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?

You have to pay someone to drive with you on public roads? How do they regulate that? When I was learning, my mom sat in the passenger's seat, I sat in the driver's seat, and I drove us on the public roads.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/02/uk-driving-law-versus-us
Stef

An American's reflections on passing a driving test in the UK.

couthy anyone over the ages of 21 and having held a licence for three years can supervise a learner driver on a public road. It is just that the chances of you passing a test without proper professional instruction are minimal.

ComposHat. Your article made me laugh.

As someone upthread said, some people just can't learn to drive. I have been learning for 18 years (on and off), spent ££££ and have failed numerous times.

Also, as for getting your mum/friend to drive with you - i do not know one person who would let any un-licensed driver drive their car. Even when i offered to pay my dad's insurance he refused. You all must have very nice parents. There was no way in hell mine were letting me loose on their car.

So yes, driving would make a vast improvement on my life. But we are saving to buy a house and i just don't see how we could justify the cost for what is not likely to be a successful outcome. We don't even own a car so that would also be an added expense too.

I get told to 'just learn to drive' often. But it's just not that easy.

The learn to drive one particularly annoys me just because it gets wheeled out so often in response to OPs that aren't actually about that. Sometimes there's a general "FFS, just learn to drive..." attitude behind it.

With a time machine, I would go back and learn at 17. But as a time machine hasn't been invented yet, I'll wait for someone to come along and tell me they'll do the childcare while I learn.

Yes, totally agree. It also annoys me that everyone just presumes you can drive or your circumstances are the same as theirs. Yesterday i was on a thread about how much time you spend a week on chores, i said about 6hrs on food shopping. People then gaffaw how can you possibly spend that long shopping? (obviously thinking of the 5 min drive to the shop, filling up the car and driving home). Erm because it takes 30 mins each way to walk and i can only carry a couple of days worth of food/a packet of nappies/small milk etc. so have to do it every other day.

But what annoys me more is not the big radical suggestions but the more mundane ones which make presumptions on a persons resources. For example, another one i was on yesterday about a DH bringing home extra washing. Everyone saying oh stop making a drama out of it, just hang them on the bannister, or outside, or in your kitchen... I live in a flat (no bannisters or garden) and my kitchen is 3 units and a cooker in the corner of my lounge. It's the annoyance that you are choosing to make a drama out of something, when you could obviously just have an easy solution like that. As if the poster is stupid rather than constrained.

Good point, MrsKoala. Generally people are asking because there isn't a tiny simple solution like that!

(We also spend about the same time a week shopping. I like it! Walk in the fresh air, mooch around the shop - supermarket, butcher, bakery - go via the park on the way home. I like the excitement of not meal planning )

LTB, go NC with your family, cut off your friends! yes there is a place for this with really abusive people but we're all going to be pretty lonely if we're expecting other people never to make mistakes. Oh and ffs learn to drive, even if you are on the minimum wage and you have already failed your test 8 times.

It won't be lonely drudge - you'll always have MN. We're your friends now. I just need an evil grin smiley.

Couthy said you have to pay someone if you don't have someone willing to help you learn to drive. Not that you have to pay someone to drive with you the public road. We don't all have willing friends with a car to take us to a parking lot or out practicing.

Also you have to get insured to drive on the public road which costs a fortune when you don't have your licence. I would have thought this was also the case in the US??

Also don't they drive a lot of automatics in the
US? My first 15 driving lessons were me trying to work the clutch and gears!