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?

I am guilty of saying "have you considered home-schooling" because I know with 100% certainty that the only other option for my children was a bad school, I would home-school them. I think people are quick to dismiss this as an option or not even consider it (it's radical, yes).

A "helpful" poster can become incensed regardless of whether the suggestion is extreme or not. That's a totally different debate - the OP is referring not to persistent posters, but to those who throw a radical idea into a thread.

Whether a "suggestion" is more stressful to the poster or not is totally subjective - what you may find stressful, someone else will handle without a flicker of anxiety.

Why shouldn't a lodger be a suggestion? Because often the poster is assuming that they have the space! It falls under the same category as "book into a spa for the weekend" - without bothering to find out if the OP has the money for a spa/likes them/has childcare/etc...

It's those "just do X" suggestions without bothering to appraise the OPs situation properly that are immensely irritating.

Ok, so it's not the suggestion but the way it's worded?

Someone saying "have you thought about getting a lodger? That could help because......" irritates you.

But if a poster said "have you got room for a lodger? If so, that could help you because...." Somehow, that is different?

those who throw a radical idea into a thread

You might see it as radical, others will see it as having no regard for what the OP wants or what is realistic for them - which comes across as you not having the ability or insight to appraise individual circumstances.

Of course the wording is key - why on earth wouldn't it be?

But surely the same applies to less radical suggestions? If what will solve a problem is a radical overhaul of the OPs life, but posters suggest minor tweaks, isn't that equally insensitive and demonstrating a lack of understanding of the significance of the problem?

How can "we" tell when a poster is open to radical suggestions and when she isn't? How do we know if a 'there, there dear' is going to leave the OP more frustrated because no one truly understands?

chenjin The 'wording' of the title of this thread is clear - the OP is referring to radical "suggestions", not posters who dictate to an OP that a complete life change is necessary.

Are all 'assumptions' offensive? Is it really a heinous crime to suggest the OP uses a spare room in a particular way without first checking that the OP has a spare room? Where does it end? I've read posts suggesting that a poster take a nap on the sofa - what if they haven't got a sofa? Is that offensive, too?

Not at all. If a major overhaul is required then it's imperative that you have the full facts before giving that advice - or at the very least, accepting and respecting the OPs rejection of your suggestion without resorting to patronising them with "why are you bothering to post then" or similar.

Same goes for the minor things - recognising that not everyone has family who can take your kids for the weekend at the drop of a hat, or the means to learn to drive, or the desire to book into a spa, or the inclination to drink a bottle of wine.

Anyway, I'm supposed to be working and keep getting drawn back to this thread instead - I am hiding this thread and the temptation NOW!

Yes, I don't understand how certain assumptions are offensive. It's not a jury, it's just a conversation.

Precisely because most people don't know the exact nuances of any OP's life some wild suggestions will be given. I don't think there is any intended harm or offense implied.

I believe if you want to post and get advice on a public forum then you must be prepared to wade through a lot of well meaning but ineffective advice to get to the few pearls of wisdom, it's just how mumsnet works

The job one can be more nuanced too.

Okay, turning round to someone who says "my job as a filing clerk isn't fulfilling" and saying "well, bin it and get a new one as a rocket scientist/Pullitzer winning journalist/cat walk model/novelist" is just plain dumb.

But often the advice to get a new job is being given to people who are being bullied at work, or whose terms and conditions are being changed so drastically that it's clear that their employer is trying to make their jobs so untenable that they resign (and constructive dismissal will be their only redress). And in these situations saying "well, frankly this is only going to get worse, not better, and there's not a lot that you as the victim of the bullying can do to change the situation - have you thought about trying to put in a couple of hours each weekend trawling job sites and putting in a few applications?" actually isn't such bad advice.

(I surprised people in a role-playing exercise on a course on workplace bullying - the professional actor brought in to lead the role-playing scenarios was playing a domineering boss, and we were asked what we would do to try to manage the bosses behaviour. I was the only one who said "start looking for another job.")

That was the solution I found to a bullying boss. Only in my case, something else happened that meant they decided to close our unit and I was made redundant. I was over the moon for a lo-o-ong time. Last week, for the first time in nearly 20 years, she was a guest star in a nightmare I had. I was being interviewed by her as she was going fucking mental.

To be fair, I've never seen "get a lodger" I've only ever seen "could you take in a lodger?" posed as a question.

Lots of these "radical suggestions" are often posed as questions, not "you must do XYZ" but "could you do XYZ" - of course not everyone can do everything suggested, but that doesn't mean they will have automatically thought about it and dismissed it. (I know I wouldn't automatically think I could take in a lodger if money was tight, but I could easily put the DCs in together and rent the 3rd bedroom ifI was struggling financially now I think about it, I think that I'd be more likely to try to find ways I could earn money myself rather than have my house make the money IYSWIM.)

Plus "get a new job" doesn't automatically have to be within the same company, I've seen more suggestions of "could you move teams/offices?" - now, this does seem to be rather assuming everyone works for a large company with multiple teams, offices, floors etc so you could move roles and therefore be moved away from someone you have a problem with.

People IRL have suggested a lodger to me...

I do think it's a good thing to get ideas that maybe are a bit radical - after all, if we could solve our own problems we wouldn't be posting on AIBU :)

The whole, 'I did it, so everyone else can, too.'

Leave the bastard is another common one!

Bertie, just wanted to say your 2044 post last night about why people don't talk, is genius and spot on.

I feel I am too slow to make changes, even when the need for them is staring me in the face, and I always feel intimidated by the threads that are full of advice like "move house" "change schools" "get a pony and trap" "why not move to a houseboat moored off the coast of Malta?" because deep down I believe that the dynamic people advising this, would do this effortlessly and thoughtlessly even in my position.

But where I feel totally awful about this, are the ones that say "get another job". I find it so incredibly difficult to get jobs! I know people that fall in dog shit and when they get up an admiring passer by is saying "how I admired your sang froid, would you like to come and work for me?" But not me. Every job I have ever had has been after months of searching, or years, and a million near misses. I am the type you shortlist, interview eleventy billion times, make do thousands of presentations, presumably for a laugh, because I am not the type who gets offered jobs. Much. So I HATE even reading unrealistic thrillers where the whole tenuous plot is dependent on someone effortlessly and instantly getting a job in some organisation. GNASH GNASH GNASH they don't even NEED that job, they already HAVE a job! As a DETECTIVE!

I'm not going to comment on the suitability or otherwise of LTB in general as I don't read many of those threads, but quite often in these debates I see people saying 'well anyone who does leave based on the advice of strangers on the internet obviously doesn't have a strong relationship anyway'.

I'm not sure that's always the case - last year I was suffering from mental health problems and would frequently get incredibly angry/upset with my partner, to the point where I would consider leaving him over what I can now see were very trivial things. Often I wouldn't talk to him about them either, the logic being 'he wouldn't listen to me anyway' (he would, and did) or that if he really cared about me he would know exactly what I was thinking without needing any explanation. The result was my frequent sulking, crying, silence, anger, passive-aggression and so on, while he was left wondering what on earth it was he'd done wrong this time. In the end it got to the point where I destroyed some of his things in a fit of rage, which was what eventually shocked me into getting help – mainly because I was really frightened that I was going to physically hurt him if I didn't.

And yet, if I'd presented this here as 'I'm not happy that he always wants me to stay at his house even though I find it inconvenient and he never makes the effort to come to mine, he always wants things to suit him and there's no point talking to him about it because he never listens' I'd probably have been told that these were symptoms of a bigger problem, i.e. that he doesn't care and clearly has no respect for me.

And of course, that's not the fault of other posters here, who don't know that the reason I stay at his is that it's next to my workplace whereas my house is an hour and a half's walk away, or that he's patiently sat through my shouting and crying many times without ever getting angry back, and another poster posting the exact same thing might indeed need to L the arse of T lazy inconsiderate B who's taking her for granted. But that doesn't change the fact that if I'd been told to do so, that might well have been enough to clear away the last nagging thought that just maybe, unlikely as it seemed to me at the time, I was actually being the unreasonable one here. Which would arguably have been better for him at the time, but it would also have removed me from my sole source of support and effectively destroyed what is now, thanks mainly to medication, the very happy and stable relationship that it used to be. I sometimes think there's a general feeling here of 'it doesn't really matter if we suggest something drastic without knowing the full story, because if she's happy she won't take our advice', without considering that maybe she's not happy for different reasons to the ones that seem obvious to people who are making a judgement based on a few paragraphs about her life.

Sorry, not sure that was actually relevant to the thread I thought it would be when I started! Also sorry that this is so long, but it's something I've been sitting on for a long time, and I wanted to finally get it out.

Some of us simply can't drive, it's not a skill everyone can successfully learn, simply by having lessons. I must get told to learn to drive at least once a week, yep, that almost head on collision when I took my second test went really well! I'm safer off the roads!

Our HA suggested taking a lodger to those facing the bedroom tax. Teir tenancies forbid taking in lodgers.

I think one of the pluses of the advice threads is that those of us with teens who have almost left home can offer some advice to them about what might happen given them making certain choices.

eg if DD18 doesn't learn to drive in the next 5 years, it might well be difficult for her to learn in the future. It is easier to find the money for just the lessons than for childcare and lessons.

The advice offered on MN, which might seem outrageous, is usually offered in good faith and does help OPs to see that there are options. It is often good to get an outsiders perspective as family and friends offering advice have their own agendas.

Sometimes the only way to improve or change an op situation is to make a drastic change like leave an abusive partner, change jobs if it's causing g you depression and declining health. No op might not do this straight away but take steps toward to desired action.

I've been guilty of suggesting someone learn to drive on one thread in particular.

In my defense, I don't think driving is as big a deal here in the US as it is there. Many of us learn in high school, it's seen as a right of passage. My son just turned 15, and he's already got the basics down.

In my state, adults don't have to take driver's education courses unless they choose to, you just grab a willing friend with a car, go to an empty parking lot, and practice until you learn it. The Bureau of Motor Vehicles provides a book to learn the written part of the test.

How much does it cost to learn to drive there? Do adults HAVE to take a driver's ed course?

Unless you have access to fully privately owned land AND someone willing to teach you on that land, then you have to find £20-£30 an hour for driving tuition on public roads.