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!

Agree. Sorry if this has already been mentioned - I’ve not RTWT and this is slightly off topic, but the thought of some young man on a pushbike bringing me a burger/icecream/cake/even a cup of coffee 🤦🏼‍♀️would fill me with such a sense of shame and embarrassment, I just couldn’t do it. Yy I know it’s his livelihood but it just seems so revoltingly decadent, like something which would have taken place in Ancient Rome. I’m sure there are plenty of others who do it enough to keep him in work but I just couldn’t do it.

edited as I didn’t mention this is slightly off topic…

Do you doff your cap too?

Same.
I can’t help myself coming on here and trying to stand up for what I believe in though.
Thing is, the nasty comments are by people so stubborn and fixed in their ways that no matter what I say, they won’t change.
So I don’t know why I continue to hurt my mental health.

Probably a sense of duty to those I love having who they are ripped apart on here.

Funny how not worrying yourself about money to the point of being unwell can make you more “upbeat”, isn’t it?

Are you always so detached from reality or just trying to get bites?

All the tone deaf people, so many examples on this thread, the frightening thing, they have a vote. They have no concept of anyone not being the same as them and therefore no empathy for different circumstances.

Although there is a massive amount of trolling on here as well so the ones who post ridiculous responses to someone struggling (rather than the overheard ones) are just goading I think.

🤣🤣🤣

The whinging on about private schools having to pay tax. Unbelievable.

I'm with you on that - and I won't even start on the very dodgy 'employment' checks for these workers and their non-existent rights. It's an industry I refuse to support.

Anyway - back to the thread...!

A retired lady on another thread just posted that her DH had walked out of his job, and now their only income is her state pension (DH is younger) and she has no money to pay the bills.

Someone replied “Surely there’s a private pension?” completely ignoring that a big percentage of the population don’t actually have a private pension, and for those that do the average pension pot for women aged 55+ is £60k which would give you an income of about £45 a week.

They were an absolute life saver when my son was seriously ill in hospital. Sometimes the only food I would eat all day.

They were often at the entrance of the children's hospital delivering food to parents at all hours.

Something that struck me when I moved from an urban, down at heel area to a posh small town was the absolute OBSESSION with 'proper' gear for everything.

It reminds me of the scene in The Crown where they are shocked Margaret Thatcher hasn't been able to borrow some deer stalkers from her family.

I have seen some howlers on here too. There was a thread a while back where a mum went on about getting 'proper' outdoor clothing for her children then allowed them to go out in all weathers. On her kit list were leather wide brim hats that cost approx £100 and you could only buy in Australia (they were not in Australia).

Ages ago I remember another thread by a woman who had arranged to meet up with a friend for a walk. On the day the weather was stinking. Freezing cold and horizontal rain. The friend said could they go and get a coffee instead. OP said no. Friend asked if they could keep the walk short because it was so cold and wet. OP said 'you should have worn proper clothes'. They had a falling out and the OP was asking if she had been unreasonable. Cue, a whole load of people saying, actually, coats that keep you dry and warm are quite hard to come across and are very expensive. The OP made it quite clear that 'proper' all weather all season hiking gear was the cost of entry for them considering a friend a competent adult.

Truly horrid.

(Disclaimer: I'm actually quite outdoorsy and a trail runner. And I wear the correct kit. But I'm very aware that running through mud in expensive shoes is a pretty white hobby.)

Same. Yet here I am. Must be a form of self torture!

We had to have something large delivered the other day, I was worrying about where it could go and the lady on the phone arranging the delivery said “just put it in your garage”. I haven’t got a garage 😂

I very unhelpfully say to these kind of people "well, perhaps you can give them the £30, as it just £30?"

I agree. There's something... Distasteful about sending for a small item and having another person fetch it for you.

It feels different to a whole shop, or big item. But it is a bit weird to send for a doughnut.

I did this once to a mobile phone salesman, who wanted me to increase my monthly spend... He tried going for "it's only £5 a month extra, not much really.!".... And I responded "if it's only £5 a month and that's not much, you can take £5 off my existing amount then, thank you very much".

Radio silence...

I usually assume these comments are made by people with limited intelligence, imagination and critical thinking skills and ignore them.

I find it hard to be offended by them because their contributions aren't worthy of anyone's consideration.

However, i feel similarly about the people who respond to perfectly reasonable threads asking perfectly reasonable questions where posters jump in with, "There's a CoL crisis, you know. Read the room!" who lack the capacity to understand that other peoples lives don't look like theirs. Or where people dont understand that being comfortable financially doesn't mean that someone is immune to all of life's problems.

This sounds like buying a new car when the ashtrays are full!

I moved to a small, posh town at 16. My parents didn't buy me a car for my 17th (though they did buy me some driving lessons) and a friend later commented that my parents were 'trying to teach me the value of money' by not buying me a car. I responded, actually, they couldn't afford to buy me a car. 'Yes they could, if they really wanted to', she said. I said not really. She doubled down.

She wasn't even embarrassed, just a bit stroppy with me for not realising my parents could just try harder to find the money for a car down the back of the couch.

I’ve posted on about this before, but at the start of lockdown one we had my ECV brother living with us. Not only does he have an immune disorder, but really bad OCD around germs (somewhat understandably, but the OCD is a massive problem). He wouldn’t let us leave the house.

Anyway, I was desperately trying to get a supermarket delivery. I’d been staying up till midnight for days, trying to book a slot, but I’d had no joy. The doorbell rang (strange for lockdown) and when I opened it there was nobody there. There was a Tesco bag on the step, and I just saw the van drive off.

There was a sticker on it with my dd’s (then 15) name and the bag contained one bastard hair dye. She’d bagged a slot, and wasted it on one solitary item (including I presume a hefty surcharge for not meeting the minimum spend). I was incandescent with rage, and explained that there were pensioners literally starving out there, we were dicing with scurvy and she’d selfishly wasted a precious slot. She just shrugged and replied “I’m really bored and I fancied a change”. I’m still livid!

I recall you posting that at the time I think!

I've also posted before that DS1 is disabled and clinically vulnerable. When the schools went back another mum asked me if i was worried. I started saying that yes I was, but he needed to go back to school. Another mother overheard and she exploded. Started ranting about how lockdowns were just protecting pointless children like mine who back in the day would have died in infancy anyway and why should HER kids have to suffer because of my defective child.

I truly think this was when my perspective on the world shifted. I always thought most people were decent and good. That experience- and quite alot of things that happened during covid made me realise that alot of people only have a veneer of decency to them. Scratch the surface.... (and yes, you see that on MN all the time).

The young man on the bike delivering to those who can't be arsed to make their own coffee/burger/sandwich is earning money. Maybe hes a student studying to better himself, and in a few years time he might have a great job, got himself on the property ladder, decent car,etc and will become one of those "privileged" people so despised by mumsnetters 😉

We were told that the world would stop spinning after this VAT thing came in. Somehow life still goes on.

My mouth actually fell open while reading that. I'm so sorry you had to listen to that.

I had a similar worldview shift during COVID. I hadn't realised just how many people think the disabled and elderly are sub-human.

Yeah lockdown was when we found out our kids wouldn't be resuscitated if they caught COVID. DNRs galore. People seem to have private thoughts about the disabled that shows itself on occasion.