To sometimes feel like a brusque tweedy old lady on MN

[Imogentlasting]

I'm not that old, but some of the views on here really astound me. No one touch my child (on a thread I started); Christmas is just for me and my little unit, no relatives allowed; how dare an elderly person park in a P&T space; etc etc etc

AIBU to sometimes think the world is slowly going mad?

I love this thread... that is all

Senpai exactly! I'm sure there were times when someone came near my precious babies with a cold and I thought oh god no and steered them away but that was more than made up for with all the times lovely people did engage and yes shock horror touch my baby even if it was fleeting

We all want to raise 'rounded' children and whilst we should be teaching them about stranger danger, we shouldn't be making them fear the whole of the human race.

As for the pic, this is me and my bf with our permanent expressions of "what is the world coming to..."

The embarrassing thing is that people have said my voice sounds like Joyce Grenfell - when I'm not even trying to be tweedy!

Echo again the worry that considerable numbers of women are learning how to act at the MN school of nastiness. I shudder to think of any dil of mine thinking that she was quite justified in ostracising me because that's what MN wisdom said. Some people will be horrid anyway, but there must be a few ditherers who have had their opinion swayed or altered here. In fact I'm sure I have. I'm more critical of dh for a start!

I get the christmas thing, it's lot's of women saying no to standing in the kitchen for the entire christmas period, that's progress!

I quite like standing in the kitchen - how else do you escape the pil?!

I live in Scotland and here's its perfectly normal to strike up conversation with random strangers in supermarket queues , go over to admire a baby in a buggy, sympathise with the parents of a tired and emotional toddler etc . Almost everywhere I go with my kids, I end up talking to a " stranger " , usually another woman with kids .

I always assumed the the hysterical " OMG an old lady looked at my child, she must be a paedophile" posters on MN live in some big city like London with lots of violent crime and they have learned to be terrified of everyone .

The ones that leave me completely bemused are the threads where everyone claims to never leave their children in the car when paying for petrol . I never ever in RL seen anyone take their kids out the car and walk them across the forecourt . Where are all these people who live in fear of abduction from parked cars and exploding cars ?

< a sorry to be so serious and fail to post photos of my moustache >

Don't get the wife/ Christmas thing. My DH, and tons of DHs I know, are obsessed with Christmas cooking. It's a well known phenomenon, a la Gavin & Stacey Christmas special.

I live in 'violent' London, and have always assumed the hysterical posters are in leafy suburbs where contact with people outside their gang is less frequent. I guess we all make assumptions.

I knew I wasn't alone! Im only 35 and I feel like I should have my support hose and proper lace up shoes on already.
I grew up with a single mother and grandparents who had a twenty year age gap between them so I had a very old fashioned upbringing of three generations input.

To my mind the change over recent years is not a decline in a sense of community. It's that these days people have much greater freedom to select their own communities, particularly with the assistance of the Internet. As a result people can live completely within their self-selected communities and this seems to encourage an intolerance with the general community. It's insiders vs outsiders.

The odd thing is the amount of rage it generates. People feel they must be able to express this publicly rather than tutting to themselves and thinking "well I suppose we all have our ways".

at drizell

Dunno where they are from them. It must be the younger generation < sucks teeth >

shudders draws curtains

missed a comma in my stage direction - sorry.

Which reminds me, I just (politely and flirty/ jokily) pointed out to the hipster at our local coffee shop that he had mis-spelled pecan. I wonder whether there will be an aggrieved AIBU on hipsternet.com?

There just seems a real lack of kindness amongst some posters. No you don't have to do anything for your relatives, but basic human decency matters.

I blame the telly (now is that a tweedy start), but it shows you a constant stream of "perfect' families, christmas, relationships, etc.
The only realistic telly relationship i can think of is 'rules of engagement' and i think they are meant to be dysfunctional.
I grew up watching bill cosby be this super dad, and comparing him to mine, well no man could match up (esp. Not the real bill cosby).

This lack of toleration also stretches into relationships, 'my partner did one stupid thing not sure i can ever trust them again', how on earth can you expect a human being to go 60-70 years without making at least 6 stupid mistakes, i don't accept shit but i do allow for mistakes.

Is anyone reading the thread where someone wants to set a trap for their new cleaner to see if they steal anything?

I think lots of women put up with too much in their relationships. So I think the advice on here is often good.

Yayy! I think I've found my people. I don't wear tweed but I do wear dragon knickers.

I had a mumsnet moment yesterday. We were walking along the prom and came upon a mum changing her baby's nappy. He was laid on a little blanket with a sunshade to keep the scorching sun off him. He would probably be about two months old and he was enjoying waving his legs and arms about. You could see he was having a really joyful moment and i was really enjoying watching. He was a little dainty thing with a tiny little nappy on and I said to DH look at that gorgeous little baby.

Then I thought we looked really Pervy and had better move on.

Sad isn't it :-(

I know Dowser. My later father was enjoying an innocent stroll in his local park one afternoon and a small boy pointed at him and said 'look, there's a bad man'. He was really upset about it. Some idiot mother had probably told the child that all men walking in the park on their own are 'bad'.

These women do so much harm, not only to their own children, but to society and community.

I'm not one for wearing tweed, but I think this just about sums up my feelings towards many of these people...

Several threads at the moment where I really want to ring Malory Towers and ask them to send a coach down to collect a few posters.

A term of well aired dorms and being hacked around the ankles with hockey sticks would do wonders for their precious sense of indignation about trivial things that don't-actually-really-matter.

Octavia, I'm with you on the kids in cars while getting petrol!

Starched sheets and early nights all round for the younger generation I think. And by younger I mean under 40.