Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To feel at times that I live on an entirely different planet to other MNers?

508 replies

RozDoyle · 11/09/2017 23:49

I'm not criticising. This place is great. I have had some amazingly advice and support from people here and it's brilliant. But sometimes i feel like I live in a completely different world to a lot of posters here. I probably won't articulate this very well but I'm going to have a bash.

Examples:

  • little boys in dresses/the whole "gender neutral" thing. Literally all the parents I know irl just dress their kids in clothes typical to their sex i.e. Boys wear "boys clothes" and girls wear "girls clothes" and nothing is ever said about it. I have never seen a little boy in a dress, for example, because they'd likely be told not to wear a dress in case they were teased. Sad, but true..
  • parents who cook every single meal from scratch. Always mega healthy and nutritious, and talk about it like it's the norm. In my world, most parents work and are simply too busy to cook from scratch every night (or too tired). No one "batch cooks" at the weekend. Its just whatever they can chuck in the oven after a hard day.
  • how quick people are to shout "LTB". Now I should emphasise that I am not talking about cases of violence, cheating etc. But things like, a husband not pulling his weight around the house. In my experience, most people can't, and don't want to, leave their husbands, to whom they have children, for issues such as that. It's an extreme solution and it makes me wonder if these same people would really walk out of their marriage over such trivial matters.

I'm sure I have loads more examples but I can't think of them right now. Just wondered if anyone else feels this way?

OP posts:
Itsgoodforthegarden · 12/09/2017 22:19

I don't have a microwave either Grin

treaclesoda · 12/09/2017 22:19

But until that son is 17 years and 364 days old, he shouldn't be left unsupervised because he wouldn't know what to do in an emergency Wink

Amaried · 12/09/2017 22:20

Can I please add the thing about making people take off their shoes coming into their house. Maybe I move in dodgy circles but honestly I don't know anyone irl who does this but on Mumsnet it seems to be very standard. I find myself looking at the soaps checking to see if the characters are taking off their shoes every time they enter someone's house( they don't) to ascertain if I am completely crazy.

missiondecision · 12/09/2017 22:20

I do cook from scratch most nights.
I decided to dress and buy gender neutral toys for my child 18 years ago way before a big fuss was made of it.

I'm the least likely to fit in anywhere but don't feel mn is as alien as some people are purporting it to be.
Except washing gross things in the dishwasher, never met anyone who owned up to that.

missiondecision · 12/09/2017 22:21

Oh and shoes off at the door happens here too. Very common where I live.

Unihorn · 12/09/2017 22:24

I've just thought of another random one. Whenever the need arises to leave a child in a car for 2 minutes (paying for petrol for example) there's immediately a suggestion that it's dangerous because the car could spontaneously combust.

ssd · 12/09/2017 22:25

yeah treacle Grin

all the gender crap is a load of utter nonsense, it's a big marketing tool, nothing else

Parker231 · 12/09/2017 22:26

I'd never heard of batch cooking until I came on this site - it's the last thing I'll ever be doing. My weekends are precious and I'm not going to be spending it in the kitchen.

I'm a rubbish cook - not very interested, luckily DH produces good meals but we buy anything which makes life easier for us both working ft so ready prepared vegetables, chopped onions, bags of salad, jars of pasta sauce, jacket potatoes from a box! When friends come to dinner I buy from COOK. Online shopping is my best friend- delivered right into the kitchen!

Life is short - make it easy and don't worry about it.

missiondecision · 12/09/2017 22:26

I think the problem with paying for petrol now and leaving children is that when you lock the door, the child only had to sneeze and the alarm goes off. Dilemma of leaving car unlocked, locking it and alarm sounding or just taking the child with.

ssd · 12/09/2017 22:27

sorry but WTF is a gender neutral toy??

Coastalcommand · 12/09/2017 22:28

Nicer, easier and cheaper for me to cook 'from scratch'. Also I find ready meals have a lot more calories in smaller portions than I make myself.

missiondecision · 12/09/2017 22:29

ssd the fuck is..... not a doll, you know for "girls" or a car for "boys". It's not hard to understand.

Beebee7 · 12/09/2017 22:29

lets not forget that other MN rule, when a child, usually male, turns 18, they wake up on that day a fully formed adult with all the sense and experience of a 40 year old and anyone who doesn't is totally vilified

"my son (18) needs a lift home in the dead of night from the roughest part of town, there's no public transport, what should I do?"

"jesus christ my 7 year old regularly hitchhikes back from there"

Don't forget they hitchhike through shark infested rivers, and crocodile infested lakes, and 13 foot deep snow!

Your posts are making me PMSL @ssd Grin

I used to take my daughter to school and back. It was 3.5 miles and took 10 minutes to drive there. By bus, it would have taken her an hour and a quarter. (Walking would have taken about the same.)

So 20 minutes of her day vs 2 and a half hours. Not rocket science is it? What's more, the route for walking was a mix of lonely woodland paths and a very busy A road. And that's without the risk of bullies, muggers, abductors, and getting soaked in the rain.

Yet, I was vilified weekly, by people who were more than happy to let their kids go by foot or by bus. (Even people who were home all day and had a car.)

I was not.

I am not saying I am a better parent, just that I chose to take her myself. I did the same when she was at college. Took her there and back. So shoot me.

DrawingLife · 12/09/2017 22:30

Yes to "LTB".

And the other thing I've never encountered IRL is how many ppl seem to detest having guests and bristle at any kind of effort to make friends feel at home in their house. I thought that was the whole point.

But OTOH I also honestly don't anyone who doesn't generally cook "from scratch". Simple weekday stuff, no three course meals, mind, but I'm baffled to think what kind of ready meals people eat every day. The cost alone would put me off.

But that's what I enjoy about MN. I get to hear about so many way people live their lives.

Beebee7 · 12/09/2017 22:30

@Amaried
Can I please add the thing about making people take off their shoes coming into their house. Maybe I move in dodgy circles but honestly I don't know anyone irl who does this but on Mumsnet it seems to be very standard. I find myself looking at the soaps checking to see if the characters are taking off their shoes every time they enter someone's house( they don't) to ascertain if I am completely crazy.

Same here. I am not aiming this at anyone - but the very few people I know who insist you take your shoes off before entering their house, are utter bellends. Utter, pretentious twats. The one couple actually have a house that is a complete shit-tip. The carpets are grimy and have never been cleaned in the 25 years they have been down, and the house stinks of soup and sour cheese.

It is very unwelcoming and rude (IMO) to demand people take off their shoes. Unless it is severely wet and muddy. Then I would imagine people would offer to take their shoes off anyway!

Beebee7 · 12/09/2017 22:32

I mean, people have doormats, outside AND in the hallway for people to wipe their feet. Why do they need to take off their shoes?

ssd · 12/09/2017 22:33

but mission, all kids play with whatever is available, my boys had dolls because the neighbours had dolls and they shared their toys just the same the boys walked around pushing prams and the girls had sword fights...what's the big deal, kids will play with whatever's there

all this proclaiming it's now called gender neutral is just nonsense, why do kids need to be so controlled and labelled, can't we just let them get on with it?

Henrythehoover · 12/09/2017 22:35

I don't eat ready meals but I don't cook from scratch most of our food comes from jars and tins

ssd · 12/09/2017 22:39

maybe I should be patting myself on the back because I choose my kids bedrooms to be gender neutral, when really they were painted yellow because I liked the colour

tis could run and run, I've been right on and mega trendy for years and no bugger told me

Henrythehoover · 12/09/2017 22:41

My boys have a Barbie pink bedroom for no other reason than I can't be added to love everything to paint it. My daughter has blue come to think about it guess I'm more with it than I thought.

Henrythehoover · 12/09/2017 22:41

Assed not added

DrawingLife · 12/09/2017 22:47

Re. the "gender neutral" thing,

I am concerned that the relentless colour coding in every aspect of childrens' lives is limiting and completely unnecessary. It would be good to remember that most of it is for marketing reasons, to make ppl buy more stuff. A toy is a toy. Let the children decide and don't brainwash them into prescribing for them what they should like.

I honestly think that part of the whole "transgender children" issue is down to the fact that the categories are so extremely narrow these days (at least in every visual clue they get) that children who aren't drawn to what the world tells them is "for them" doubt whether they belong to their own gender at all. God help a boy who doesn't like football, monsters, dinosaurs or rockets. And as a little girl I'd have been aghast at the assumption I would find cupcakes, butterflies and flowers particularly interesting.

mummmy2017 · 12/09/2017 22:50

Oh and if you mention something on here, you would never do in Real life, as you want to vent, so you don't say it to the person, and you get told how horrid you are, and that you must be nasty in real life. when one one would ever say that to you to your face.

Sienna333 · 12/09/2017 22:51

I find it exhausting on here at times. The bitchiness, the nastiness for the sake of it and the fact that some posters delibrately take an OPs post and twist it into something else. I am planning on posting a lot less. I just don't find it friendly or welcoming here.

AngelaKardashian · 12/09/2017 22:52

I've just seen "why are you so skint, does your DH not work?" on another thread. I know I'm breaking rules here and this will probably be deleted but I just had to share it. If any post has ever made me realise that some MNers really are on another planet, that is it!