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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask what the strangest thing is that you've seen in a family home/life...

888 replies

purpleworms · 03/01/2019 12:06

...that to them was completely normal?

I have just seen someone asked this on an AMA on their Instagram. Their reply was walking around fully naked in front of parents/siblings/any family members.

While this is obviously okay for some, if it happened in a home I was visiting I'd be Shock but that's just because it's not the norm in my family.

I'm racking my brains but I don't think I've ever noticed anything! But people have such different ways/customs within their home lives and routines. We all regard our own as normal without ever really knowing if what's normal to us is strange to others!

OP posts:
Theimpossiblegirl · 05/01/2019 01:43

I used to think it was normal for parents to smoke weed all day, have no routine and be generally anti-establishment and was under the impression that 'straight' parents were odd and somehow inferior for being tied to jobs and houses and hindered by their material possessions and capitalist lives.
Being a child of hippies wasn't all peace and love.

AlmostGrockle · 05/01/2019 01:51

Playing Monopoly with a family who were all CONVINCED the word insert meant to take out.

MontyPants · 05/01/2019 02:03

Someone I went to college with. Her dad was very weird. He was wealthy, very wealthy, and he owned a large house in a nice area that was just sitting empty. The house was partially furnished, but the upstairs was mainly used for storage and the garden was completely overgrown. As teenagers we used to let ourselves in and have parties there. The family lived in a tiny terraced house that was absolutely filthy and smelled to high heaven. I never really understood them. Why not live in the big house? Or sell it? Or rent it?

GrandmaSteglitszch · 05/01/2019 02:05

My mum agonised for ages over what colour of 3 piece suite to get, finally decided on a green one then immediately bought brown covers for it, to keep it nice.
The green was only ever in view for a day or two, when the covers got washed.

anitagreen · 05/01/2019 02:07

@honestlynotagain my mums not the most loving mother she simply said "she only charged me a fiver for the day, and things was tough so that's that" thank god for ofsted now eh Shock

LuluJakey1 · 05/01/2019 02:23

When I was little my mam and I went to my grandma's every Sunday. My dad went straight to the pub where he met my grandad, we went to my grandma's. She would be making Sunday dinner in the kitchen with her pinny and Sunday hat on and bak g at the same time for tea.
We had our lunch at 1pm as I recall - small Yorkshire pudding, potatoes, veg and gravy first course, followed by a small amount of meat. My grandad and dad came home about 2.30pm after the pub had closed. The table was set for them and they sat down to Yorkshire puddings cooked in a large cake tin, mounds of meat and gravy with potatoes and veg - all together. Then my dad walked home for a sleep. We all had to go and sit in the local park for an hour afterwards so my grandma's house was quiet and my grandad could have an after dinner lie down. I remember me and my mam and gran in the park on cold days so I didn't disturb him. If the weather was really bad we went in their front room but I had to be quiet because my grandma liked him to have a rest.
It was ridiculous really but I never questioned it as a kid. He was such an indulged man by her.

BlackPrism · 05/01/2019 02:29

Blushmy sister and I were bath buddies. We're very very close though. I've also come in for a chat while she's having a shit. And I've fake tanned her bum. Then again I've seen all my best mates boobs and bums on multiple occasions and one or two have shaved their bush while we chat in the bathroom.

We know literally everything about each other. I apparently have 0 boundaries

cfmagnet · 05/01/2019 02:42

I once visited a friends house after school and saw her family dog licking the wall. A bit odd. What was order was that the father of the family then proceeded to splash the contents of a cup of coffee in the wall because "the dog doesn't like coffee". This was accepted as totally normal in their family.

BlackPrism · 05/01/2019 03:01

My dad is an electrical contractor. He does the fire alarm checks for a council estate.
An otherwise normal seeming family, he's checking the alarms. He goes to move the sofa to check the wiring behind it.... loads of needles and foil and heroin (assumed) falls out.
He fucking scarpered. Obvs reported.

Praguemum · 05/01/2019 04:26

My brother has a thing about peeing in the sea. Whenever he's at the beach, winter or summer, he feels compelled to drop 'em and take a slash into the tide. My son loves what people in NZ call a 'bush pee'. Have trained him to go on my citrus trees as they love it. 😋

Racecardriver · 05/01/2019 05:53

@bluebellpillow I knew a family like that. They owned over 50 houses but ate off bananas and sent kids to a sink school rather than pay a bit more for a decent one. By off bananas I mean so off they are black on the outside and slimy on the inside Envy

Ohheyyy · 05/01/2019 08:10

My Ex-SIL will "plate up" takeaway meals including McDonald's and Chinese so the main dish you specifically ordered because it's your favourite gets sploshed in a pasta bowl with a share of everyone else's chosen main dish "to make it fair

I do this too but, to be fair, I've never come across anyone who just takes what they ordered and doesn't put it in with everything else to be shared. Sharing has always been the norm with my family and my friends' families.

I know of a man who bought his flat brand new about 15 years ago, it came with all kitchen and utility appliances. He has never used his washing machine as he says it will add value to his flat when he comes to sell it that it'll be in a brand new condition. He take a his laundry to his parents house and uses theirs instead. He can't understand that people may bring their own washing machine with them or that they're not expensive to buy so won't add value.

GinIsIn · 05/01/2019 08:18

Those of you who dish up everyone else’s takeaway....

W0MANlikeME · 05/01/2019 08:26

I order MY takeaway order because its what i want to eat Shock i dont want to share!

KirstyAllsoppsFatterTwin · 05/01/2019 08:26

Having a roast dinner at a friends’ house where everyone was served 1 roast potato each. They weren’t hard up at all. Maybe my family were piggies (!) but I found this quite stingy!

Abnormal, but probably very sensible to allow them to fill up on white carbs, which would encourage them to eat more protein and green veg. I doubt those children were growing up overweight like so many today.

I can't see anyone in my family tolerating that though. Grin

KirstyAllsoppsFatterTwin · 05/01/2019 08:26

to NOT allow them!

BearFoxBear · 05/01/2019 08:48

I'd be fumimg if I had to share my takeaway order with everyone else! Surely you order what you want, otherwise what's the point?!

ShirleyPhallus · 05/01/2019 09:04

I think a lot of cat owners are nose blind to their smell, I’ve never been to a house with cats where it hasn’t stunk of cat piss and the owners have no idea. Even beautiful, pristine houses still smell like cats if you have them. IMO.

Ohheyyy · 05/01/2019 09:05

If someone said they specifically wanted just their dish then of course they could have it. I've just never come across anyone who only wants one dish from the Chinese takeaway.

Indian maybe, but not Chinese. Maybe that part is odd??

Santasshoe · 05/01/2019 09:05

I never had takeaway as a child so we just eat what we order as whar would be the point of choosing something otherwise.

W0MANlikeME · 05/01/2019 09:07

I only like one thing from the chinese....

ShadyLady53 · 05/01/2019 09:16

I’d be murderous with rage if I ordered the dish I wanted from any takeaway (Indian, Chinese etc) and then I was forced to have a mismatched hodgepodge of everything everyone else ordered and a tiny bit of what I actually wanted. URGH.

I do only like one dish at a time. It makes me feel sick having “a bit of everything”. I will order one dish and rice from a takeaway...because that’s what I want. I don’t want a bit of your chicken korma and Fred’s lamb pasanda and a bit of peshwari naan, chips, mushroom rice, pilau rice and half a poppadom ffs.

FortunesFave · 05/01/2019 09:37

Dh had to explain to his family that I don't share Chinese or Indian takeaway. I JUST DON'T LIKE IT.

I want the thing I ordered.

Poor DD went to a friend's birthday do...9th birthday...at the latest amazing icecream cafe...she was horrified when they expected everyone to pass their icecream bowls around the table.

Everyone had to have a bit of each one...then pass it along.

DD was disgusted! She didn't want to eat from the same dish as random people who she barley knew!

lottiegarbanzo · 05/01/2019 09:45

Surely the takeaway thing depends on whether you've ordered 'as a family' to share, or ordered individually? To me, the 'family' approach is far more usual but prefaced with a conversation about what 'we' will choose. I've done 'own dishes' with friends too.

The thing I find odd is the plating up. Surely you put everything in the middle of the table, or in the kitchen, and allow people to help themselves. How can one person know how hungry everyone else is and which dish they love, which they don't want, or would just like to taste?

BasilFaulty · 05/01/2019 09:48

@learningmyselfworth

They'd also be freaked out by the sheer size and volume of my immediate family (there were 20 of us on Christmas day and that was when 7 people were having christmas with inlaws and there are two more pregnancies this year including a set of potentially twins or more as IVF with double egg insertion and twins running in both families). We're loud and loving and tactile and there are no boundaries or topic not up for debate or discussion*

There is literally nothing weird about any of that.

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