to have mumsnet insecurities

[deliverdaniel]

i am aware of the irony of posting this on here. Maybe I'm a masochist.

I find that although I often get good advice/ reassurance on here, mumsnet can also often make me feel very insecure. My biggest flash point insecurity is people posting about badly behaved children and how useless the parents must be. Eg when a poster says something like "I can't believe it when people let their toddlers have tantrums/ touch things they shouldn't / behave naughtily etc etc. My toddler invariably regularly does ALL the things they mention and I feel totally powerless to stop him even though I do my level best. I feel as though my children are pretty badly behaved, at least by mumsnet standards and it makes me feel massivevly insecure when I come on here and like a rubbish mum.

Do you have a mumsnet insecurity?

ha! totally missed the white front door thing! WTAF??

I'm not bothered by many of the stereotypes because they don't fit me at all. My pubes may be down to my knees but I wear makeup. My DCs were really difficult but I parented them pretty intensively. They are now delightful. I'm laid back about academic achievement and time off school, but sent them mainly to independent schools.

It's actually the doggy people who say that unless your dog is bombproof it should never be off the lead who I get most anxious around...

Oh and I've got a white front door but live in a vair big house.

I've got a blue front door, my house is tiny, my garden is huge!

Although I'm single after 20 years with an abusive bastard, I don't feel at all jealous or bitter about all the lovely DPs I read about here: husbands who are caring and considerate and often helpful and sweet and attractive and real genuine partners, it just restore my faith in men and women in general!
However, when I read about people who run around with the hoover every evening (especially using that phrase, which seems to imply slim women being effortlessly tidy ) and people generally who do more housework / fun outings to castles than I do, I feel shifty and uncomfortable. My house is tidy, and my kids have trips out, but I know I could do better. Maybe that's a good thing though, if it motivates me to plan more fun outings / clean the oven?

its; really interesting (sorry if that is an insensitive word) reading about other people's insecurities, as it takes the heat out of my own a bit. For eg, I don't really feel insecure about housework- my house is probably a tip by some peoples' standards and immaculate by others (although prob kidding myself abotu the latter) but for some reason I don't feel insecure about it particularly. Whereas the parenting thing really gets me down- feeling like a bad parent no matter how hard I try. It does make me feel a bit better to know that everyone is probably insecure about something.

"slim women being effortlessly tidy"

From the outside I could pass myself off as this.

While I love living in a clean and tidy home, this requires skill and constant work. And being slim, while more or less second nature to me now, is a skill it took me years to acquire.

OP I think you're right that MN can ignite lots of insecurities.

I find that the specific boards that I tend to stick to - e.g. pets, travel etc are much less "judgey" and people offer genuine advice with caveats that OPs life might be different. AIBU and relationships can feel like they're full of GFs! It can be hard though when you're looking for advice and a thread gets derailed e.g. when a poster asks about A and incidentally mentions B and everyone piles in having a go about B and the poor poster never gets their advice.

I have this. Let's shorten it to 'MNI'

I stupidly braved a thread asking if I was wrong to not know much about how the voting system works (not Politics - which is something I do know a little about).

Anyway, I got TOLD OFF!! 33yrs of age and I got told off for not Googling it and told to "Get off MN and onto Google!"

It's all make up free folks with their pubes hanging out at the pool, who make a chicken last seventeen days and feel rich whilst living on six grand a year but love a bit of boden, oh and like to call everyone a cunt.

Oh my God I don't bother with make up anymore.... And I have a fairly low income...is this me?!

I started off on a particular health issue board due to my health issues. What caoraich says is true- there are more helpful boards. I've very rarely come across judgey people on the one I often frequent, and it helped me feel less alone in my parenting struggles, as generally others were struggling too. There are loads of us on here with flabby bits, filthy houses, with kids who they can never get to do their homework, who see just surviving another day an achievement And before any judgey pants step in I am not looking for homework advice/judging- thanks that's between me and the kids primary schools.

It's the dog threads where the amateur dog behaviourists and sofa vets give advice and judge other people's ability to bring up their dog that annoys me. I have had dogs all my life and think I, pretty good at keeping them - they have all lived happy, healthy, long lives - but I know find myself worrying whether I'm walking them enough (I got 3 lazy retriever types who would object very strongly to be walked for several hours twice a day and often go a whole day without a walk but just potter around the garden).

Also, as someone who struggled to have children and didn't actually have any until I was 40, I do find the threads bitching about childless women and calling them immature etc etc to be a bit tiresome.

Yeah ... AIBU is the worst. Most of the specialist boards/long running threads are much nicer.

I think there are a lot of arguments where both sides are feeling like a failure - make up etc is one, but so is SAHP vs working parents - one side feel boring/not contributing any income, the other feel like neglectful parents who don't see their kids enough. Both feel like the other doesn't appreciate how much hard work it is! Then there's those supervision fights where one side feel like helicopter/overprotective/neurotic parents and the other feel like selfish/entitled/neglectful/lazy parents. You can't win.

cheerfulmuddler yy to the helicopter vs benign neglect ones! I veer between the two, constantly second guessing myself and end up using mn posts inside my head to justify feeling rubbish about both! I think I need to chill out a bit:-)

I'm mainly a lurker for just this reason OP.
For me the worst are the food threads where I feel like I'm abusing my family for feeding them the regular foods you can readily buy in any supermarket. Like FISH FINGERS! WHITE BREAD! YOGHURTS! And the portion sizes - oh lord!
I am setting them up for a life of reinforced beds, bariatric surgery and diabeties because they don't eat off special child sized plates. Imagine! I must be one of those people who have completely lost sight of appropriate portion sizes.
Those boards are always so emotionally charged and full of GFs.
I still click on them though. I must be a masochist.

Oh also YESto MN head posts!

I bought the DCs Boden t-shirts recently (huge discount in sale; refuse to spend so much money on things they'll inevitably destroy). Went to a castle in a very middle-class area on easter monday and the DCs pranced about in their matching Boden and I had one of those serene/smug "I bloody well fit in here, I'm like one of those women off Mumsnet who've completely got their shit together" moments. Then DS1 (who is 11 and possibly should know better) rolled down a huge hill at the side of the castle right into a cow shit, covered himself in bovine waste and ran about shouting "there's shat in my hair, actual shat" while DS2 (who is 6 and thinks nothing's funnier than poo) laughed so hard he wet himself.

We did not fit in. We are not Boden sorts. My smug-MN-winning-parent-face lasted all of three minutes. Because it's all a load of bollocks; that desire to 'fit in' is nonsense.

whoooami ha! Love that story :-)

Damn Scarlett, I thought you had some magical formula!

OP to answer your original question I constantly think I should LTB because he doesn't do half of the housework and childcare even though we both work FT - I am obviously a complete pushover and I should insist he and DS (who also doesn't do much housework) should do 75% between them whilst I go on a Spa day - everyday!
Thankfully for DH I have my own mind and don't listen to what everyone on MN says about their DH's (and kids!) - although I do tell DH how lucky he is to have me

I sometimes feel like a bit of a shit grown up, especially when dealing with my toddler. I try to do what feels natural and have done since she was born, but sometimes I'm really not sure how to react to things she does or that other children do to her. It seems like some people just know the right way to behave in life. I've never known the social "rules", I tend to need things spelt out to me.

I'm not completely useless and she's turning out well so far (even if I do say so myself!) but I feel very unsure at times. I get the impression on here that most people just know what they are doing while I'm constantly having to try and work it out.

See, I do feel like I'm doing okay when it comes to parenting, but ...

I have a husband. I only have one DC, and he's pretty easy-going. He doesn't (fingers crossed) have SN, and neither do I. I don't have any pets. I'm very lazy when it comes to housework. I can afford a regular babysitter and cleaner.

And I still regularly want to tear my hair out with frustration.

But I mean, it's no wonder I have lots of time to do stuff with him, is it? That's got nothing to do with any skills I might possess, it's completely situational. I look at some of the stuff people on MN have to deal with, and I marvel. I think some of you lot are doing an amazing job, and I'm not talking about the people at castles in Boden either.

WhooooAmI I actually did laugh out loud at that!

There's shat in my hair, actual shat!

You have a point, OP.

I sometimes think that AIBU in particular is full of people who could start an argument in an empty room.

I saw the thread on depression. Sad. Also, the one where the OP was venting about whether or not she would be able to claim child benefit turned into a real bitch fest.

Ha! I checked in with the one about whether someone could bring a baby to an adult party. Flipped through to the last page- someone was calling someone. Dickstain and saying he/she should break off all contact with their family. That escalated quickly!