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

[RozDoyle]

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?

I dont get why being judgy on here is a sin

everyone judges, we all know it

everybody wears judgy pants

being told to hoick them up is stupid, hoick up your own...

Everyone who comes to my house just takes their shoes off in the hall. I have never asked anyone to do it, they just do. I wonder if it's regional?

i feel thats as well op and also double standars for men and women if a man does it there is total outrage but if a woman does it its not a problem.

When what I feel is that women can be dragged over the coals in all directions, but if there is one single dissenting voice on a thread started by a man, someone will pipe up "It's double standards it is!"

I boggle at the way money is chucked around

"Just put up a fence". A modest garden fence can cost £600 to get put up. "Install gates / bollards etc etc"

Last week I saw a poster ask advice about what luggage to buy her family for their first ever trip abroad (this might tell you they are not wealthy!). She wanted to buy 5 cases. A poster advises some brand of luggage and links. 5 average sized wheely bags would have cost over a thousand pounds.

Even these cure-all-Ill spa days freely recommended cost a LOT.

Human beings on a forum differ because they are individuals. Shock! Horror!

camper I found the style and beauty threads about handbags costing more than a car when the person asking is clearing not in a position to afford that just beyond offputting.

Fine if you want to spend a fortune on a handbag. Not everyone does or can afford to. Heck my bag was $80 discounted from $300. I will probably use it for the next 10 years to feel justified spending so much on a bag when there are plenty of cheaper alternatives.

Oh and my DC are clothed in items they like to wear. DS has never asked to wear a dress and DD doesn't like to wear trousers. I just got her into leggings because it's hard to find tights warm enough. We go shopping in a second hand store. They are allowed to pick anything they like. As long as it covers them, is in good condition and isn't offensive they are allowed to wear it.

In the six years of raising our DC I've not thought that what my kids wear has any affect on their aspirations. Instead I focus on reading, making sure my DC see females in traditionally male jobs (many more females are in typical male jobs here in the US) and that everyone who makes the mess is responsible for cleaning up the mess.

Quite frankly what my kids wear is so far down on my list I wish I was the parent who was worried about gender neutral clothes.

I sometimes think that every mother of every child at Eton and similar prestigious schools must be MNers, given how many are on here (TBH it does make me think better of those schools.... )

The things I have never (or very rarely) encounter(ed) in RL;

People who genuinely don't get annoyed that the last parking space anywhere near their home has been taken by someone parked to get the train or bus in to work. They are happy to lug shopping and/or small children from 3 streets away as long as the visiting car is "legally parked".

Parents who encourage their DCs to be gender fluid or gender neutral. Maybe it's regional & this hasn't hit the rural Midlands yet.

Adults who can't drive are very few and far between. It's usually for a medical or other good reason when they can't.

I also hate the "get a better paid job" response to any thread about financial hardship. Maybe that is possible in London, but here jobs have definite salary ceilings. If you are trained to do X and earn X then that's the pay you'll get. Earning more will require further qualifications and/or a career change - which doesn't really help the immediate problem!

I hope Eamons' post is a response to Worra's post.

Threads about swimming always really get me. They are full of people whose kids were swimming in toddlerhood and doing "their mile" at 6. I remember one poster humble bragging about how their 6yo had "only" done 600m because they were "a lazy little thing."

Meanwhile, in the real world I don't know anyone who started swimming lessons before 5, and a lot wait until the school lessons and just try and teach their kid a few skillz in the pool up until then. Few kids I have known can actually float and propel themselves independently in the water without a float or armbands before 6.

I find swimming a huge time suck--everything from packing the bags up to dragging the kid to the pool to dealing with the stupid lockers and never having the right coin to lugging all the soggy wet stuff home afterwards and laundering it all.

What I love about MN is that you learn something new every day. I learnt from this thread that you can buy FROZEN pastas bravas, did not know this was a thing!

I learnt from this thread that you can buy FROZEN pastas bravas, did not know this was a thing! smile

Get yourself to Lidl during Spanish Week!

DS2 (now 16) as a toddler loved his play kitchen and pushing a Fimble around in a doll's buggy. He also liked playing with Hot Wheels cars and wooden railway.

At the time I didn't give a second thought to what he played with and nobody ever commented.

Now I feel the dolls's buggy/kitchen would be seen entirely differently because such a fuss is made.

I have learned from this thread that I may not be cooking from scratch because tinned tomatoes, stock cubes, scrambled eggs on toast and stir fry don't count. I even buy the ready chopped stir fry and chopped chicken so that's clearly wrong even though it's still fresh food. I don't use curry paste though, but only because I always forgot I had a jar in and would end up with 6 open jars in the fridge so I learned to make my own in small quantities and it tastes nicer. I don't use ready made pasta sauce anymore either because it always tastes strongly of celery and not much else.

Maybe it's because I was born and raised in pretty extreme poverty in a rough as fuck area with a pretty chaotic and neglectful home life, and now live in relative financial comfort, surrounded by fairly affluent families, and have pretty much lived through all the in between stages too, but I don't find much shocks me on Mumsnet.

I used to live with and beside people who ate only frozen - farmfoods and iceland, or sometimes a chippy, wouldn't have thought to cook anything other than mince, and kids were allowed unlimited fizzy drinks and lollies, none of my family members or neighbours drove and the very occasional family who had a car were 'rich'. About 60% of the adults I knew (including family) didn't have a job, and the 40% that did worked in 'the factory', a shop, the buses etc, arguments on buses, and fights in the street were commonplace, and that was totally normal to me.

I've also lived beside people whose houses were like show homes, shoes strictly off, all meals cooked from raw ingredients, children under four not allowed fizzy or sweet things except maybe cake at someone's birthday, everyone had not one, but two cars, and teenagers were coached to have their license within a month of their 17th birthday. Everyone owned their own homes, and worked in highly paid professional positions, unless of course you were a SAHM, and that too, seemed normal to me at that time.

I, now, personally mostly cook 'from scratch' but we have the odd jar/oven chips. My kids really only do drink water, except if we eat out when they're allowed lemonade (my eldest is 13) We restrict screen times, I mostly drive the kids places through a combination of safety and convenience because most places are difficult to get to otherwise. The people around us are a mixture of renters and home owners, some people expect us to take our shoes off on entry, others don't. We have friends who are more, and less strict when it comes to food/kids drinks/screen time etc. Again, this is totally normal to me.

Oh, and I do suffer from diagnosed depression and anxiety, as well as ptsd and complex trauma syndrome, so I have complete sympathy for mh issues, but do think that 'I have anxiety' gets bandied about a bit too easily.

Anyway, maybe it's not normal to think like I do, but there are very few things I see on Mumsnet that I find all that out there or shocking. Everyone's life is very different.

I'm relieved to hear a pp mention the swimming! I find it a massive drain too and progress seems pretty slow tbh!

Oh yes, the swimming. My 11 year old still can't really swim despite years of lessons in a range of settings. That's pretty much child neglect on mumsnet, but no one has been able to tell me how to actually force her to be able to swim.

When I was in the uk I didn't really know anyone whose dc below six or so could swim proficiently, however here in Australia, you are pretty much classed as slack if your dc can't swim at least 25m by about three, and most five year olds can swim three strokes, quite well. Just the lifestyle, and for safety as water is such a huge part of it.

Swimming lessons are a relentless, expensive, monotonous, but non-negotiable weekly chore, here in NZ.

Same treaclesoda. I am saving for one to one lessons because endless group swimming lessons are not going in! I too wonder how just can physically force a child to float goddamnit!?
What always astonishes me on MN is how organised some people's lives are..with the batch cooking, the sewn in labels and the specified days for cleaning (eg bathroom every Monday). I probably do know a few people like this, but personally I cook whatever needs using first in the fridge, scrawl names on clothes labels with a marker pen, and clean things when they start to look nasty.
I agree with pp that a lot of the things people say they do, are actually the things they wish they did.

The good thing Ifnot is that it doesn't usually take many private lessons to make a massive difference so although they can be expensive, you might find you don't need many.

I find the gender neutral thing completely bizarre (everyone on MN seems to know a lot of people who are transitioning as well - not me). Here in my world, people dress their boys like boys and girls like girls, although the more middle-class ones assiduously avoid moving too far down the boy or girl spectrum.

I feel a bit like a fraud when I serve frozen food. I don't know why. My husband and children don't mind.

I too am baffled by the school gate drama. I've never exchanged words with anyone through school, ever.

Oh tiptop, massively outing myself here, but I was actually assaulted by a mum bully in the school grounds, in front of parents, students and staff. She was charged with two counts of assault and my children and I now have an avo (restraining order) against her. Now for a pretty well to do, but ordinary just outside the city primary school, THAT really is probably alien to most!!

Sometimes I read the Style and Beauty threads and think I have entered an alternate universe. I don't have a capsule wardrobe.. I've never bought a key piece..I wouldn't know a good cashmere if it slapped me with a wet haddock..I've never bought from Uniqlo or Cos and I know bugger all about "the right cut". To be honest I have never met anyone else who does either. I'm mystified.