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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:
Screamish · 09/01/2019 14:30

I've really enjoyed this thread!

LadyRochfordsHoickedGusset · 09/01/2019 14:54

Is this you Screamish?

m.youtube.com/watch?v=8JdeMenMTL4

tattyheadsmum · 09/01/2019 15:32

I was friends with a girl when I was in infant/junior school whose mum used to have a display fruit bowl for the lounge. When that fruit got a bit over-ripe, so not as decorative, it would be taken into the kitchen to eat.

Their house was also pristine, with toys for display only.

BettyBahooky · 09/01/2019 15:43

I know a woman who'll tell anyone who'll listen that she's got OCD, she doesn't allow anyone to use her living room and makes her 2 kids stay up in their bedrooms at all times. She never cooks either, in order to keep her kitchen and oven pristine and unused, all her kid's meals come out of either Brewers Fayre, McDonald's or a supermarket cafe - it must cost her a fortune! I once heard her go absolutely apeshit at her 12 year old and 2 year old, calling them all the names under the sun and smacking them - all because one of them had got sock fluff on the carpet. I used to envy her pristine home and wish I was as in control as that, but now I just feel sorry for her kids having to toe the line for fear of her losing her shit over nothing.

PoisonousSmurf · 09/01/2019 15:48

A family who lived in a converted mill, with a moat and landscaped gardens. Massive 6 bedroomed pile, but there was hardly and furniture inside and they had been there for years.
One room was the 'play room' and it was a disaster zone, toys all over the floor, some had cobwebs in the corner of the room.
Basically, never tidied up, because why would you in a massive house you can't actually afford to furnish...

CountessOfNowhere · 09/01/2019 17:37

I have the big light on, and it goes on as soon as it goes dusk - it gives me a headache to sit in a gloomy room.

nikkidoll · 09/01/2019 19:44

When my dad speaks about him and my mum before they got married it was referred to when they were 'courting' not dating as my generation say (early 30s)
It was always makes me smile.. courting! Lolll no idea where that came from x

Motoko · 09/01/2019 19:53

Not having the main light on, doesn't necessarily mean the room is gloomy! There should be a range of lamps and task lighting, so reading/knitting/watching TV etc, are done without eye strain.

Read any book on interior design, and there'll be a section devoted to lighting.

Do those of you who use the main light, think we're all sitting in the gloom?

BertieBotts · 09/01/2019 19:57

Yes :o

brick15 · 09/01/2019 20:01

Weirdest thing my ex ever saw when he was a tradesman was mum and dad sitting on the sofa watching porn with daughter and presumably her bf sitting with them. At least he hoped it was her bf and not brother Confused

menztoray · 09/01/2019 20:17

What lights are suitable varies a lot depending on your eyesight and thus often your age.

Screamish · 09/01/2019 21:36

@LadyRochfordsHoikedGusset Totally! Grin

Roussette · 09/01/2019 23:14

I agree Motoko. I never have the main light on.
In the kitchen I have underlighting, side lights etc.
In the lounge I have loads of table lamps, a floor reading light and two side wall lights. Just hate the main one and don't need it!

Roussette · 09/01/2019 23:15

Mind you... I loathe bright lights in restaurants too. Getting the right lighting there is an art I think.

mystifiedinbrighton · 09/01/2019 23:18

The chewing of biscuits and spitting them out in to a bucket by the sofa made me wonder...that must be an eating disorder, surely?

thegreylady · 10/01/2019 08:53

Back in the 50s I visited a ‘posh’ friend (family European maybe Swiss). We (and she) had to call her father Sir. They ate in silence . Father put a metronome on the table and started it when food was brought to the table. He stopped it when the last person finished eating then they could speak again. I’ll never forget that eerie tick tick tick.
I lived in a council house and was a rather indulged only child. My friend loved coming to my house because we were allowed to jump on the spare bed and eat fish and chips with our fingers.

Girliefriendlikesflowers · 10/01/2019 08:59

Betty thats really sad and emotionally abusive, poor kids Sad they'll be messed up for life.

I'm a community nurse and been in and out of peoples homes for 15 years, I can confirm with absolute authority that people are all a bit weird Grin

Theimpossiblegirl · 10/01/2019 12:10

I understand people not reporting stuff years ago, maybe when you were a kid you didn't really understand that some things were abusive/neglectful/not right, times have changed, etc. but if you know children are being neglected or abused now, surely a phone call to the NSPCC or someone is the right thing to do.

Skyejuly · 10/01/2019 13:13

Always use the main light. Hate dark rooms

Insideno9 · 10/01/2019 16:23

I have a long living room with two big lights so at night I just leave the far end one on and not the other. We don't own any lamps at all as money is very tight and they seem a bit of a luxury.

3luckystars · 10/01/2019 20:46

What a fantastic thread.

We had neighbours years ago and the father would go to the local shop every day and spend 1-2 hours reading every newspaper in the shop and walk out without buying anything. They even put signs up in the shop to stop him but he still did it. They were well off and the children were a little bit older than us, but they wouldnt mix with anyone. All of them were highly intelligent.

Nobody was ever in their house, until once, they got a painter in, and he reported to the other neighbours that they had rooms full of newspapers, stacked up to the ceiling.
Then the painter was painting another neighbours house, and the father came down to ask the painter how to remove paint spatters from his newspapers? (And these were not the beautiful colourful papers we have now, it was the 80's so it must have been those cheapo ones where the ink came off on your hands.) I wonder what became of them all.

3luckystars · 10/01/2019 21:12

Regarding the takeaway, I misunderstood the first mention here and thought the woman put everyone's takeaway into the same bowl to share.
Can you imagine the gasp if someone did that.

MiggledyHiggins · 12/01/2019 00:55

schnubbins I remember eavesdropping on my mum on a school run talking to a neighbour. As my DM would visit relatives in the UK, neighbour asked her if she could possibly bring her home condoms on her return to Ireland. This would be early 80's. Many doctors and pharmacists were RC faith so would refuse to prescribe them. If they did, it was only very reluctantly and only when the woman may die from another pregnancy. Condoms were prescription only and only over the counter from 1992. As was any other type of contraception other than abstinence - and the doctrine was that a woman never refused her husband. Also, marital rape was not a concept that existed in law. That only was criminalised in 1990. So a woman could get nothing to prevent pregnancy nor could she do a thing about her husband wanting sex during her fertile period other than rely on him to be a decent chap and not take her as he was "entitled" to.

My DM was also unfortunately devout so turned down her neighbour's request. I often thought about how desperate that couple must have been to consider asking DM who was well known to be a church goer to get them contraception and they weren't exactly friends.

Spanielmadness · 12/01/2019 01:04

My ex took all his clothes off to do a poo. He also went home to his dads for a poo for about a year after we moved in together. He’d hold it for a week or more on holiday........ I was too young and naive to see he had some MAJOR issues.........

Atchiclees · 12/01/2019 01:12

I haven’t RTFT so don’t know if anyone else mentioned the house in the Greater Manchester area that had coloured tarmac indoors for flooring? Lounge was green tarmac, Hall and dining room was red. The owner of the house ran a drive tarmacing business, was utterly bonkers and was proud of the flooring as it had cost him very little.Confused Always wondered what became of that house as he must’ve die by now, he was old when I knew him.