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What's the worst advice you've had from MN?

277 replies

Dinkydonkytonk · 01/02/2021 09:51

I have personally received some good advice from this site, however with all the LTB! and other extreme reactions I want to know if anyone has had some truly awful advice from MN?
Or did you follow advice but it turned out to be the wrong decision?
Or did you really LTB but regretted it?

OP posts:
Turquoisesea · 03/02/2021 11:35

I do think LTB is thrown about far too easily on here. Not when someone is in a clearly abusive relationship obviously, but the amount of DH bashing I’ve seen if they are anything less than perfect is insane. Relationships take work and communication but if ever anyone asks for practical advice on their relationship it’s always LTB!

RUOKHon · 03/02/2021 11:45

I’ve frequently been told I should split up my family and leave my husband because I obviously resent my stepchild. It will be in response to me posting something like ‘I don’t want 6 year old DSD to come to my 20 week scan’, or something like that.

I sometimes see posts on here that make me think the author is quite unwell.

The internet is a weird place.

RedWhineandgo · 03/02/2021 14:39

I'm glad the step mother of my children doesn't come on here for advice!

She's great, and the children thrive with her.

She'd be advised all sorts of nonsense about fairness and compromise that would fuck up everyone's lives. Well not fuck up but inconvenience. Stuff like parties/drop offs etc.

Well I mean if she reads it or posts it then thank goodness she's not actioning it!

Thisisworsethananticpated · 03/02/2021 15:17

I’ve been burnt too many times and I’ve learnt my lesson

Entertainment , chat and low key advice , fine
Anything personal ? No
Never again NOOOOO

Saying harsh thing ? No , it’s not worth it. Feel shitty afterwards

Aimee1987 · 03/02/2021 16:02

@Thisisworsethananticpated

I’ve been burnt too many times and I’ve learnt my lesson

Entertainment , chat and low key advice , fine
Anything personal ? No
Never again NOOOOO

Saying harsh thing ? No , it’s not worth it. Feel shitty afterwards

I completly agree with this. I love a bit of trivial entertainment but I would never take actual advice especially not regarding my relationship or family
OhToBeASeahorse · 03/02/2021 17:00

Agreed. I've always regretted it.

Corncorncorn · 03/02/2021 18:07

This thread is helpful to be honest as some of the advice is confidence crushing at best.

There are some posters who reduce things to absolutely binary thinking as though there's no space for nuance, confusion or mistakes. No-one is forgiven. Ever.

Frodont · 03/02/2021 18:10

There are some posters who reduce things to absolutely binary thinking as though there's no space for nuance, confusion or mistakes. No-one is forgiven. Ever

It's weird isn't it

Corncorncorn · 03/02/2021 18:11

Yes. Grin

Cadent · 03/02/2021 18:17

@Corncorncorn

This thread is helpful to be honest as some of the advice is confidence crushing at best.

There are some posters who reduce things to absolutely binary thinking as though there's no space for nuance, confusion or mistakes. No-one is forgiven. Ever.

Very true. Most apparent when a woman is goaded into lashing out by her abusive husband and posters tell her she is the abusive one.
GeordieGreigsButtButtZoom · 03/02/2021 18:30

Surely we are generally all responsible for our real life decisions, even if we were given bad advice by anonymous people we didn't know on the internet?

(Exceptions exist, of course, but for the most part.)

Frodont · 03/02/2021 18:33

@GeordieGreigsButtButtZoom

Surely we are generally all responsible for our real life decisions, even if we were given bad advice by anonymous people we didn't know on the internet?

(Exceptions exist, of course, but for the most part.)

Yes, but when you are in a confusing situation and you've got loads of people telling you you must do one thing then of course you might be influenced by it
EmmanuelleMakro · 03/02/2021 19:03

But the ones telling her to phone the hotel posing as the woman to try to get evidence by asking for a receipt or pretending she'd lost an earring like a mad person
Grin

HibernatingTill2030 · 03/02/2021 20:37

@GeordieGreigsButtButtZoom

Surely we are generally all responsible for our real life decisions, even if we were given bad advice by anonymous people we didn't know on the internet?

(Exceptions exist, of course, but for the most part.)

Yes. But I think often people ask for advice hoping they will hear what they want to hear and may cling onto that if one or two people are saying it.
Parkperson · 03/02/2021 20:58

@Cadent . Encouraging a poster to think violence is ok is never good advice

Cadent · 03/02/2021 23:44

Way to miss the point @Parkperson

bruffin · 04/02/2021 12:34

I think one of the issues is that you do only ever hear one side of the story , so never really know what is actually going on

There are quite a few posters who constantly name change so , looking at one post they may seem quite reasonable, but if you had seen the 10 or 20 previous posts they build a very different picture, i am sure the advice would probably be very different. I can think of at least 4 posters who constantly do this

Chuckleknuckles · 04/02/2021 12:51

I would never take advise re anything important from an Internet forum. I do find it weird that so many people advocate No Contact to the extent that it has its own acronym. I don’t think I’ve ever No Contact or Low Contact with anyone. Why not just communicate with people?
Also people are very quick to rate partners as abusive for the most ridiculous of reasons, when it me like the couple just need to sit down and have a chat rather than LTB. Madness.

Chuckleknuckles · 04/02/2021 12:51

*advice

midlifecrash · 04/02/2021 13:22

but don't you think that the OP needs to take their original post into account when considering the responses? E.g. if I were to post that DP NEVER does any housework, and only talks to me on alternate Tuesdays, and I'm actually venting and exaggerating, it wouldn't be surprising if people reply that he sounds like an arsehole...

NotYourReindeer · 04/02/2021 13:41

Mine isn't lighthearted really. I posted many years ago when my youngest daughter (aged 7ish) had been playing with a group of children in our street and an older boy she knew from school (he was year 6 so 10/11) had started hanging around. He was all she talked about for a few weeks, he would play with her at break-time and then at the weekend he would be in our street and playing with her and the rest of the children. It went on for maybe 2 or 3 weeks and there was a mixed age range of children playing out so it was nothing unusual, other than I didn't know where he came from.

I didn't think much of it until one day she came to me sobbing, he had trapped in our shed and although hadn't touched her had been saying she was his girlfriend and they needed to kiss and she couldn't see her friends, she was only to play with him, he was very forceful from what I could work out between DD's sobs. Luckily one of the other children heard her scream and opened the shed, the boy ran away.

I didn't know what to do because I didn't know where he lived, DD didn't know his surname or anything. So I asked on here if I was right to speak to the Head Teacher about it, to make sure he wasn't allowed near her at break-time and to explain to him how terrible it was for him to make her so scared and to try and force her to be his girlfriend. My thread title was something like "Boy behaving inappropriately with my daughter".

The responses I received where by and large appalling. I had name-changed and people I had made friends with on Mumsnet and moved over to Facebook with, were taking the piss. I had overreacted, typical that I think the boy was going to hurt her - it was laughable that my adult mind went somewhere dark, the poor boy was just lonely and wanted a friend. How dare I put this on the Headteacher, this happened outside of school time it is nothing to do with school.

It was truly horrible and I decided to ignore the advice and contacted the Head the next school day. She was disgusted, told me I had absolutely done the right thing coming to her and that "there will be consequences and I will make sure the boy is supervised during break time and kept away from DD".

I came back to the thread under my usual, known, username. I wanted to let those that had been awful to me know exactly how wrong they were. Funny enough not many of them came back to apologise.

It's maybe 10 years ago and every now and then it randomly pops back into my head.

Soubriquet · 04/02/2021 14:34

^^

That’s appalling

You absolutely did the right thing as that was alarming behaviour. At his age he should start to know that what he did wasn’t appropriate.

If he was older it would be criminal

Frodont · 04/02/2021 14:36

@NotYourReindeer

Mine isn't lighthearted really. I posted many years ago when my youngest daughter (aged 7ish) had been playing with a group of children in our street and an older boy she knew from school (he was year 6 so 10/11) had started hanging around. He was all she talked about for a few weeks, he would play with her at break-time and then at the weekend he would be in our street and playing with her and the rest of the children. It went on for maybe 2 or 3 weeks and there was a mixed age range of children playing out so it was nothing unusual, other than I didn't know where he came from.

I didn't think much of it until one day she came to me sobbing, he had trapped in our shed and although hadn't touched her had been saying she was his girlfriend and they needed to kiss and she couldn't see her friends, she was only to play with him, he was very forceful from what I could work out between DD's sobs. Luckily one of the other children heard her scream and opened the shed, the boy ran away.

I didn't know what to do because I didn't know where he lived, DD didn't know his surname or anything. So I asked on here if I was right to speak to the Head Teacher about it, to make sure he wasn't allowed near her at break-time and to explain to him how terrible it was for him to make her so scared and to try and force her to be his girlfriend. My thread title was something like "Boy behaving inappropriately with my daughter".

The responses I received where by and large appalling. I had name-changed and people I had made friends with on Mumsnet and moved over to Facebook with, were taking the piss. I had overreacted, typical that I think the boy was going to hurt her - it was laughable that my adult mind went somewhere dark, the poor boy was just lonely and wanted a friend. How dare I put this on the Headteacher, this happened outside of school time it is nothing to do with school.

It was truly horrible and I decided to ignore the advice and contacted the Head the next school day. She was disgusted, told me I had absolutely done the right thing coming to her and that "there will be consequences and I will make sure the boy is supervised during break time and kept away from DD".

I came back to the thread under my usual, known, username. I wanted to let those that had been awful to me know exactly how wrong they were. Funny enough not many of them came back to apologise.

It's maybe 10 years ago and every now and then it randomly pops back into my head.

I have a similar story which I'm not going to post as outing. It was a school one. The replies were unbelievably nasty and in some cases, cruel. The teacher involved ended up being sacked actually, rather than my dc just being a spoilt, attention seeking little cow, and ever since then I've not trusted MN at all.
NuniaBeeswax · 04/02/2021 14:45

"The MN haircut. VERY ill-advised."

...are you saying that hacking at my hair with kitchen scissors and dousing it in Nice n Easy won't turn me into Vidal Sassoon??

TheIncredibleBookEatingManchot · 04/02/2021 14:46

The ones where people start composing texts and emails for the op to send are always really bizarre.

They've had a slight misunderstanding with another parent about lifts to Brownies and it's all:

Dear Cheeky Fucker,
I, Saint Mum, the sender of this text, heretoforthwith withdraw consent for you, the above named recipient of this text, or any of your associates to bring your child, Suzie Smith, to my place of residence, 6 Privet Drive, at the appointed hour of 6pm on Tuesdays for the purpose of transportation to the site designated for meetings of Brownies. If the aforementioned Suzie Smith is found on or near my premises at the previously specified hour social services will be contacted for immediate collection of said child.
Yours, Saint Mum.

Has anyone ever actually sent one of those texts?

At least it would have the desired effect of no one asking you for lifts anymore. You would probably also find yourself being ostracized by all the other school and Brownie parents though, as everyone woul think you were completely insane.