Worst advice you've seen on a thread?

[PrincessAnne5Eva]

Lighthearted!

Ok so I've seen some corkers in the years I've been posting/lurking on MN. What's the worst advice you've ever seen on a thread? Here are a few (in no particular order):

Years ago, someone telling the OP to do all the housework and not give her four teenage children any simple chores to do because she was a single parent and they "needed to have a childhood" so couldn't possibly do the dishwasher or similar.

Someone on a pension thread telling the OP that her house was her pension, except she was renting and they hadn't read the OP properly.

Someone telling an OP without a car that going on holiday to the arse end of the Highlands to a tiny village was completely doable by public transport and encouraging her to go up there somehow and effectively get stranded in a village with no bus service or taxi companies.

Luckily on these sort of threads I also see a lot of people calling bullshit on the bad advice but it still makes me laugh and hope to God that the OP is sensible enough to listen to the majority (they usually are).

I've seen some where they've not even had a sit down proper conversation though, and it has come off the back of a sort of who does the most jobs competition chat off the back of an argument, or during. You always get dramatic posters that miss the middle steps out.

Adoption/foster care is never considered as a reasonable possibility. Some posters paint a picture of abuse and/or neglect, where their kids live in a volatile and unsafe environment, yet anyone who suggests getting the kids out of there is shot down completely.

If you want to stay and get beaten up by some horrible man, be my guest, but if you let it happen to your kids they should absolutely be taken off you. Giving your kids up is the right thing to do if it’s what’s best for them.

Telling people to ring 111 to report a crime. Winds me up everytime

Some of the medical advice. People with potential sepsis being told not to bother with A&E.

There's a thread running right now where innumerable people are replying to the OP and repeating the same advice over and over again. What is the point?

On a not unrelated note, anything to do with legal matters brings out people who have no legal training but do have unbounded confidence, so they blithely trot out what they think should be the case rather than what the law actually says. It drives me round the twist. I have no legal training either but I usually point this out before venturing an opinion on anything legal.

It’s a bit like car seat threads. Rear facing bus safest but forward facing isn’t dangerous. Same with having a baby over 35. Increased risk doesn’t= danger.

It kind of worked the other way for me and I was convinced I’d never be able to have a successful pregnancy. As it is, both mine were conceived easily. That’s obviously not the case for everyone but if I’d listened to MN I’d have probably not even bothered trying!

I have just told my neighbour he can lift his son over to get balls. It is not a high fence and they are good neighbours.

As well as dramatic responses, there's some outright wacky threads to begin with. I remember a hilarious one about neighbours using a hot tub while the home owners were on holiday, and then getting cagey because they couldn't use it at a particular time, or something along those lines.
Oh and there was a one about a lady shouting over a fence, and she didn't know the lady had company and peered over Mrs Bucket style to get an eye full of her and her male companion in the hottub (a different thread). She then panicked and blurted something really inappropriate out.

That’s fine if it’s your choice, and I assume that you don’t get too many over but it’s hardly the same as telling someone else to adjust their fence to accommodate their inconsiderate neighbours’ children. They were most adamant about it too.

Unbounded confidence laced with complete ignorance is a total bug bear of mine. Particularly yes on legal threads (IAAL but no longer practicing).

But also I was on a thread once where a poster swore blind that children from private schools do more simple and easier qualifications than A-levels to get into university because either they were thicker, or because their parents and the schools were in some sort of conspiracy about making things as easy as possible for them and all the universities were in on it as well and so their qualifications were not as rigorous. The poster was absolutely confident and unbending in this belief and thought anyone else saying 'wtaf?!' were just part of a conspiracy about it.

You honestly cannot do anything with a person like that. They are beyond hope.

I have foggy memories of terrible advice for colicky, non-sleeping velcro babies to just "pop them in a sling" and crack on with the housework If you are struggling to keep up with everything. If you are so tired you are hallucinating and you are getting over a birth injury, it's a great idea to put your larger-than-average baby in a sling and get down to some hoovering and putting bins on. I despair 🤦‍♀️

On style and beauty - you should wear spf50 every day of the year. Including in winter. Even if you live in Scotland. And are dark skinned. And indoors.

This will keep you looking young and there will be no negative health effects.

It's the immediate jump to LTB that gets me. I often think to myself (when DH is annoying me/being a pratt/has pissed on the toilet seat again) that if I posted half the things he does on MN, I'd get a resounding LTB.

But he's not a bastard - he's a kind, decent, hardworking man and my life and my DCs lives are infinitely better for having him in them.

@Learsfool what are the negative side effects?

It seems illogical to me to wear sunscreen throughout winter in the UK, so I don’t. But bar impact to one’s bank balance using it unnecessarily, there being a negative side effect is a surprise to me

Someone claiming to be a nurse telling a very newly diagnosed typw one diabetic to take insulin to solve their low blood sugar.

I may be wrong but I think that sunscreen impedes the body's ability to make vitamin D from sunlight.

Agreed. I was going to come on this thread and say worst advice I've seen is to go to a sperm bank and go into motherhood alone voluntarily, of course only if the poster is over 30. Anyone under 30 having children even with a good man in a stable relationship gets looked down on and told they're irresponsible

Well it seems to work for Trump and his cabal.

Exactly this. Moderate sun exposure reduces all cause mortality massively - think effect size similar to quitting smoking. Reduces chances of various cancers, heart disease, diabetes, bone disease, respiratory disease, myopia and depression.

In my experience total sun avoiders don't look good either. Unwrinkled yes, but sickly and kind of odd.

In the early days of COVID there were a LOT of people on here confidently saying it was just the flu and to ignore the scaremongering

That sounds a bit like anxiety talking.. an increase in a very small risk does not in any way constitute a certainty, or even a high risk.

Wow some really batshit ones. Yes the legal ones where a well known lawyer will weigh in then some clueless poster goes "Ignore the armchair lawyers on here OP..." then proceeds to spout some total rubbish that isn't true. 🧐

yep and the death of democracy and all because people prefer x topics over politics

Just yesterday when a mum was emotional about her son growing up. Some asshole told her she needed HRT.

A homeless man moved into a poster’s mums thread and she was asking for advice on how to get him to move on. Cue lots of “advice” saying to bring him food, a heater etc aka let him live in the shed.