Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
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:
Ribbonsonabox · 06/01/2019 20:28

Chops not chips sorry!

MeMumsMedicine · 06/01/2019 20:31

I do the sheet under the duvet thing because I'm menopausal. I'm either boiling hot or freezing cold at various points during the night and the sheet helps me to regulate my temperature. I can't sleep without any covers on so the sheet works for me. I've only started doing it recently and it has made a huge difference to how much sleep I get.

I once visited a house for professional reasons many years ago and the bloke we were there to see had a huge, overflowing ashtray on the arm of his chair. It got knocked off during our visit and he calmly stood up, picked up all the tab ends and then stamped all the ash into the carpet without stopping talking. I would guess from the state of the carpet that this wasn't a new thing.

I once went for a sleepover with a friend when I was about ten. It was a Friday night. We were collected from primary school and had a play together for a bit before our evening meal was served at 5.30pm. We were then allowed to play for another 15 minutes, forced to have a bath together - I was not expecting that! - and then put to bed at 6.30pm!! I was outraged!! My friend thought it all totally normal. I was allowed to stay up until 9pm at home. Never went there again.

Theimpossiblegirl · 06/01/2019 21:40

Ribbonsonabox I was picturing you eating a large piece of meat with your hands caveman style.

Theimpossiblegirl · 06/01/2019 21:41

Chops or chips?

Atleastihavethecat · 06/01/2019 21:48

I once went with an acquaintance to her house, and her husband greeted her like she'd been gone for a two year military tour rather than the twenty minutes she had actually been gone. Over the top, overly sexual and just odd. There was also naked children, cold house, dirt, and an overwhelming smell of cat pee. They didn't have a cat. I did not take them up on the invitation to come back.

Ribbonsonabox · 06/01/2019 22:12

Chops! Yes caveman style lol it was what all my family did.. ribs and any meat on the bone really was eaten with our hands I just thought it was normal

legolimb · 06/01/2019 22:54

I'm still enjoying 'screamish'.

I think it will become the new have/of Grin

ilovepixie · 06/01/2019 23:01

*"I also clearly recall the first time I saw parents and children kiss on each others lips, I did not manage to hide my shock at all. I have no idea it was a thing for some families."

I've still never seen this, except on American TV.*

How very sad!

Pinkflipflop85 · 06/01/2019 23:03

Yes legolimb.....someone who gets it!Wink

PinkPanther38 · 06/01/2019 23:53

The takeaway sharing things drives me mad since I'm vegetarian and my family are all meat-eaters - if we get an Indian I'll usually get two veggie side dishes instead of a main and it's barely reached the table before people start asking 'if they can just try a little bit of mine'... NO this is my dinner and it might have escaped your attention that I cant eat any of what you've ordered!!!

abacucat · 07/01/2019 01:28

I have went out with friends for a chinese main meal and sat eating my chosen meal, while everyone else has ordered shared dishes. I don't like many chinese options, so no I don't want to be left forced to eat things I am not keen on just to fill myself up.

PennyArcade · 07/01/2019 01:32

Some Chinese restaurants have revolving bits in the middle of the table so you can share the dishes. You're notsupposedto grab a whole chow mein or whatever and just eat that. Can you imagine if one person hogged all the Peking duck pancake-making paraphernalia

Exactly ^^

Chinese and Indian restaurants have set meals for 4/6/10 etc people, on their menus, which consist of a variety of dishes to be shared.

abacucat · 07/01/2019 01:46

Yep, and the set meals tend to be IMO the least exciting options that I would not want.
And I order a portion of Peking Duck for me, I will not be sharing it.

PennyArcade · 07/01/2019 01:58

When I was 15 I went to my boyfriends house to call for him, on the way to meet friends. It was the first time I had been to his house. His dad answered the door and asked me in to wait for bf, as he was in the bath.

His mother popped her head round the kitchen door and said hi, as she was cooking. She brought a plate of bacon and eggs into the living room and put it on the sideboard. She then went into the kitchen to let bf know his food was ready and that I was waiting for him.

BF then entered the living room, from the kitchen door - bollock naked! Blush He picked up his tray and sat in an armchair to eat. His mother asked me to bring some cups out to the kitchen, that her and her DH had just used, so she could make a cuppa for everyone. As I entered the kitchen i realised that the bath took up most of the tiny kitchen area, and bf had been taking a bath next to his mother cooking his dinner!

Next thing his older brother came in from work. The mother told him his bath was running and his dinner wouldn't be long. He took all his clothes off before entering the kitchen - to take his bath Confused Before he went he started a conversation with bf and his dad. BF was returning his tray to the kitchen. At this point 2 of them standing there bollock naked, the mother back and fore the kitchen as though having 2 teenage sons bollock naked in the living room was the most normal thing in the world Shock

I finished with him as soon as we got out the door.

ItsalmostSummer · 07/01/2019 02:17

Oh Penny I’m horrified and would’ve run a mile too. That’s weird.
I went to a friends for a sleepover. There were 3 of us including my friend whose house it was. We went to bed for the night say 9pm but was woken about 10 or 11pm (we were 10 at the time) and told to jump in the bath together. Weirdest thing ever. I didn’t want to stay again (for fear of late night baths Grin).

BitOfFun · 07/01/2019 03:48

Penny, what the actual fuck?! A bath in the kitchen? I have NEVER heard of that before.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 07/01/2019 04:29

Some of these are great! (The ones solely involving complicit adults who have all actively chosen to be like that, anyway).

I'm really starting to think that the Dentons in The League of Gentlemen (the ones with the frightening young twin daughters who torture the human 'scarecrow', a gigantic home-aquarium for their pet toads and a weekly Wednesday 'nude day') were intended to be a simple documentary and not just a grotesque comedy. Maybe Papa Lazarou was really just Louis Theroux in disguise, getting into the spirit of things....

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 07/01/2019 04:32

A bath in the kitchen? I have NEVER heard of that before.

Now that part wouldn't have been all that uncommon in decades gone by. For me, it's the nonchalant, oblivious using it and subsequent lack of covering up by post-pubescent young people when they know they have non-family guests visiting Shock

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 07/01/2019 04:33

"They just don't understand our local ways, Edward!"

Santasshoe · 07/01/2019 06:11

What's wrong with the word screamish? It's a word lots of people i know use.

ChesterGreySideboard · 07/01/2019 06:17

You know the word is squeamish, though right?

Santasshoe · 07/01/2019 06:20

No I didn't as I've never seen it written before so sorry about that.

YepImafraidIchangeditagain · 07/01/2019 06:44

You've never seen the word squeamish written down??

Santasshoe · 07/01/2019 06:51

No I haven't.

UnapologeticallyUnhinged · 07/01/2019 07:52

I put sheets under duvet, but that's because I get too hot so I can kick the duvet off but still have a cover. It takes an extra 5 seconds to make the bed and I still change bedding every week.