To think people take it quite personally when you make different decisions to them?

[CruCru]

Recently, I've noticed that a few people have got quite huffy whenever I have done something differently to the way they did it. It's usually children related and often quite small things that soon won't matter.

When ds was teething a lady in a restaurant came over and stuck a chicken bone in his mouth and declared it the best thing to soothe a teething child. I was with my sil and it took me 2-3 seconds to gather my thoughts. I was horrified and after telling her off for randomly shoving part of a bird carcass in a strange childs mouth I told her that imo it wasn't a safe thing to do. Well I might as well have made a sandwich board with the words 'Worlds Shittiest Mother!' on it and made my sil wear it. I had no idea she used this method either and I was surprised to see just how angry she was with me. No word of support when a strange lady takes it upon herself to stick stuff in my childs mouth but plenty to say about my distaste for such methods. I don't think she ever forgave me.

YANBU - I found it a lot in the early motherhood years.

It helped me find the 'oh - do fuck off' switch in my head which I'd been previously unaware of.

I also remember having to comfort a total stranger in tears in the street because a random little shit had turned round to her and had a total go at the poor mother because of a totally normal - though not one I did - parenting choice of giving her baby a dummy.

Take all this crossness about children, weddings, holidays etc and multiply it by a trillion and you are in the bonkers parallel universe that is horse sports.

YANBU!

Which brand of nappies you use is a very funny one.

Well well. Didnt realise that that was what was happening.
Heck, their lives must be..., and here I cant actually think of what they can be like.

"But your balloons HAVE to match your nail varnish."

I dunno, some of the examples are just petty, but balloons matching nail varnish is worth fighting for.

MrsDV :took it personally that I didn't put DD on carnation milk
?

The things i have done or do which my mum has not/could not/would not - which royally piss her off:

Holidays abroad
Enjoying a drink
Having more than one child
Having a car which is not an 'Estate' model
Having more than one husband (not at the same time of course)
Having long hair
Managing to loose weight
Not guilt tripping my children into doing or behaving a certain way
Having an answer machine
Holding hands with my DH in public
and most recently
Having white sofas which are too low and 'look like beds in a squat'

surely MN would have to shut down if this wasn't the case?

Choice of school is another one, not state v private just which local school, because obviously if you chose school a rather than school b, which they chose, you are saying they chose a shit school that is not good enough for your child.

Re: choice of school, try taking your child out of school to home ed them! I did this and nearly lost my best friend over it. She constantly made digs, got very, very upset with me. It was as though it was a criticism of her decision to keep sending her DD to school, which it never was. I still teach in school part time, so have never been anti school and have always been very careful to say it was a circumstantial choice. However, it still upset her for some reason. I couldn't see why it mattered - her DD didn't even attend the same school so it wasn't as if it was an implied slur on her school. I barely saw her for a long time; it was just too stressful.

5 years on and she seems to be more or less over it but our friendship was very rocky for a while.

"Having white sofas which are too low and 'look like beds in a squat' "

:o

But do your balloons match your nail varnish?

Even a squat should uphold certain standards?

Thank you for this thread.

I am amazed at how expert some people become in things they don't do!

I got the "humph. You never see babies nowadays without one of THEM stuffed in their mouths" from my granny recently. It was the first thing she said on meeting my baby.

I just don't get it.

But I do want to know about carnation milk. Who feeds that to babies?

My ex boyfriends DM was bewilderingly angry when I went to university. Apparently there was 'no need to' now that I was together with her ds. She had chosen to give up her place at university when she married he DH.

I scuttled off quick, and needless to say dumped ex in my first term - don't think I could cope with a MIL like that (also had to dump him as at the age of 18 he had to call his mum at work to find out how to make cheese on toast)

I did lose a pretty close friend due to taking DD out of school, musicposy. We went from families holidaying together to her screening calls and ignoring emails. Said not a word to me after I told her what we were doing. Another mum (an aquaintance rather than a friend) turned her back on me every time she saw me for a year or so afterwards, and seven years down the line, still won't say a word to me, even when we're in the same group of people.

Other people are weird, properly weird, I've decided.

I've never wanted children and at almost 38, single, diabetic with a wonky menstrual cycle I doubt I ever will. The judginess of some people is breathtaking, like my lack of desire to procreate is an afront to their decision to have sprogs. Which is pish, I love kids just don't want one of my own.

athing of course my balloons match my nail varnish! Good god. I may have squatish sofas but there's a line even i wouldn't cross.

My ILs too with the Carnation Milk, I think it might be 'forrin' thing.

MIL has moved onto the grandson now, meaning I have become some crazy woman ranting to DS about how not a drop shall pass that child lips

Not that I'm assuming MrsDeVere's ILs are foreign just for our family I think its to do with coming from the caribbean.

What is Carnation milk?

My mother seems to be the opposite from so many others'. My Ma worked (not full time, I have to say - but she did the odd bit of supply teaching and once my youngest sister was about 13 she did 3 days a week until taking early retirement at 53 - probably about 7 years).

Now however she is always at me to be working more, taking more responsibility, etc. A position of significant responsibility has just come up in the school I'm in and I casually mentioned to her that a member of senior management had quietly suggested I apply for it. She is very aggrieved that I don't bloody want to, thanks. I'm already out the house for approx 10 hours a day, marking/planning can often add another couple in an evening and I like what I'm doing fine. She is very aggressive and has said to me, 'You should be doing more! Your children are growing up and you have no excuses. It's pathetic to decide you don't want to'

I've got 5 Dcs - aged 7 -20 and I'm knackered enough, thanks, Ma. She appears to take it as a personal insult to her, as you say!

Oh fluffy...mums are the worst.

Mine was absolutely gobsmacked to discover that I don't get up before DS does most days.

And that I don't keep a showhome.

And that I don't want to start and etsy shop.

And that I married a quiet man.

And that I am not leaping all over myself to paint the nursery for DC2, who is due in May. I'm just not bothered yet!

And that I bothered to conceive DC2 at all, given that DC1 is "so perfect,any other DC will just be in his shadow."

And that I take naps.