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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

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

96 replies

CruCru · 18/02/2013 18:11

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.

OP posts:

MrsDeVere · 18/02/2013 20:15

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

gwenniebee · 18/02/2013 20:18

YABU. My NCT group (which has been fab and very supportive) is just having its first test of this as we are beginning to think about what to do with the babies when/if we go back to work. Nursery vs Childminder, and WOHM vs SAHM are rearing their ugly heads. I like to think we are open minded enough that we will support each other's decisions...

I must admit, though, that if I discover that someone I like or admire has wildly differing views from me on something I hold important, I can find it a bit upsetting. It tends to be really quite big things, though, like someone dismissing my religious beliefs in a scathing and insensitive manner.

On the topic of balloons and nail varnish, however, surely everyone knows that!

CheerfulYank · 18/02/2013 20:18

And that it is lovely that she is purchasing a lavender tutu/flower headband set for not-yet-born DD, and yes I will happily put DD in it for photos, but day to day DD will be dressed in onesies and leggings.

AThingInYourLife · 18/02/2013 20:23

Ahh, like the Famous Five used to have.

SashaSashays · 18/02/2013 20:23

Its evaporated/condensed milk, was quite popular here in the 1960's & 70's for babies or so says my mum when I mentioned this to her, but it still seems to have a following in certain parts of the globe. I've tried to pin MIL down on exactly why it is so superior to anything else but.....

With every new baby she's in there like swimwear, reminding me DH and her other children were raised on it.

SashaSashays · 18/02/2013 20:24

x posting, must read all posts before posting!

fluffyraggies · 18/02/2013 20:24

Aw, cheerful. I found the general bad feeling from DM around me having more than one child really difficult to handle actually. It was the beginning of me seeing her in a different light :(

Hey ho.

IfNotNowThenWhen · 18/02/2013 20:26

Oh God my aunt is like this about everyone's babies/children.
She did things in a very specific way and is unequivocal about it.
If someone says they sleep with their baby "WHY would you wan't to do THAT?" When ds was not "sleeping through" at 8 months "MOST babies have been sleeping though for AGES by this age"
She rang me recently to tell me how she was" VERY worried" about my brother and SIL'S baby because " I am SO worried.SIL is feeding her all the time and she is very unsettled. I don't think she is getting enough to eat"
(niece is a proper bruiser of a 3 month old, getting bigger by the second..)
If I have any kind of discussion with ds about something he doesn't want to do , she says (in front of him) " he wrapping you round his little finger".
(He really isn't.)
Drives me mad.
Especially as her kids are not actually particularly happy or well adjusted people, so it's not like she can claim to have made no mistakes...

sudaname · 18/02/2013 20:26

I dont work anymore, been looking after elderly parents for years so not been able to hold a job down really as been so demanding - harder than going to work ime.
Now my dad has passed away and mum is in a care home nearby and l dont actually need to go to work as get a reasonable pension from a previous employer and got a bit of an inheritance from my late brother which l invested wisely and I also sell a homemade craft item on ebay which brings me in a few bob.
Also l'm mid fifties and have worked hard even doing two jobs for many years and worked continually up to a few years ago from being 17. Then as l say full time carer for two demanding elderly parents for four years.
I keep getting the catsbum face when people ask me when l'm going back to work and l tell them possibly never.
Also the way they ask me is almost accusingly. They follow up then with the same question a few weeks later when l next bump into them as though surely l will have realised by now l have to go back to work.
One woman even said to me aghast 'But you've got to go back to work, you cant just sit around doing nothing, that's lazy'.
Chance would be a fine thing she says whilst mumsnetting.
I mean what gets me is am l living off them, directly or indirectly? - no. Am l expecting them to keep me ? - no.

CheerfulYank · 18/02/2013 20:33

I think mine will come around once the baby is actually here, fluffy. She hung up on me when I told her I was expecting DS but a few months later she was beyond excited, and now is ridiculously besotted with him.

Plus, she lives a five hour drive away so boundaries are easy to enforce. :o

crazycanuck · 18/02/2013 20:33

People who are born and bred where I live right now get like this whenever I mention that we are moving back to my home country. I have actually had people get all huffy and go 'Humph. Well, does your DH (who's born and bred here) want to leave?', like we hadn't discussed it , and then I've been ignored by them for the rest of the evening.

Original poster

CruCru · 18/02/2013 20:37

I once had a very involved discussion with an ex BFs mum about why has cookers were better and why she would never have a combi boiler (one you need to turn the hot water on a few minutes before having a bath). We were living in a rented flat and didn't have any choice, even if I had agreed with her.

OP posts:

itsakindarabbit · 18/02/2013 20:40

I had anacquaintance like this. Chatting about what to get our dc as theywereboth turning three and she csts bummed me for saying we were getting a bike- they had chosen a scooter for their ds. Lovely but i just fancied a bike but she would not shut up trying to talk me out of it,ffs.

Mind you, thinking back, i am fairly sure i didnt even have balloons at my wedding,so what do i know???

PoppyWearer · 18/02/2013 20:46

My MIL is like this about her DD's parenting decisions versus mine. She will spend hours trying to justify why SIL did things a certain way (usually the polar opposite of what I did), and why the way she did things was --better- good.

Whilst I think that some of the decisions SIL has made are a shame, because they are motivated by selfishness (DH's view, not mine), ultimately it's none of our business and we don't really care other than how it affects PILs.

MIL does care though. Very much so.

HazelnutinCaramel · 18/02/2013 20:46

My friend had a right go at me when I gave up work after DD1.. It was water off a duck's back to me because all it told me was that she was insecure about her decision to work full-time. Her rant wasn't about my decision at all, it was actually about hers.

fluffyraggies · 18/02/2013 20:48

She hung up on you cheerful?
You're right though - she will come round.

Why does it have to be this way though?

When i fell with my 1st she said 'oh god, we'll cope i suppose'.
When i told her joyfully about my 2nd pregnancy her first words were ' .... was it planned?'.
When i told her about my 3rd she said ' .... again?' and rolled her eyes!
(can i point out i was married with my own home though all this)

DDs are teens now - and she boasts about them to all her friends. Why the unpleasantness when they were conceived? I just don't get it.

Passmethecrisps · 18/02/2013 20:49

I am appalled and embarassed to admit that I had neither balloons or nailvarnish at my wedding.

I did get told I HAD to have my makeup done professionally "you need to - for the photos"

Some of these stories are

GoldenGreen · 18/02/2013 20:56

YANBU. It winds me up enormously. Especially when accompanied by the bizarre reasoning that you are not doing it your way because you actually want to, you are doing it to prove a point/because you feel guilty/because you are brainwashed/because you want to feel superior etc.

CheerfulYank · 18/02/2013 21:03

No idea Fluffy!

Yes, she did hang up on me because she felt "too young to be a grandmother." Well, she started having kids in her late teens, so what did she expect?!

To say nothing of her phone call two months before my wedding to sob and beg me not to marry DH. Whom she now adores. Because he's not "always leaving DS." As in, spending the night at a friend's every 6 weeks or so like I do.

MrsGeologist · 18/02/2013 21:04

Am I just apathetic? As long as it's not abusive or cruel, Icould not give a monkey's chuff about what other parents did/do.

It must be tiring, getting all huffy because people make different parenting decisions.

newgirl · 18/02/2013 21:04

oh yes!! just wait til you all choose different secondary schools!

HecateWhoopass · 18/02/2013 21:08

I'm with you, MrsG. The list of things other people do that I don't give a SHIT about is staggeringly long.

MusicalEndorphins · 18/02/2013 21:11

My mother is really like this. According to her, her way is always the right way. If someone doesn't take her advice, even about something that isn't anything to do with her, she gets all annoyed. She is a real
I told you so" and "You made your bed now lie in it" type as well. She likes to complain of other peoples ways. Fell out with her friend for years over whether they would paint the walls first or clean the carpets first in an apt they were fixing up. She is a real natterer.

thebody · 18/02/2013 21:12

Yes agree with this. Why oh why do people care so much about what others do?

My single sister (with no kids )told me a few years ago that we were boring as we wouldn't go to India with her... Mmmm with 4 kids and a long flight...

We went to Wales!!

MrsGeologist · 18/02/2013 21:12

ME - clearly you'd paint the walls, the. Clean the carpets

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