page 2, ‘The OP is never coming back’ - as if they are somehow the first person to have had this blinding revelation and just have to share it with the world.

Posters who ‘haven't read the whole thread, but...’ on page 2. Seriously?! You can’t manage two pages?

Mumsnetters on the whole have very odd ideas about food in general.

I think a lot of women have odd ideas about food imo it is an epidemic !

Posters who state their children inhale or hoover astronomical amounts of food, of course their children are always 6' tall, skinny athletes who are always doing some kind of sport and the food is always described as healthy.

A salad is not a salad on MN unless it is HUGE and is eaten with EVERY meal alongside LOADS of veggies, never vegetables always, always veggies. As veggies is also used to describe vegetarians on here it does make one question whether posters are reducing the vegetarian population by consuming them, and this bring me onto my next point:

The use of veggies to describe vegetables or vegetarians, is twee and infantile in equal measure and should be outlawed forthwith.