What's the most privileged/off the mark post/response you've read?

[waywardways]

I've name changed for this, just in case anyone does an AS and accuses me of getting DM fodder.

Me and the DC had to flee our home several years ago and we were moved into a tiny 2 bed flat temporarily. I made a thread at the time, saying me and 3dc had had a traumatic move and were very overcrowded and asked for advice on how to store our daily stuff in an efficient way.
Several posters replied helpfully, linking shelving units/freestanding storage, but one poster replied along the lines of:

"Your DH must be high up in the army and you have to rough it in officers housing until your 5 bed detached home is ready".

Another poster quoted the above with "This was my immediate thought too! It's so hard OP, but we've all been there".

I found this both amusing and perplexing because a) I would never have assumed the above and b) it was so far off the mark.

There was another thread very recently about food guidelines where the lack of awareness and privilege was quite frightening!

I’m so sorry your daughter died, WhoDecided. Shame on those mindless people who made snide remarks.
Sending love and sympathy xx

Was this CAP?

Agree, some people spout such absolute BS!

We have had this recently with my (quite young) parents making me the executor of their wills. I told them to sell their two houses and live up their retirement years on holidays and fun memories with each other. They’re raised 4 kids all of whom have decent jobs and are married to people with decent jobs too. My parents have sacrificed a lot to raise us and I hate the thought of them thinking it’s their responsibility to provide for us anymore

the threads about inheritance are from people who value money more than family and it is disgusting (unless family have been abusive)

Going against the grain, I positively love spending time with privileged people (and I suppose I could be considered privileged myself, although it’s relative). They’re so much more interesting and have a positive can do attitude that I find inspiring rather than deflating. Tone deaf remarks are far preferable to endless whinging about ‘being broke’.

It's easy to have a positive can do attitude if you don't have to worry about money.

But presumably you’re intelligent enough to know that not everyone has?

Not on MN but on Quora. A poster mentioned she was struggling financially despite working hard full time and choosing overtime whenever it was offered plus being careful with her budgeting and was told “For heaven’s sake woman you need to work smart not hard.” 😡

Good grief. :(

I'm reading this under the covers, it took all my willpower not to do an actual LOL to this and shake the bed silly and wake DP up! 🤣

P.S. hope things have improved!

That's reminded me - on another thread about how to look well put together, someone suggested getting clothes taken in/tailored.

When another poster said that they couldn't afford it, they were told that it was easy to do the alterations yourself. Eh, no...it isn't. (I can manage simple hems. Ask me to do darts without someone to help me? Nope.)

I remember a woman who had cried in the supermarket because she couldn’t afford her food shop and was incredibly stressed because she couldn’t fill her car up with petrol to get to work the following week and someone suggested she buy an electric bike.

There was also someone on here the other day who was ‘amazed’ that on a thread about tinned oily fish, most people were talking about sardines and mackerel from the supermarket and hadn’t tried things like tinned smoked trout from a specialist mail order company whose cheapest product was £4.95 plus P&P.

Also when a poster is trying to set boundaries with difficult elderly parents and people say things like “It’s your mum!!! How could you not want to help, I speak to mine every day, she’s my best friend and when the time comes she’ll be living with me” and I think “Right, well, maybe your mum isn’t a violent alcoholic like the OP’s is, Julie, just a hunch”

Omg 🤣
Are they really that thick?

Perfect examples on almost every post on the style and beauty board.

Someone had bought a really dreary blue tank top for £225 and couldn't work out what to do with it. Obviously, you send it back, and buy multiple items of clothing that do look good. Not that I gave my opinion though.

Mumsnet hurts my mental health

I think you believe 'privileged' means wealthy, and it does, of course.

But it has other shades of meaning.
The privilege being discussed on this thread isn't wealth, or the fruits of hard work.

The privilege under discussion is the blithe assumptions of those who do not have the ability to put themselves in others' shoes.

As an example, the question, "Why did you choose to have a baby with such a horrible excuse for a man?" is the voice of privilege - a woman who through sheer dumb luck managed to find a decent man, and whose question implies the belief that the wife of the abuser knew from the start that he was like that but wilfully and in full knowledge of his nature ploughed ahead regardless.

I think you're conflating the 'privilege' under discussion here with 'privileged', which means wealthy.

you did so well for your kids

Everyone has privilege compared to someone else. I imagine the 'can do' inspiring attitude might be something to do with always having the money to actually 'can do?'

Well yes, there’s certainly a correlation. I didn’t suggest otherwise. I was saying how I much prefer to be in the company of such people.

It’s the property threads for me. People’s non-negotiables. Most of us are trying to find anywhere that fits our family in and close enough to work and can’t afford to be picky about en-suites and south facing gardens and utility rooms.

Yes and that they need to get the whole house refurbed before moving in because they couldnt possibly live with a galley kitchen for a few years or a 'tired bathroom' while they do the work over time.

I mean the wallpaper in the hallway is just going to kill them each time they come home from work!

It isn’t sheer dumb luck to choose carefully the man with whom you will have children. It’s probably the most important decision you can ever make.

You're on the right lines with this entrepreneurial thinking, but I hear the way to do it is to make curtains. Presumably if people can't afford the outlay they just start with custom designs for small windows, using toilet roll inner tubes and repurposed tea towels.

Exactly. I came from nothing and while money would have been nice, I'm glad I will never fall out with my siblings over it or watch every penny my parents spend.

Yes there's a certain amount of privilege in being able to retire at all - but the vast majority of privilege and entitlement comes from those who want to inherit everything.