by being utterly sick of people who post irrelevant lacking-in-empathy answers to posts from people who just want support? The whole "you should be grateful you have a baby at all" brigade

[savebraveted]

Everything in life is relative. For example, yes, it is awful for someone who is trying and failing at IVF for a 1st baby to read about someone who is considering gender selection IVF. But don´t attack the OP by bringing your own or your friend´s situation into something that is completely unrelated to you or your friend! People come to Mumsnet for support. If you don´t like the subject, don´t open the message!
Women should look for solidarity, particularly in motherhood, which is so fraught with insecurity and lack of support, and stop judging and attacking each other on a maternal forum FGS!!

"The 'it's alright for you' , 'is that all you have to worry about' types of posts are horrible."

Agree with this. All too often threads on MN become a competitive race to the bottom with posters reeling off a litany of their miseries. If you inadvertently get caught up in their stampede it's wise to quickly invent a disability or a violent husband in order to deflect their attention, else they'll circle like piranha.

TAAT has been defined further up-thread - it is a thread about a thread. Some forums prefer you to start a new thread for something like your current question, savebraveted, others, including MN prefer that you make a point like this on the thread I question.

Different forums have different etiquette.

I'm not sure being terrified to post is entirely logical. The site is immensely supportive. You will of course get nasty or unpleasant posts but, in particular when people post about sensitive issues, the support outweighs the nonsense. And of course it helps if people report anyone posting anything nasty.
It also helps if you post in the relevant sections . I have had amazing support on the bereavement board.

I think it also helps to post being prepared to accept that you will receive a range of responses. Sometimes support might just include encouraging some perspective or thinking positively. That can be hard to hear but may have been posted by someone well intention trying to help.

YANBU it pisses me off too

Should women seek solidarity? Why?

If you really want support then it's wise to stay on the specific boards such as Relationships or Bereavement.

If you go wandering into AIBU or even Chat nowadays then you're likely to get your arse handed back to you on a plate. Or at least that's what it feels like when you're very sensitive and feeling vulnerable.

One person's upbeat and pro active post is another person's cruel attack which left them sobbing.

YANBU

It brings to mind the same people who think a woman is terrible for aborting when there are 'thousands of women desperate for a baby'.

It depends where someone chooses to post.

If you choose AIBU, you need to be ready to be told YABU (in some posters eyes) and exactly why they think that.

And in any forum, you may be told what a poster thinks you need to hear (which may not be fluffy unconditional it's OK hun type of support - and there are other forums which will offer that).

If you think someone is posting beyond guideline, report that and let MNHQ deal with it.

If you think the guidelines are wrong, then perhaps you need to be in a site with different ones. It's not as if anywhere on the Internet has a monopoly.

It's fine not to like MN or MNetters. But it's odd/tactless to start a TAAT complaining about unspecified posts and posters.

Fair enough Pagwatch - I take your point. I do agree with posting in the right sections. AIBU seems to be populated by people who are just spoiling for a fight. Hence the name I guess.
And yes, of course, women should seek solidarity in times of stress and anxiety!!

Ok here's the thing

I was being a bit facetious re the TAAT

However, I do know the thread you're referring to.

The joy of mumsnet is the many different boards; places people can go for support. AIBU is renowned more for traffic (volumes of posters) and bunfights. And can be very entertaining. Ergo, people may read threads on AIBU for a laugh, to cheer themselves up. So to read something on there which is ill-placed, will cause real distress.

The person who posted had a right to; but she could have been considerate in how and where she posted, in the same way that people responding could have been less aggressive. The OP of that thread dealt with the attacks with real dignity, but could have been more considerate by posting elsewhere.

I agree with the sentiment of your thread.

But I don't have any 'empathy' for people who experience 'gender disappointment' and even less for people who would consider paying to create a baby of their preferred sex in order to ease their 'disappointment'.

So, on balance I think yabu.

MN has definitely taught me that I don't have much in common with most women.

I haven't seen the thread you all seem to be referring to, btw, so please don't take that as an attack on whoever it was/whatever they said.

I would just read it, roll my eyes, then move on without posting. So perhaps I am in agreement with your original point after all.

YABU because you should have said what you thought on the thread instead of making a new one just to share your opinion.

To the topic though - don't you think that sometimes, it's helpful to stop thinking about what you don't have and consider what you do have? I appreciate that there is a time and a place but some people, need a gentle reminder that they are fortunate and not to constantly be thinking "what if".

I have been in that 'brigade' before. I was trying point out that the OP should perhaps get some perspective, given some other people's very different experiences (with very sad outcomes) about the thing she was complaining about. I admit I was over invested, the horrible thing had happened to me. OP did not take it well. If I think about it, her reaction (complete lack of empathy) still bothers me, but I'm glad I posted. It's never as simple as 'at least you have a baby' is it, it's usually much more nuanced than that. So yabu.

Taking the thread at face value as I've not read the other YANBU

I could say YABU,but at the same time I could say in equal measure YNBU.
Gender selection would never be my thing, unless it was for a medical reason.
If a women or a couple has 3 boys then it doesn't make them the devil to want a girl and vice versa, and as heart breaking and sole destroying as it must be for infertile couples it most certainly is not anyone's fault, and do I dare have the audacity to say problem.
However I can fully understand why gender selection would infuriate a childless infertile couple.

I can fully understand why gender selection would infuriate a childless infertile couple.

I can't understand that at all. The 2 situations have nothing to do with each other (in my head). If that's what OP means, that people illogically drag their own issues into very different situations, then I kind of understand what she means about pointless undermining. It's just what people do when they think with their hearts not heads, I guess.

Friend says it happens because MNers are so ignorant (wish I could be that smug).

The problems are many orders of magnitude different.

There are stresses and joys in parenthood.

Nothing in parenting a child compares to the pain of not being able to have a child.

So I quite see that complaints about the difficulties of parenting may well legitimately be met with a reminder of what an incredible blessing it is to have that privilege at all.

So I say YABU