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?

Oh phew. I was beginning to think it was just me. And that I was bringing my kids up to have no sense of personal autonomy or boundaries.

It just feels a bit depressing that I should be growling like a maternal Rottweiler when an older lady from the nearby fold wants to pat DS2 on the cheek. God forbid she might be feeling lonely or missing her own grandchildren.

Happy to be brusque and tweedy, though I'm 26.

What a shame the phrase 'count your blessings' has gone out of fashion

Agreed. Live and let live could also do with a comeback.

I'm not a big fan of Christmas but I do think it's about compromise. I think many of us would like to shut our doors and ignore the whole bloody thing but you have to take other people into account.

My MIL had her MIL every year for Christmas even though she was bloody hard work. She just felt tolerating it was a nicer feeling than knowing she'd be at home alone. In her mind mind compromise was part of the spirit of Christmas.

I had pil come for Christmas for over ten years. Bloody hell, I've earnt my passage through the pearly gates.

My gran came for Christmas every year, even though my mum found her hard work. But she wouldn't have left her to be alone on Christmas day.

emotions you've hit the nail on the head for me. When I moved to NI I was pleasantly surprised that people would coo over children, and give them coins. I said to my dp that the whole attitude to children here felt very Indian.

I'm glad of that sense of community. I had an allergic reaction when DS1 was very young and I had to basically shove my ds at a neighbour who could look after him till my in laws got home. I'm grateful that I can do that with any of my neighbours if I had to again.

Checking in at the brusque tweedy old battleaxe hotel. Ridiculous how common sense gets shouted down by our culture's wishy-washy permissive bollocks. Must be a joyful existence for everyone scrolling through a comments section with the quilted jaw of the perennially offended.

JacobFryes......... my babies made a fortune when I used to take them out for walks , well 50p for "the sweet shop"

NI sounds more like my childhood.
And I fully intend to turn into an old battleaxe that reprimands other people's children in public.

I'm not tweedy but I'm oldish and enjoy the odd brusque retort. Some of the threads on here are baffling! My DD isn't a mumsnetter but I often discuss the pottier threads with her, just for a reality check. Thankfully we pretty much always agree, so I'm not sure age is anything to do with it.

You know, I was on a thread the other day, not here, where a load of us were having a good moan about PMT in all its crampy craziness, when we were told (not by a trans woman I hasten to add) that talking about menstruation was transphobic and we should modify the conversation so that it wasn't about the experiences of cis women. It was a conversation specifically about periods and no one was forcing anyone else to join in or not. Madness.

I don't think things have changed at all, if I listen to my grand parents we are actually A LOT more relax than they were.

What changed is the chance to express yourself completely anonymously and be brutally honest. You wouldn't be able to tell people exactly what you think face to face, because you are polite, not trying to be nasty, not completely unreasonable, there are thousands of reasons why you you are diplomatic in real life - but the forum allows you to drop the nice act for a change.

Things really haven't changed that much, look at stories of village hatred that lasted for generations!

Shoving a finger in a baby's mouth, or kissing a stranger's baby, is really out of order

A bit unusual to do that, maybe, but the baby will survive the experience. Yes, the world is full of nasty germs but human beings are remarkably resilient. Unless we are immuno-compromised we will survive being touched by other human beings. This applies to babies too.

completely agree, it is getting daft on here!

I read it as "burlesque" too :o

On the other side of the non child friendly UK point - there are a shocking number of anti-child threads on MN, in which kids are referred to as little shits etc. and people complain about being able to hear neighbour children playing in common areas...

There are also weird threads in which family members feel cheated because their sibling or sister in law or adult child is not handing their newborn baby over to them to have "to themselves" for several hours at a stretch or overnight - the other side of the "a baby is not your personal toy" coin - a baby is not a toy at all! For the extended family to insist on "having a go with" any more than for the parents to become power crazed or neurotic over.

The people who feel that anyone whose kids play with other kids is negligent as kids should be locked indoors or packed into the car and driven to expensive attractions having compulsory "family time" at all times that they are not in school are another odd group.

There's the full spectrum on here - with an unrepresentative number of people at every extreme and fewer in the middle than in the general population, I suspect.

*communal is perhaps more the word I meant, rather than common... I have been on threads where a majority of posters felt children should be kept quiet in their own gardens during the day

Can I join in please! I agree wholeheartedly with all this thread! Thing is... I am old, DCs are now adults (where's the time gone?!) been here 10 years and sometimes I just think I should stop posting because the world seems to have gone mad. Then I think... nah, its MN.

I feel I should walk around with my head bowed when out in public because I am old and I might smile at someone or heaven forbid look and smile at a baby. Sometimes I feel like getting in my boot and waiting for my family to find me, then having a meltdown because they didn't realise I was there

I dread becoming a MIL because I think I won't be able to do right for doing wrong. Taking photos - watch out, there might be a child in it 500 yards away. Don't offer anyone your seat unless they are older than you. Don't say anything to anyone in the supermarket queue - you're bound to offend. The list is endless

Or even a bit of peace and love, eh?

After reading Mumsnet i apologised to my cousin as I had only had her daughter as a bridesmaid and not her son as well. She laughed and said no apology needed (I am on the autism spectrum so am often offending people accidentally).

I am not all that old (under 50) but busy channeling Joyce Grenfell doin one of her monologues with increasing frequency.

My recent bugbear is the really frighteningly intolerant driving threads where someone posts that anyone having the temerity to drive at the speed limit or -gasp- under it is an incompetent driver who should be hanged, drawn and quartered. These threads gather support and the things people have done to other drivers who annoy them that they are prepared to boast about is horrifying. No thought for the old, the inexperienced, the foreign etc who sensibly limit their speed. One thread excoriated some lorry or van driver for doing this and it turned out OP didn't even know the vehicle in question is limited to 40mph by law.

I suppose it is an insight into the kind of people who nearly killed 2 carloads of my family last week by overtaking 3 cars on a blind, uphill corner for the sake of a few seconds advantage.

Aw, I feel a bit sad reading this. I was one of those on your other thread Imogent saying I didn't like it when people touched DD as a baby, but I don't see myself the way this thread does at all. I always have MIL and BIL to me for Xmas (and new SIL this year if she wants to come!), was never precious about handing DD round to friends and family when she was little, never minded people stopping for a chat - to this day I'm happy to chat to strangers wherever we are, me and DD are forever making friends in the supermarket queue! I gratefully accept help offered and equally would go out of my way to help a mate or family member if they needed it. I like to think I'm really easy going actually.
I just didn't like random people touching my baby, especially the face! I didn't think that made me some kind of terrible, antisocial, rude little bitch but maybe it does it's not all or nothing - I can be a perfectly nice, reasonable person while still having a (maybe slightly irrational, I don't know!) aversion to this one thing.
hops down off soapbox and hides

What's wrong with this thread?!

Sometimes reading MN makes me want to sit and sob quietly, "why can't people just be nice?"

The number of people who seem to think the world still revolves around them. Nope, sadly not. There's still family and in-laws and colleagues and all kinds of other people to consider.

OliviaMumsnet really? you're going to pick on this thread with all the other three million insane dodgy threads out there?