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 think some things have changed as time and the demographic have changed...when I first came on Mumsnet it was very much full of very educated, reasonably well off women- cleaners, Boden, degrees- as you might expect from people with easy access to the internet when it was often stilll dial up, on a site started by a (guardian?) journalist in London.

So, like thecatfromjapan, a lot of people will have been at uni in the 80s and possibly been quite feminist, and had to cook from scratch as ready meals and jars barely existed!

And now their children are often grown up so users are likely to be younger, and the site is bigger, and everyone has the internet, and people's experiences are different.

At one point there were a lot of parentsnof children with SN, probably because they aren't often stuck at home, and it was really useful and supportive- now to me that seems to be less the case, but as a pp said there are lots of people with anxiety, poss for similar reasons.

So mumsnet culture has changed, the real world changes, we see more variety of users (I hope!). But there is the risk of it all tending towards the lowest common denominator, and the good stuff getting lost in the noise.

Many posters, to me, sound young and inexperienced of life.
And I think it is these who glibly suggest LTB etc without fully taking in the repercussions of that.
I also suspect that some threads are writers looking for copy and a bit goady. I wouldn't blame them either as you get such a range of responses with some from experts in the field (though that would need checking).
The only advice in my day about life/ marriage/ raising children was from one or two books written by people whose lives were very different from mine. I think MN is great.

I'm frequently at the families that appear to live together as flatmates - as in, "why are you doing your DP/DC washing/cooking/shopping " etc. I'm all for a fair distribution of Labour but it seems some people can't do their family a favour. And the way every DC matures overnight when they hit the magic 18 - no thought for DC with MY issues, social anxiety, physical problems or just late developers.

MH not MY

I open more threads about people who are on their absolute uppers, rather than those who are conspicuously wealthy.

This thread shows - perhaps - that there are more of the latter than I'd realised.

i think the tendency to load everything into AIBU has meant that the less dramatic threads, with excellent advice, in the topics are overlooked.

Nit everything needs to be sensational.

But if you really don't feel you fit well with MN, then perhaps it's time to look for a site where you do feel more at home.

The attitude to teenagers can be quite strange. They should do their own washing and cooking and you should never do anything for them at all, or they will end up growing up useless human beings.

But from a practical point of view it only takes one person to sling the washing in the machine and press start. And unless you have 2 kitchens only one person in the family needs to cook at any one time.

"And I think it is these who glibly suggest LTB etc without fully taking in the repercussions of that"

Often happens when there's an influx of new posters. They don't realise the nuances of MN and some jargon.

That's not meant to be a pop at MN newbies, btw. It's meant to be a description of what happens when newcomers encounter an established community idiolect, and it happens in all sorts of societies.

Numeeous examples but one of my favouites is when people innocently say that they are expecting a second child and do they need a double buggy.
This folliows wuth numerous people saying that once your child can walk you should abandon the buggy and should be able to march at least 2 miles at a brisk pace by their second birthday

Most parents i know need to get actual places and have kids that get tired. Not to mention the question of where you put all the shopping

I don't move in particularly rarefied circles but all of the things mentioned in the OP are the norm here tbh.

The only time I feel that way is conversations about cheeky fucker neighbours, people who are rude out of the blue and the poster has an amazing off the cuff come back, and school gate politics. Most of the posts complaining about the latter forget that the vast majority of parents at some point go to the school gate. Not all of them can be arseholes, unless the only non arseholes are the ones posting on MN?

I would recommend a buggy board in that situation AJP.

I am just wondering how you clean your toilet then, do you done rubber gloves and get stuck in?

I'm with you!

Farrow and Ball paint.

I caused minor uproar once by suggesting that Wickes cream paint would do the job just as well as f and b sour milk.

I backed away slowly at the reaction.

Class reps
I have had 3 daughters through primary school. Never once has anyone suggested such a thing. Collections for presents? Not once.

Or when they shout divorce the husband because he forgot a school application! Oh please!

You can't beat B&Q Ivory. Never even seen any F&B paint.

I've never seen any thread with LTB over chores. Only for control, outright abuse, violence, drink and prostitute use. It's a cliché that it's used for everything, but I've not seen it.

I cook from scratch every night because most of my midweek recipes are around 30-45 minutes and I enjoy it. We're not as mythical as you think, it's just the difference between people who know how to cook (so it's easy) and people who do not know how to cook (so it feels slow, laborious, complicated and unsatisfying.)

I know how to cook. I just don't enjoy it.

sparkingbrook I have seen many many arguements and fights on buses and been invoked in one with another buggy user . Not so much since leaving London!

I would love to see an argument on a bus Red.

One involved adult human faeces and we had to leave the bus more sick face than envy

Eww. Maybe not in that case. Maybe just a minor altercation.

One was a very prim and proper elderly lady who started to shout that a teenage girl was a dirty cunt for putting her feet on the chair

And academic reality vs mumsnet world.

I do appreciate that in some circles such as medicine you genuinely need to constantly get A grades.
But for the rest of the world people do turn into fully functioning adults with good jobs even if (shock horror) they have b and c grades.

Only A* grades and RG Universities. Everything else is pointless.

I'm scared to start any threads on here now as every time I do I get jumped on and made to feel like a shit parent.

If you read any post in 'relationships' most are told to LTB, Dh left the toilet seat up, LTB .

The boy/girl clothes thing I do not get, just dress your kids in what ever you want and stop making a big deal about it.

The school uniform rules threads, my poor johnny has been sent home for wearing the wrong shoes, read the bloody rules before buying shoes rules are rules.

No the 'my step child is driving me nuts' threads, oh he must be a evil step mum for not loving someone else's child, she should leave or just put up with it .

Got to love MN