MN and assumptions...

[MrsOverTheRoad]

There are so many, forgive me if I miss any..

"Can't you just dip into savings?"

"Haven't you got anyone you could ask to babysit?"

"Isn't there a friend you couldask to help out?"

"There must be something in the freezer!"

"Claim it on your household insurance"

"Book annual leave"

I know that some people lead quite narrow lives but the amount of assuming that goes on here is astounding,

Not everyone has someone to babysit for them...not someone they trust anyway."

For some people, insurance for the house or contents is an impossible dream.

And so on.

When people say these things they are trying to help

But are you really that daft to think people hadn't already considered those options?

Angel I think it can depend.

Poster says they are struggling to keep on top of housework with a new baby

The advice "get a cleaner" could validate the poster's feelings or make the poster realise it's ok to struggle and to outsource jobs with a new baby - I never knew how prevalent (or affordable) cleaners, gardeners can be for normal people until I discussed it with a friend. I thought, because I was on mat leave, everyone would expect me to do it all.

Often it's more about bouncing ideas around. When I had my first baby I knew no one with kids so being able to "chat" about stuff was so lovely, even though I could have come up with the ideas myself.

Agreed it's the way it's said.

You can just do x, surely? is a common one where it's completely obvious IMO that not everyone could do x.

My fave is 'why aren't you working full time?' To a poster who's on £1000 a month.

Yes Donut or people posting that they are skint and can't afford food and posters saying why don't you just use your overdraft or credit card is it so inconceivable to some people that others can be totally overdrawn and have maxed out their credit cards and when they say they are skint they mean they don't have anything ?

but can't help but think leaving my 8 month old with a paid babysitter so I can go out at night would be unfair on her and a worry to me.

Why on earth would it be 'unfair on her' ?
I acknowledge that if you are a very anxious person, then it could be a worry to you, but it certainly isn't "unfair" on a baby to be left with a lovely babysitter for a few hours. What an odd thing to say.

Given that labour might be any time in a window a few weeks long, including the middle of the night, and I might have to go in with a couple of minutes notice, I want to be confident I have someone who is willing and able to care for my DC for up to a few days. I am not going to leave that sort of thing to chance.

which is exactly why people suggest preparing in advance - you know, making friends with people.

Why are you so intent on making people's worries sound trivial when they aren't?
No-one is making them trivial, people are offering solutions - which you seem intent on fighting.

In my book, as long as you aren't harming anyone else in the process, people are entitled to live their lives as they wish, but what we are talking about here is people posting on the internet, to ask 1000s of strangers to try to think of a solution to their problem. This thread seems to suggest that those posters kind enough to offer suggestions shouldn't be allowed to, unless they've done a full background check on the OP, and ruled out any circumstances under which their suggestion won't work.
Obviously there will be some things that won't work. But I agree with posters who are saying that a lot of the times, the people replying have no way of knowing that.

For some people, insurance for a house or contents is an impossible dream.

Fixed it for you so it applies to the UK rentier paradise ;)

polar but why isn't it ok when somebody posts from the other end of the experience range? If you take your example and somebody posted 'get a grip, stop being lazy and pathetic, it's really not that hard', you know that most people would condemn it. They wouldn't just say 'oh yes, they are just posting based on their own life experiences where cleaning and a baby would be a breeze and therefore it is a valid response'.

I don't think people who don't want to leave their babies with paid strangers are overly clingy or the like. I spend 99% of my life with DD as LP relieved by DM for 8hrs one day a week, if I go out; if not DM will peck me with questions and rope me into parenting anyway... I once left DD at 6 months with a paid babysitter sourced through a childcare site. I went out for 4hrs in the evening having dinner with someone (inc travel time). I didn't feel very relaxed and my mind kept wandering to DD. So I didn't do it again, just didn't like the way it felt. Then again, I wouldn't post saying I had no childcare as I know there are options available - it's just that I don't like those options. Plenty of babies go into nursery very young with working mums. It's personal preference, I don't judge either way.

I think that it is very hard for anyone who is on MN to give a short answer to a brief question raised by an OP WITHOUT making some assumptions....or perhaps it is impossible to conisder every single possible eventuality/context/attitude that the OP might have when giving an answer.

In real life, when people ask us a question, we usually know them or can at least see them and so have more information to base our answers on. We all make assumptions when answering even if in real life and sometimes these are wrong. Even in RL with people who in lots of ways are extremely similar to me, I am sometimes surprised by a different attitude they reveal that I would have never expected. Likewise, when I am asking for advice in RL, sometimes people make assumptions about me or my attitude or give advice I would never follow in a million years. However, I don't get annoyed by this or cross that they have made wrong assumptions...I just find it a bit interesting and sometimes surprising.

I guess OP is saying that assumptions about income and wealth are annoying. People who have a secure safety net behind them or a regular income and who don't know people who don't often find it hard to conceive that others might not. I guess those more affluent people might equally be entitled to feel annoyed if everyone assumed that everyone else was hard up or didn't work or whatever.

In the end, most of us have a fairly narrow range of contacts and experiences. We know there are people who are out there who live very differently, but not everyone has had personal, close contact with a range of people, and lots of people struggle to empathise without that personal contact. OP may struggle to empathise with posters who raise their struggles about which luxury car to buy or whether their child should go to boarding school in the UK or abroad....and the answers she, or others with no experience of such issues might make may show a lack of understanding of the issues facing parents making such choices. So, for example, many people answer questions about boarding schools and make comments about it being cruel or parents being cold who end their children.....this is making assumptions and shows no understanding of the reasons why people might use boarding schools. Those OPs who have raised the question might feel a bit irritated too.

In the end, it is good to be a bit sensitive and to appreciate that on MN we may well be interacting with people who do have very different life experiences to ourselves. However, and this is my crucial point I think, we are not usually having a deeply and carefully thought out discussion with a close friend on MN, but skimming a thread and adding off-the-cuff thoughts on a topic, very quickly before moving on and not giving it much more thought. OPs need to be aware that this is the reality of an online conversation and therefore not be too overly sensitive to the answers given. They might be a bit thoughtless, but to expect loads more from casual passers by online, who cannot know the full circumstances of the OP or cover every possibility, is probably unrealistic. So people who get annoyed at responses they receive, are possibly being over sensitive or expecting too much from a casual online forum.