Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

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:
singleandfabulous · 13/09/2017 13:06

wiltingfast I shop once a week for meat/fish, fresh fruit and salad etc. then supplement that with veg grown in the garden and basics like eggs, yoghurt, cheese etc.

I'd forgotten about the shoes off/shoes on debate. I'd never been asked to take my shoes off before when I entered a house until I went to Sheffield. I thought she was joking as she was wearing stilletoes. Confused

The lack of driving puzzles me too as it seems to go hand in hand with being vulnerable and isolated unless you live in a major city.

skyzumarubble · 13/09/2017 13:09

I didn't want family visiting for 24 hours after my babies came home - they had been in NICU for 5 weeks and we just needed to breath.

I cook on a Sunday for four days for the week ahead - I don't object to ready meals but I dislike them and know that I can do it better myself. It's also cheaper.

I wash my towels once a week, if not less, pyjamas can easily go over a week.

One chicken does one meal not a whole week's worth.

I love my mother in law!

Showandtell · 13/09/2017 13:37

. I don't know anyone who doesn't assume their child has a fair shot at Oxbridge.

Shock
dustarr73 · 13/09/2017 13:51

Oh yes the mythical Mumsnet Chicken.That you get 6 weeks out of.

I need 2 chickens and I'd be lucky to get 1 dinner, never mind 2 .

IfNot · 13/09/2017 14:26

We take our shoes off in our house, and most people I know do too, but I'd never ask anyone else to! I'm up north too..is it a Northern thing?

IfNot · 13/09/2017 14:29

I doubt ds has a shot at Oxbridge (although I would love him to). I'll be happy if he makes it to 20 having stayed out of jail and not got anyone up the duff.

formerbabe · 13/09/2017 14:35

My favourite is when a poster is skint and looking for ways to make money and other posters suggest "take in ironing".

TipTopTipTopClop · 13/09/2017 14:51

I know, showandtell. I had a friend who had a pretty sustained breakdown when her daughter did not get into Oxbridge.

treaclesoda · 13/09/2017 14:54

I think that when you live somewhere with very limited, or no, public transport, it's hard to grasp how anyone can manage without being able to drive, unless they are constantly begging for lifts. I live in exactly that sort of place and before I toughened up I used to find myself being the taxi service for friends who had no concept of the cost of running a car.

I have to pinch myself sometimes when people talk about missing their bus and having to wait for the next one. In most places that I have lived if you miss your bus, you miss your bus. There is no next one. If you don't learn to get up and leave the house when your alarm goes off, you're going to not just be late for work but not make it there at all.

VioletHaze · 13/09/2017 14:54

I do often feel very naive when reading the relationship board. I start so many threads thinking the OP is mad and why on earth is it ok to start hacking her DH's phone and surely normal people have people of the opposite sex on FB and then...affair! Based on MN there must be hardly any monogamous marriages left out there!

And I've never encountered anyone in RL who's marriage has ended due to prostitutes but that crops up all the time too.

streetface · 13/09/2017 14:57

I wouldn't answe my door to a complete stranger at 2am when I have 3 little children fast asleep and vulnerable.

Apparently that makes me selfish Hmm

I also don't wear shoes round my house and guests take their cue from me and don't traipse dirt in either. That, apparently, makes me not a real life person but a weird mumsnetter living in a parallel universe who is 'precious' Grin

TipTopTipTopClop · 13/09/2017 15:01

My favourite is when a poster is skint and looking for ways to make money and other posters suggest "take in ironing".

Sounds like a fairly shrewd plan for making some quick cash to me!

VioletHaze · 13/09/2017 15:01

I sort of want to take some kind of survey on the shoes on/off thing. I'm sure it must be regional.

TipTopTipTopClop · 13/09/2017 15:08

I sort of want to take some kind of survey on the shoes on/off thing. I'm sure it must be regional.

Nothing deflates me more than turning up to a dinner party and being asked to remove my shoes.

brasty · 13/09/2017 15:16

I also have never known anyone whose marriage has ended due to the man using a prostitute, but I am guessing most people won't advertise it.

CoughLaughFart · 13/09/2017 15:42

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

You see Santas, this is the problem. You say this like it's fact, yet in the same post you a) mention that you live in the rural Midlands and b) talk about London like it's another planet.

Of course non-drivers are rarer in rural areas. I, on the other hand, live five minutes walk from a direct train to central London, 15-20 minutes walk or a short bus ride from three Tube lines, have no private parking (and would have to pay for a permit to use the street) and until recently worked in a very busy city centre location with no parking. A car would be a ridiculous indulgence for me. Yet I dared to point this out on a 'Why would an adult not drive?' thread and the response was 'But what if you want to go to a country pub?' Seriously?

dustarr73 · 13/09/2017 15:50

I dont drive and the people of Dublin are eternally grateful.

Oh another thing is the automatic assumption everyone Who posts live in the U.K

treaclesoda · 13/09/2017 15:56

dustarr not just the UK but England.

I remember a few years ago a poster from N Ireland posting about a problem she was having with her child's nursery and people were getting increasingly irate with her because she wouldn't contact Ofsted. But Ofsted don't operate here. No matter how many times she politely explained that there was no Ofsted, she was repeatedly met with this Hmm and snotty comments about how if she is in the UK, Ofsted will inspect her nursery. No, they don't. But some people just wouldn't be told.

Chickenkatsu · 13/09/2017 16:04

"We take our shoes off in our house, and most people I know do too, but I'd never ask anyone else to! I'm up north too..is it a Northern thing?"

Once when I was visiting a friend of a friend's house she told me to take my shoes off, so I said OK and I stood on the mat to take them off and she said no, I don't want your shoes on my mat (which was outside) so I had to hop around taking them off outside.

Chestervase1 · 13/09/2017 16:18

To all the posters who feel like teaching a child to swim is a chore, having them drown because they haven't been taught doesn't bear thinking about. Teach your kids to swim

LBOCS2 · 13/09/2017 16:19

CoughLaughFart exactly. Neither my DH nor DSis's DP can drive. They both grew up in z2/3 London, in households where there was NO spare money. Even if they'd scraped together the funds for lessons, they wouldn't have been able to afford to run a car. I only bothered learning when I left London to go to university - and realised how shocking public transport is in some smaller cities! DH will learn, but we still live in London so it's still not a priority.

I do think that the shoe thing is becoming more mainstream. 5 years ago it wasn't a thing, and now whenever I have people over (estate agents etc) they all offer to take their shoes off coming in through the door.

maddiemookins16mum · 13/09/2017 17:36

We don't wear shoes in the house, well...let me quantify that. We walk in with them (after work etc), but then take them off (and put in the shoe rack by the front door). We just wear slippers in the house.
Me and DP went to dinner (supper/tea etc) at a friends the other week, kept our shoes on, but her husband sat in shoes all night. When we have friends round I just wear my slippers - it's made me think if that's odd.
We'd never ask people to take their shoes off (unless obviously really dirty).

LadyinCement · 13/09/2017 17:51

I think the most normal shoe behaviour (well, I would, wouldn't !?) is what I do and take off shoes in house, and sort of expect others to do the same. BUT - being polite - if someone leaves their shoes on, I wouldn't say anything.

Twice I've been asked to remove my shoes. I was collecting dd from her friend's house - the family is Chinese. There was much agitated pointing at my shoes - I was only standing in the hall! The other person who asked me to remove my shoes (I was going to anyway) but provided some lovely soft woolly slip-on boot things was Swedish.

Sienna333 · 13/09/2017 18:15

I learnt to drive last year but if it wasn't for the fact it makes life easier what with having a DD, I wouldn't have bothered. I know a few others my age or older who don't drive. If I lived in a secluded, rural area it would be a necessity but I live in a place with great transport links so not an issue.

Want2bSupermum · 13/09/2017 18:19

dustarr The best is when you say you are living overseas and then you are accused of stealth boasting. It's not a stealth boast if it's a fact and sometimes what people think is glamorous is actually exhausting and requires you put a smile on your face while you get on with it.

Swipe left for the next trending thread