to be surprised how regularly posters casually suggest an OP makes a hugely significant or expensive change to their life?

[Thurlow]

Not sure if I've managed to word that title well!

This one has been bugging me for a while. An OP has a problem, maybe with work, or timings, or travel or something. Most posters come up with reasonable suggestions that might help. But there's always someone - and sometimes quite a few people - who suggest a massive change in the OP's life, as if it's something really easy to do.

For example, the ones that stick with me are...

well, obviously you have to learn to drive - as if learning to drive happens over night, and doesn't require time, money and possibly childcare.

you have to move house/out of London - because people can just find the money to move house easily, or wants to move away from their friends and support network.

you should get a new job - this one in particularly, because we all know that that thousands of employers are struggling to fill part-time jobs with child-friendly hours that pay enough to cover childcare too...

I know this is just a chat forum, and that you can ignore any posters and advice you like - but, but, but... Does anyone else get a bit about how casually some posters make suggestions like this?

My absolute favourite of these was a thread where a poster said they were having money troubles and listed her outgoings. About £100 a month was car costs. She had 4 children to ferry to various schools, shopping to do, work to get to. She was advised to sell her car and get a dutch carrier bike. She thanked everyone but said the car was a banger, this would involve riding miles and miles daily on dangerous roads where she lived and she wasn't a confident cyclist, it wouldn't work logistically anyway with timings and those bikes have quite an outlay cost which she couldn't afford. All normal reasonable reasons. Instead of people saying 'oh well, yes i can see that wouldn't work'. The posters rounded on her. Telling her she'd been given good advice and was wilfully choosing to stay in her predicament. Posters started to talk over her saying 'some people just wont be helped will they' type of comments. The whole thing was bizarre. The more she remained polite and pointed out why it wouldn't work the angrier people got.

I think people have a tendency to universalise their own experience and assume that everyone else on the thread has a similar lifestyle/income to them. Sometimes people can't comprehend that not everyone lives the same way as they do.

I think this becomes particularly apparent on mumsnet where there are some very well heeled posters who can't or won't comprehend that things like cleaners or spa breaks are out of reach of most other posters.

The one that stuck in my mind are: 'Me and my husband are getting on each others nerves in our tiny flat.' Solution: buy a bigger flat.

I found that particularly annoying as if the assumption was that the original poster had wilfully set out to find a flat that was too small or was unaware that flats came in bigger sizes. I wonder what the person who wrote 'buy a bigger flat' thought that the original poster wouldn't have thought of that if it was a possibility. It was doubly annoying as the original poster was renting and couldn't afford to buy anything tiny or otherwise.

The radical solutions/LTB at the drop of a hat (although the knee jerk LTBers are a minority compared to the countless heartbreaking stories of women asking for advice after living with utter arseholes for decades that you get on MN) is that they don't have to live with the practical, financial and emotional fallouts from such radical life changes. So it is easy to dash off: 'move to London' when you don't have to deal with the separation from family, find a job, somewhere to live or say 'leave the bastard, for eating all the crisps/coming home pissed once in a blue moon' when you don't have to deal with the loss of income, upset children that a separation would entail.

I have NEVER seen a poster advised to leave her partner over a trivial issue. I think some of you are making that up.

I have OFTEN seen a poster who's being raped, or abused, or cheated on, or left poor, or whose husband goes to sex joints - advised by some to go to marriage counseling, to consider the good in the relationship or to put out more/arrange date nights. Especially by men.

I think that the frustration often comes down to people who ask for advice, but then throw up constant barriers to making any changes. There's no magic button to cure life's problems, so we can't give you one. Sometimes you need to think outside of the box and make sacrifices now for the long term benefits.

I call them the "Yes, But" crowd.

Moving house IS easy. Well, it has been for me, and I'm really NOT rich. I've moved across the country for work, and around the world twice. If you want something to happen, you have to go out and make it happen. No point sitting around complaining if there is a solution. They won't come to you, you have to go to them.

It's good to think out of the box! The poster can choose to ignore.

The only one I boggle at a bit is 'have you considered home schooling?'.

I know what you mean but I can see the point of the initial responders too... I don't think anyone suggesting a lifestyle change would imagine it to be done in a flash, they are just saying that is a reasonable solution to the issue posted about/ getting the OP to see they need to buck their ideas up and stop imagining there is some miracle, no-effort solution when there isn't really.

Kytti moving house was easy for you. That doesn't mean it's easy for everyone. There are many, many reasons why a glib "move house" may not be the answer, or at least not the answer to the poster's immediate problem, and it doesn't take much imagination to think of some examples of why that might be the case.

I think the ones that I'd find frustrating if I were the OP are the ones where they acknowledge in their first post that there is a long-term solution which they are working towards (saving for driving lessons/doing a part-time course to qualify them for a better job/ planning to move when DC has finished their GCSEs or whatever), but that they have an immediate or short-term problem now for which they are seeking creative solutions, and they get a stream of "learn to drive/get a better job/move house" responses instead.

Moving house IS easy

And there you have proved my point, really.

You know, the actual day of packing up and moving wasn't too bad. Moving away from family, friends, support networks...

Anyone mentioned the 'check into a hotel' ?

Oh, I can understand the "have you considered home education?" ones. Obviously not realistic for everyone but I think a huge proportion of people never consider it because it conjures up images of having to force your child to do homework all day every day which if your child is struggling with school/homework sounds like your worst nightmare but in reality it's not like that at all. Also misconceptions that you need to be really clever/have buckets of money to do it can get in the way. I think it's an option worth having a look at even if you decide it's not for you.

Actually, moving house, moving away from friends, family and support networks is easy - I've done it twice, but the idea of it is daughting. If you've never moved away from the area you grew up in, or have lived all your adult life in one area, then yes, the idea might seem like it's not an option. But for most poeple who have done it, they can say it's far easier than it sounds. If you are prepared to put the work in, building new networks is possible, it's not as easy as staying put, but if it'll solve your problems long term, it's worth the short term pain.

(this is why I think the trend of 20somethings staying at home is dangerous, you never learn how to just start from scratch if you've never had to do it).

I also don't see that it would take a year to declutter, but then when I moved before this house move (which we bought), it was always because landlords wanted the flat back or we needed extra space, so we only had a couple of months to find somewhere, declutter, pack and go. Again, if you've decided you'll stay in this house forever then it seems like an impossible ask, but for the legions of renters in this country, it's just something you do every few years, so why not go to a new area if that's easier?

Moving house is easy if a)you can afford it, b)you can sell your house, c)there are houses available in your price bracket where you're going, d)there is work available where you want to go, e)your children are going to have access to good education, f)your children aren't in a key stage in their education, g)you haven't got family commitments such as a carer's responsibilty....and so it goes on...

DH and have both moved many times over the years and don't live anywhere near family, but it's far, far easier to move when you don't have all the above - which is why the "just move house" advice is pointless unless the poster has intimate knowledge of the OPs circumstances.

As for the "home educating" - and that fits in around work, how? Again, it assumes the OP doesn't have to work outside the home, or is in a position to cut back significantly on their income.

I'm sure that the vast majority of posters mean well, but often the 'good advice' can just across as a bit clueless.

But a lot of what you've referred to are choices which the OP has control over.

There are alternatives to family-caring responsibilities, there are schools for DCs everywhere, key-stage school moves are certainly not fatal for DCs and so forth...

It goes back to whether someone is actually prepared to change significant aspects of their life to eliminate something that is making them unhappy, or whether the issue they have posted about is a minor inconvenience and they want everything else in their life to stay the same.

I'm certainly not going to judge whether someone is so stressed about the stress of the school run that they are prepared to make significant life changes or whether they are actually just venting. If they are unhappy and continually miserable, then a major life change might be a reasonable option - not clueless at all!

Yes, these are all alternatives and in some cases they really are the way to fix a problem.

But I was referring to those threads with more minor problems - working out breakfast club v childminder, annoying neighbours etc - where posters casually throw out a drastic change.

I've quite often seen threads where a mum is worrying about returning from maternity leave, how it will all work, wishing they could extend their leave for a bit, and someone will suggest getting a lodger.

Sorry, but to me that one is... How is getting someone you don't know to live in your spare room and share your bathroom really going to make your life that much better?

I am always amazed how often posters tell someone to leave their partner/husband. I am not talking about domestic violence but just a simple 'my husband snapped at me after a week of no sleep' and a whole host of posters will tell the op to leave him!

I disagree. Sometimes, the suggestions that some posters make are more likely to increase the stress or difficulties that the OP is facing - and rather than accepting their rejection of their 'helpful' suggestion - "I don't want to move my family, my son is in the middle of his Highers and has a conditional place at the local university which means he can live at home within our budget", "my Dad is very ill and I don't want to move to far away from him", "I can't move at the moment, we are in significant debt which we're trying to pay off and I really don't want to go to incur legal fees - plus I couldn't find a job in a new area as my skillset is so specialised", "I'm not in a position to home school, I need to work to keep a roof over our head, and I don't have the skills necessary to teach my DC to a high enough level as she wants to study medicine" - the 'helpful' poster becomes incensed and accuses the OP of not wanting to help themselves, rather than accepting that they are projecting their own specific experiences onto someone else.

So yes - clueless.

LTB is a good antidote to a society that expects women to tolerate all kinds of shit. More scary than LTB are the rape apologists and those who urge joint counselling in situations of abuse.

I agree with whoever said about the calls for the OP to leave the baby/kids with a useless husband and check into a spa or hotel. A recent thread saw the OP being advised to dump her baby on her husband for the weekend so he could do his share co-parenting, when the husband was suffering from some kind of breakdown and had fled the home unable to cope. Hardly safe advice.

I am not talking about abusive relationships, but we can all snap/shout/argue with our partners and time after time women are told to leave their partners for it...ripping apart their families. It is very strange to me.

But those are you're values - not everyone feels the same way about a lodger, not everyone considers them an intrusion,

In that situation, if additional income from a lodger opens up more options to resolve the issue the OP is experiencing (limited child care options, travel restrictions etc) then why shouldn't it be a suggestion?

*your