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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:
Ivegotthree · 03/01/2019 20:09

Cats on the kitchen surfaces is fucking grim.

My best friend has cats who do this and I have never dared tell him how disgusting I think it is.

Sometimes one of the fuckers sits down, its arsehole ON the kitchen table as we are eating.

I hate cats but love dogs, but I'd still be horrified if a dog did this.

Trinpy · 03/01/2019 20:10

Oops I meant to put that first paragraph in bold Blush.

Stormwhale · 03/01/2019 20:12

When I stayed over at my best friend from primary schools house her father would still walk around naked. That is so far from appropriate it's unreal. I cannot imagine dh allowing a friend of our dd's to see him naked, ever.

jemimapta · 03/01/2019 20:21

My friend once lost her mind when I said that we didnt have a traditional sunday lunch every sunday, she literally paced the floor and shook her head wailing "but you have to? why dont you?" I love a roast dinner but we just dont do it every week!

abacucat · 03/01/2019 20:22

I have a friend who is a clean freak, BUT lets her cats go everywhere. I don't understand her mindset at all.

jemimapta · 03/01/2019 20:23

Our neighbours we incredibly house proud and their house smelt very strongly and I realised after we had lived next door for a while it was the smell of paint, they redecorated every single weekend to keep it 'nice and clean', the four of them, 2 adults and two children would don boiler suits and happily paint the walls and woodwork

amusedbush · 03/01/2019 20:33

jemimapta

Shock

That’s MENTAL. It must have cost them a fortune!

TooManyPaws · 03/01/2019 20:49

Cats on the worktop don't bother me as I take a clean chopping board or plate/bowl out of the cupboard when I need to prepare food. I certainly don't put food in direct contact with the worktop so no transference. Food on the worktop is minging.

DaffydownClock · 03/01/2019 20:51

Professional visits to:
A house with five free-flying parrots, poo everywhere and stench was unbearable, it made your eyes stream
Bungalow so drenched in urine the carpets squelched
A flat with literally nothing but a single bare mattress, one cup, plate, knife and fork - owner went out daily for fish and chips, pasty from corner shop on a Sunday (and left over £1.5m when she died)

My parents had a friend who made you take off your shoes and put on plastic overshoes before you stepped through the door. She removed all the seat cushions from the three piece suite before you sat down and got out the Hoover and cleaned around you as you drank a cup of tea. When her DD was born her husband had to come home at lunchtime to change and feed the baby - she never once changed a nappy or bathed the baby/ child.

My grandfather sat and did absolutely nothing, my poor GM would do everything, including picking up his newspaper if he dropped it by his chair. My DF wasn't much better but my DM always said that it was a 'woman's duty to look after her husband ' stuff that for a load of cobblers!

Thesnobbymiddleclassone · 03/01/2019 20:56

I'm not sure of its strange or not, but my Mil will dish up McDonald's like a three course meal. She makes everyone sit at a table with knives and forks which I found odd. Most people I know will just pick a burger up to eat it

Repertory · 03/01/2019 21:00

I stayed with a new friend’s parents when I was a student, and her father used to get up an hour before everyone else and wander around naked, making tea. I found this out because he left a cup by my bedroom door and I opened it in time to see him peacefully tootling off along the landing, naked but for his sheepskin slippers. The next morning I made sure to wait before taking in my tea, but when I opened the curtains he was playing nude croquet in the back garden.

In my teens I babysat for a new age woman who used to write affirmations on pink post-its and stick them all over the house. LET THE UNIVERSE SHOWER ME WITH ABUNDANCE stuck to the loo cistern. I AM BLESSED WITH HEALTH AND HAPPINESS on the cat flap. I GIVE THANKS FOR REPERTORY AND HER CARE FOR MY CHILDREN on the fridge.

She said I was closed-minded when I refused to come to a rebirthing ceremony.

Orangefancy · 03/01/2019 21:01

My friends sister has the curtains drawn all day and lights switched on. They never put sheets on the bed, just sleep on bare mattresses. But think she is possibly autistic.

JanuarySnowdrops · 03/01/2019 21:01

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" Confused. She can't cook herself and manages to render a takeaway meal inedible, too!

amilosingitor · 03/01/2019 21:06

I tend to run around after DP and our children, cooking different meals for them all and making sure they are all ok and I tend to eat whatever I'm eating later on, but that's my choice and the way I like to do things, not expected of me at all in the slightest. I don't always do that obviously, if I want to eat with them all or just with DP I will.

I also try to "tend to all my dps needs". I will drop what I'm doing to do things for him or get things for him or offer to get him this or that. Again, he wouldn't dream of expecting it of me. In fact not so long ago we were both sitting watching tv or similar and he asked me to get up and get him a drink, I was actually quite shocked as he's never asked me before. Again, just how I am. I guess I must be weird.

Coralnails · 03/01/2019 21:06

Wtf January? Has no one ever told her how wrong that is?

I can tolerate most quirks but anyone messing with my food would have to be told.

showmeyourgroovymoves · 03/01/2019 21:07

My DGF used to call my DGM into the room to stir his tea Hmm.

I also had a friend whose DM sat in the kitchen to eat after waiting on her family. How odd!

GinIsIn · 03/01/2019 21:11

A school friend of mine had the cleanest house I had ever seen - everything was white, everything was harsh, straight lines. The mother didn’t work, and they had a cleaner who came twice a week, but the mother would spend every day before the cleaner came cleaning the already immaculate house frantically so it “wasn’t a mess for the cleaner”, and then spend the day after the cleaner came frantically cleaning as “the cleaner had moved things and touched things”. She was a very cold and unpleasant woman and all of her children ended up with significant MH issues.

Repertory · 03/01/2019 21:15

amilosingitor, unless your entire family has a serious disability, why do you run around fetching and carrying for your DH and cooking them all different meals, and only eating afterwards yourself, like a Victorian skivvy? Hmm

QuackPorridgeBacon · 03/01/2019 21:16

I’ve thought of something weird in my own home. Only recently though, our rabbit lives in the downstairs bathroom. It’s urine was leaking out of the hutch and destroying our front room floor and also have a child with health issues so it wasn’t safe and the only other space we had was a long area opposite the toilet in the downstairs bathroom. It seems mad but I couldn’t put it outside so the bathroom it was.

Whitegrenache · 03/01/2019 21:17

My dp often sits in the toilet and chats to me when I'm in the bath. He doesn't actually wee or poo though. Just sits and chats about our day

Skyejuly · 03/01/2019 21:27

I have post it affirmations up😂

YoureAllABunchOfBastards · 03/01/2019 21:28

My nana and granda used to sit in the kitchen rather than the living room, with the gas oven on low and the door of it open for warmth. First time DH came round he said 'Jean, do you know the oven door is open?' Struck me then that it was weird!

amilosingitor · 03/01/2019 21:32

@Repertory don't get me wrong, the kids know to clean up after themselves etc and DP likes doing everything for himself, for me it's just habit, I'm not working, DP works hard it's just something I choose to do and like doing Confused

Smeeeeeee · 03/01/2019 21:49

I used to like doing nice things for my husband too. Like running a bath or rinsing and stacking the dishes when it was his turn to wash them.

Then he started expecting it. "Go and run my bath" or "Rinse and stack the dishes for me"

Funnily enough I stopped Hmm

jomaIone · 03/01/2019 21:55

@abacucat I know someone who shared a bunk bed with her Mum...! Where are you from?

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