Mumsnet “norms” that annoy you most

[usernamechanged1]

For me it’s the utterly obscure baby names. We’ve all seen them and I’m quite sure nobody uses them in real life. Yet on MN, it’s apparently standard.

Honourable mention to the 50% of posters whose husbands are earning upwards of £100K too.

The incessant bragging that there is no transphobia on MN despite countless transphobic threads being deleted each week. The only reason there is no transphobia on MN is because MN police what you say. Hardly a brag.

I also don't like the pedantry about accidentally using the wrong spelling of there, their, they're ( which might be autocorrect).

And on AIBU, the way people pile on attacking the OP if the first response is a negative one. Like when someone is upset that all of her group of friends have gone out for a meal and she has been left out. She will be called 'entitled' to expect to be included in everything, has she maybe upset everyone, it must be her fault etc. Funnily enough, if the first post after is sympathetic then subsequent ones seem to be too.

But I also find MN very interesting as people often have a different viewpoint to mine, which makes me think.

Boden.

That many posters are left leaning politically but their children go to “well-respected indies”, i.e. expensive private schools.

'The North' is some barren frozen wasteland that no one could ever possibly survive in.

I’ve noticed that too. “But it’s a basic life skill!” - not really if you live in a city/ somewhere with good public transport, and some people just really struggle with driving.

For me, it's not 'yes' at the end of a question, it's no... or 'no?'

'You understand it doesn't work this way no?' URGH! 🤢

The idea that houses were cheap in the mid/late 90s. People clearly don't remember the massive house price boom in 1988. I could only buy a house in the 90s because I was given a very large amount of money.

It also drives me up the wall when people think that everyone has access to a bit of "extra money". Most people don't.

I had a brief thought when I read that some people stand up to wipe their bum, shower 3 times a day or wash their towels every day.

But I wasn't baffled, stunned, horrified or unable to understand.

I already knew different people did different things. Finding out there were more different things that different people did wasn't life-altering and leading me to have to process it or claim it was weird just because it's not what I do.

Wasn't there a massive housing price crash around 1991? I remember many friends losing so much in that crash.

Also they forget that prices were also relative to your income at that time! Comparing then to now.....well!

What an interesting thread this is.

Shall I add to it?

I think not.

Posters complaining about certain turns of phrase or supposed grammatical errors, without any understanding that they might be acceptable, or indeed completely normal, in other parts of the UK and Ireland. For example 'gotten' comes in for particular criticism (part of everyday language where I live). And woe betide anyone who says 'mom' - it's 'are you American?' with all the underlying criticism that implies. Which brings me to ... the anti American vibe often present on here. Awful.

Mumsnet has always been nuts about that. There are numerous things that are considered by MN as 'adult life skills' which really aren't.

Same as not liking certain foods or activities or enjoying certain foods or activities is bizarrely seen as an indicator of the persons character or personality 🤔

'Give your head a wobble' makes my toes curl!

When people moan that there has already been a post on that topic, like the poster should check the whole of mumsnet before posting.

When someone is very upset and a group of posters are vile to them for no apparent reason apart from they want to really put the boot in when someone is down.

How dare anyone ask family for support!

'Get a job!' the answer to everything even if you need to spent more on childcare than you earn or have kids with SN who need specialist care!

If someone puts a photo on and asks people to guess their age. The mean spirited answers make me laugh. The more beautiful and young looking the person in the photo is the older the guesses are!!

When people say ‘I spat out my tea’ 🙄

Well, you must be constantly buying new phones and laptops if you’re always doing that dear. Or maybe you need a sippy cup 😆

As you can tell, that phrase makes me cringe/annoyed.

Brilliant!! Best reply

Yet you did add to it..

MN is not real life. There are real people behind the posts - I don’t think we’ve quite got ChatGPT or Bard spamming the boards yet - but there are many, many threads on here where the timelines don’t add up, the stories (especially on Relationships) are just a bit too soapy and melodramatic, and people are blatantly reading them to find out what happens next. To say nothing of the long term posters with familiar names who have high powered jobs but are instantly there to contribute at all hours of the day and night. 🤔

Even among the, erm, ‘genuine’ posts, the picture you get is very selective indeed. I would never post on MN for emotional support. I would never post on social media or public message boards for emotional support. There is even less guarantee of getting it online than there is IRL.

That if you are right wing you must be a fascist who deserves to be burned at the stake, because of course all decent people are left wing.
That their children are always 'very bright' and are only failing because of other reasons.
Just take in ironing. FFS.
That step mums are always wrong.
Mum is always right and if she doesn't want her ex to have proper contact then her reasons are always valid and he must be abusive. That it is always justified for the man to be left penniless and have to leave the family home because she deserves to have everything (can you tell I'm a bit bitter!).

There are some truly transphobic posts and threads. Report them and they'll be deleted. That's how moderation works.

I wish Twitter, with all the graphic death and rape threats against gender critical women, would do so good a job.

That you should give your kids eggs for breakfast every day. I don't have time for that. My kids can pour themselves a bowl of cornflakes and will have to be malnourished.

Everyone seems to have a "spare room" that either they go to when H snores or where H is sleeping.

I’m glad I’m not the only one to have noticed this. Almost identical questions can have lovely supportive threads or downright nasty comments purely based on the first comment. I think it’s because most people only read the OP and the last couple of comments and are going with the crowd.

Yes, house prices were lower but so were incomes and interest rates were 8%+.

There was also widespread misselling of mortgages in the 80s where people paid into an equity fund instead of paying off capital and lost money (can't remember the name of these and google is not helping).

And negative equity and repossessions. My SIL lost £30k (about half of value) on her house when she divorced.