To get annoyed by Mummy Businesses

[NeilFan]

You know the type cake making, knitting, cup cakes, carding etc. Generally SAHMs whos kids are now at school and feel the need to go back into work but can't really be bothered. They pick up some hobby that people have diplomaticaly said they are good at and think it can be a business. Only know one person who actually has a talent for their business choice, all of the others would be better just asking for cash directly rather than palming off sub standard products onto polite friends. Same goes for all of that pampered chef and candle party lot who are even more deluded. My first post on mumsnet but this stuff really annoys me!

mrs you do not have a Mummy Business you are a Mummy who is truly in Business. Good luck with the venture.

OP I've read your follow up and I still don't accept it.

Lots of people live out of their businesses. They may not make an acceptable profit to you but if they're not evading tax or breaking the law in some other way, what does it matter to you?

Do you run your own business, btw, and if so what's the turnover/profit margin etc?

"Adults who are ashamed to say 'no thank you I don't want to buy a cupcake / bunting / knitted baby hat' really need to get a grip."

the ones that don't say no and hide in the kitchen are the ones selling something else so it's very "I'll buy yours if you buy mine" so neither of them are in any way covering costs, they're just swapping tenners!

I wouldn't have went the full hog if it weren't for maternity leave though.

It's wonderful that people have the idea to create opportunities for themselves but really you have to be at the top of your game in order to actually benefit from it at all.

It's incredibly competitive and if your product is substandard in any way.... you'd better find somewhere in your house to store it!

Similarly the packaged 'Mummy start ups' irk the living daylights out of me.... ie: teething necklaces like Gumigem etc. Why waste your time?!

But maybe there is a market for shit plastic tat from China.

If I want to buy a fake cameo (I don't, really I don't!), why can't I buy one?

(even from someone whose business start up has been partly funded by family money.)

Cherie - I'd say leave them to it then! They aren't a serious threat to anyone if only their buddies buy their stuff.

LimeLeafLizard, if you want shit plastic tat there is endless amounts of it in primark etc. Some if it I would even wear.

But when they are charging over the odds for it, and saying it's handmade (because they strung it on a chain.) then there really shouldn't be a market for it.

As I said on the other thread, I get what the OP means.

There are people - some of them mums - who run a business; they have a business plan, have calculated costings, have carried out market research, factored in their time, put a huge amount of time and effort into making it fly.

There are people - some of them mums - who have a hobby they enjoy. They might make the modern-day equivalent of 'pin money' out of it if people in their circle of family and friends rate what they do and request what are, in effect, commissions.

There are people - some of them mums - who have a hobby, press the results of it on their nearest and dearest/friends at the school gates, make less than 50% of the cost of producing said items in the process and promptly act as though they are the next Cath Kidston / Anita Roddick, talking about their "business" or calling themselves a "mumpreneur" [boak] despite not putting in any of the time, effort, research the first group have or recognising that they are simply pushy members of the second group. THEY are the ones I recognised in the OP's post.

I don't think they are a massive threat to society TBH just a bit annoying! especially when you can't meet up for drinks round someones house without having to dodge them, I just don't think that they are in ANY way comparable to women doing proper work from home like seamstresses etc, and mumpreneur is a stupid word. DH is self employed, would fancy him a little less if he kept posting on facebook about how he was a dadpreneur and "dadpreneurs are supermen"

I also find it annoying when they adertise services locally that you ARE actually shopping for (party entertainers, birthday cakes etc) and get really shitty if you ask for their cridentials "I'm a mum tryin to make some extra cash for me wee kiddies, if you have a problem with that then blah blah blah shoes for my kids blah blah blah"

I don't, honestly! Life is too full of plastic shit already! and I loathe primark

I agree they shouldn't pass it off as handmade though - that is very underhand and yes I'm not surprised it makes you angry.

'btw I'm a journalist. Most people think they can do what I do. They can't.' Oh god so true. So very very true.

(I am another journalist.)

In that case I do have a real business. I make money, pay NI and tax and have an enhanced CRB (as I work with children). But I am also a mum - but wouldn't consider what I do as a 'mummy business.'

Limitedperiodonly The OP stated elsewhere that they were an engineer.

Op it's obviously a business if it makes a profit!! End of!! If you can't say no to stuff you don't want to buy then who is the daft one here? Not the bird doing the selling I think...

I an amazed if people buy ' crap' they don't want.

Must have more money than sense.

Good summary, Fireandashes. Based on that, I think I only know people in the first two groups, which is perhaps why I don't have a problem with it.

I've never been to someone's house and had to avoid someone selling something, and am considering myself lucky now!

I don't really 'sell' to people I know (although I don't have a product as such - it's more a skills based business) but occasionally a friend will approach me and request my services. I certainly don't do the hard sell to friends, that would embarrass me, plus I don't need to. It pays the mortgage, although I'm not super rich from it!

But then live and let live, no one has to buy something they don't want to.

yeah, but motherinferior do you get angry or do you just smile indulgently?

I used to get angry and set people comprehension tests (seriously).

Then I realised I was coming over as a nutter.

Now I give them free reign to write things wrong.

"I've never been to someone's house and had to avoid someone selling something, and am considering myself lucky now!"

not just one person selling stuff, I have a couple of friends who have multiple "mummy business" friends who bring their stuff to every drinks evening, its not even just the host, their GUESTS turn up with their stuff so they can all swap around the same tenners but you don't know till you get there, you just get invited round for wine and chat

Thanks PrettyCherryTrees but I haven't read the other thread.

Why does it bother the OP what other people call themselves especially since she is in such a revered profession?

I am a supermodel journalist btw.

trolly

I get unreasonably riled . And even more riled by MNers people who simultaneously revere 'writers' and think 'journalists' are lower than pond scum.

Cherie that is awful! Have you come up with any good ways of telling them to fuck off politely declining their wares?

"Cherie that is awful! Have you come up with any good ways of telling them to fuck off politely declining their wares?"

mingling with the smokers outside works, the smell getting in your hair is less annoying then being told that you can't teach your own children the time without these wonder products