The weird world of MN…

[Leobynature]

I am frequent visitor on MN but sometimes it feels like another world, examples include

• being told to LTB because he ate the kids chocolate, comments included selfish, abuser and narcissist
• you are not allowed to ask grandparents for childcare but equally fume silently when they don’t offer *everyone earns £100k per year
• everyone kids are in a vast amount of out of school activities. Screen time is frowned upon *parents give them a vast amount of money for house deposits *you are expected to pay for your kids until they are way into adulthood but don’t expect them to visit you in old age
• There is a huge amount of children with SEN and ASD even though they amount to only 1% of children in the population (this is not a judgement/criticism, more of an observation) *Many husbands work FT and are high earners but still should share 50% of the housework, if not LTB *husbands have a secret ‘hobby’ *all kids should have their own room and should not be expected to share.

I may need to visit with some more 😂

10 A*s at GCSE and 4As at A level is bright, but not exceptional.
One of the things I have never seen IRL is how invested MNetters are wrt their dc getting a university place. They make spreadsheets, submit FOIs to universities, contact admissions, and a whole myriad of other things. Especially wrt medicine. I consider myself to be an invested parent, but I am beyond neglectful in comparison.

10 As at GCSE and 4As at A level is bright, but not exceptional.*

That resonated with me as well. There are some mumsnetters who are irritatingly smug about their DC's achievements. They should be proud, not smug. We should all feel proud of our DC regardless of their achievements.

One of the things I have never seen IRL is how invested MNetters are wrt their dc getting a university place. They make spreadsheets, submit FOIs to universities, contact admissions, and a whole myriad of other things. Especially wrt medicine

Medicine is so very competitive to get into though, so I feel that doing a spreadsheet is a good idea as different medical schools have slightly different entry criteria (apart from a minimum of AAA at A level). You have to be very strategic to even achieve an interview.

@RampantIvy I get that, but surely it should be the student managing these things, not the parent? I must admit I'm in admiration of their tenacity.

As the student is also in their final year of A levels they don't always have the headspace (or enough support from school) to dig down to that level of detail, and often ask their parents for support.

Not all year 13s are that mature either.

Birthday parties: soft play/activity parties are ostentatious and showing off, but DIY church hall or park parties aren’t really a party. It’s grabby and entitled to specify a gift your child would like, but virtue signalling and rude to state no gifts. If you don’t want lots of gifts you should only invite a small number of children and donate some of your child’s existing toys to make room. You can’t donate the gifts that parents have carefully chosen, but you can regift them. Ideally you should have a party in your home, because everyone lives in a large home with a garden.

If your child is invited to a party, you can spend time carefully choosing a gift from the regifting pile, but the value should reflect the cost of the party - soft play or activity parties are worth more than parties at home. Inviting anything less than the whole class is exclusionary. Once your child is older than six you should drop and run as helicopter parenting is PFB.

did I miss anything?

I really sympathise for you. Sometimes you want to offload anonymously (or in real life!) hoping people will relate and to not be believed is gutting.

I've not shared everything on here but think even my trivial posts sound a bit unbelievable or exaggerated when they're not!
Makes me think if only some knew how bloody horrible/crazy life can be for others.
It can feel alienating to not even be believed.

I was also thinking how despite most of the public reading the news daily and hearing statistics of crimes/drugs/reports of domestic violence/peadophilia/stalking/youths being targeted by gangs etc etc people tend to never see it as happening here under their noses so don't believe people's references to it.
For instance drugs are a billion pound industry and the police is one of the largest employers in the UK but it's hard to believe even one post referring to it for some!

I agree with all of your post apart from the drop off and run !!
Yes I do think that children should have fun without their parents hovering…it’s healthy and necessary for children to enjoy other people’s company without a mother or father there distracting them !
My children always went to parties once they started school without me there …all three absolutely fine .
As a host I always found the children were happy and engaged without having a parent present.
I genuinely don’t understand why parents expect anything different these days !!

As

No! London! And it's very real that people get raped in their houses or robbed by people knocking under false pretences usually by someone they know.

I love the people who want advice about schools and post things like ‘what experience do mumsnetters have of St. Peter’s?’ They just assume everyone will know the St. Peter’s they’re talking about (which always seem to be somewhere in South West London.