To think MN is full of really stupid advice/ideas?

[StupidAdvice]

For starters:

"Kick him out and change the locks" (you mostly can't just do this - especially not if you jointly own the property).

"You're his common law wife so you are entitled to half of everything" (no, no, no).

"You're entitled to stay in the family home if you separate" (maybe, but probably not).

"Keep all the evidence of him cheating because you'll need it when you negotiate a settlement" (no you won't, and you're wasting your time: the law doesn't care who cheated or why or when).

"Just take the kids and leave him" (it's mostly not that easy).

There's lots of brilliant advice too, obviously - but AIBU to want to bang my head on the desk when people repeatedly trot out a pile of bollocks as if it were fact?

I have said to move if you can to people with anti-social neighbours. I have been in this situation and nothing else really works. The police will visit, but for those with neighbours who are total shits, this makes no difference or can make things worse. After trying various remedies, the only thing I could do was plan as to how to move house.
If you haven't experienced this yourself, it can be hard to imagine how much it can destroy your life.

@MissLucyEyelesbarrow

Thank you!

I was married with a child and just starting university at 18. 10 years on we now have 2 DC, purchased our own house and I have a started my highly regarded career.

People are as mature as they have grown to be though life experiences and I believe it is just inherent in some people much like personality traits. To have told me I wasn’t an adult and have achieved what I did is insulting. My son does find it amusing that I am the youngest parent in his class (private) by about 15 years!

@JustLyra

The number of people who say “just move” or “I’d just move” is trolling levels imo.

Even pretty well off people don’t just move houses Willy nilly.

My pet hate on here though is when you get a 35 page thread asking for advice, like “my kitchen light has stopped working” and then on page 36 you get someone saying “have you tried changing the bulb?”
I get not wanting to read 35 pages, but the assumption that no-one on those pages would have suggested that is a special kind of arrogance.

Indeed - as evidenced by the legendary status that "cancel the cheque" has achieved on here. (For anyone not familiar - there was a long running thread where just about every 6th post was "cancel the cheque" as if these buffoons hadn't read the 4million other identical responses that started about 6 posts in.

@lurkingfromhome

The ones that often have me cringing are those where the poster writes out the full wording of a text/email/letter that they think the OP should send. Often an email that should be sent to a line manager/HR department/person in authority, and nearly always completely inappropriate or so badly written that it would go straight in the bin.

I laugh at those - but it's in the same way I laugh/cringe at The Office

The constant advice to get signed off work sick with stress is terrible. Not only will it likely affect the career of the OP (let go, or less likely to be promoted) but it prevents the person from becoming more resilient.

I'm surprised by how many posters seem to be off on long-term sickness with stress.

@daisyfebruary become more resilient!!
By the time someone needs to be signed off with stress they are usually way beyond just being more resilient. In some cases it is about preventing a breakdown or even suicide.

I laugh at the ones where the OP is chastised for doing a bit of ironing for the family and those that suggest the DC should be shown the door on the stroke of midnight on their 18th birthday. It seems some MNetters have never heard of a family unit/helping each other.

[quote Monopolyiscrap]@daisyfebruary become more resilient!!
By the time someone needs to be signed off with stress they are usually way beyond just being more resilient. In some cases it is about preventing a breakdown or even suicide.[/quote]
The issue is that stress is not a diagnosis. I have bipolar and anxiety, work full time in a stressful profession and take maybe 3 - 5 sick days per year.

I don't know what industries these posters work in where it's the norm to go off with stress over fairly minor things, like not getting on with a manager, or having performance issues. Most of the time they'd be better applying elsewhere while maintaining a good sickness record.

The advice to cut off friends who cancel plans is also rubbish. The OP can say that their friend of 35 years cancelled twice in a row due to sickness / tiredness / another invite - some responses will say this person is using them and to end all contact.

Everything is black and white. The same people then moan about not having friends.

@Mybestyear

I laugh at the ones where the OP is chastised for doing a bit of ironing for the family and those that suggest the DC should be shown the door on the stroke of midnight on their 18th birthday. It seems some MNetters have never heard of a family unit/helping each other.

Yes! If the OP dares mention washing a jumper of her husband's, the instant reply is a snarky "WHY do you do your husband's washing?"

Are there really households where every member of the family goes through the laundry basket, picks out their own clothes and no one else's and does a half-load of those because chucking in all the other dirty laundry to make up a full load would be submitting to the patriarchy?

I know it's been done to death, but I'm always bewildered by the "take in some ironing" suggestion. As a fan of ironing (I know I'm mad!) I've never heard of a method of offering ironing services to your local community. Even those air-tasking apps would be impractical and ineffective to make cash unless you really dedicated yourself to an at-home ironing exchange.

As for my MN advice pet peeve - I'm always amazed to read threads where an OP has a disagreement with family/friends/partner/school/strangers... so many commenters goading the OP to immediately go in all guns blazing and confront the other party with harshly worded scripts. It's so obvious they don't care a thing about the OP's best interests, they just want to munch popcorn and enjoy the fallout! Cruel and cowardly.

I posted on the doghouse a while ago about an issue with my youngest dog and the first reply suggested that I quit my job to spend more time with him! wtf?

Generally I have found there to be very good advice on Mumsnet.

Thankfully lots of excellent advice followed.

@Mybestyear

I laugh at the ones where the OP is chastised for doing a bit of ironing for the family and those that suggest the DC should be shown the door on the stroke of midnight on their 18th birthday. It seems some MNetters have never heard of a family unit/helping each other.

Yes but on the other hand in mumsnet world 18 year olds are not adults and we should be supporting them untill they decide to leave home and God forbid parents should charge their adult working children rent 🤷

Every single slight disagreement or conflict with friends of 20 years:

They're not your friend
Get new friends
Block her
Move to another country to get away from her

@LadyCleathStuart

I posted on the doghouse a while ago about an issue with my youngest dog and the first reply suggested that I quit my job to spend more time with him! wtf?

Generally I have found there to be very good advice on Mumsnet.

Thankfully lots of excellent advice followed.

The doghouse is peak MN madness. AIBU is like talking to the Dalai Lama. by comparison.

The doghouse regulars will tell someone who has tried everything with a rescue dog, thrown thousands at behaviourists, and still has an aggressive dog who is not safe around kids that they have to give up their family and social life to the dog. And if they're not up for that, they get, "Would you give up your DC if they misbehaved?". Not only is that crazy, but it's going to put everyone off taking rescue dogs, if they feel there is no way out if it doesn't work out. Given that everyone on the doghouse also believes that no healthy dog should ever be PTS, they are continually shooting themselves in the foot on this one.

The Doghouse really is the worst of MN.

@mumofone234

LTB seems to be the standard advice for every minor niggle in a relationship. It'd be funny if it wasn't so potentially destructive. Don't get me wrong - some situations are genuinely awful, but the majority of the time it's excessive to say the least.

This annoys me so much. Why can't people try and fix issues.

God forbid parents should charge their adult working children rent

It is staggering how many MNetters can't/won't comprehend that some families cannot afford to support adult children. Some single mother who has spend 2 decades in penury posts about her adult DC, who have far more disposal cash then her, and gets a load of preening pearl-clutchers - "Oh, I could never bring myself to charge my DC rent". Really? Try living on £74.70 a week JSA for 20 years, and see how you feel at the end of that.

@thepeopleversuswork I love your comment - I think you’re spot on. I needed to read that today

As a senior employment lawyer the legal advice really winds me up. I don’t often advise unless I can see that people are giving incorrect advice, at which point I feel obliged to wade in and almost always regret it. The worst are a few posters who think they know everything about the law “because dd is training to be a barrister”

Never seen the common-law wife thing on Mumsnet.

Re: violence towards children, it’s not super frequent on here BUT there was an extremely long running multi-thread post that eventually got deleted where some posters became almost gleeful at demonising a teenager and I can absolutely imagine ‘slap the bitch’ being posted as a comment in those threads and 100s of posts clamouring to agree with them. There was also (an incredibly annoyingly written) post which got similar comments in summer about an 8 year old (pre-teen, anyway!) being a brat, and although the post was eventually outed and deleted for trolling, the joy in which some posters (who were not trolls) took in ripping this imaginary child apart was truly quite disturbing. I imagine that is the sort of thing the poster was referring to?

@Glugglejug

Re: violence towards children, it’s not super frequent on here BUT there was an extremely long running multi-thread post that eventually got deleted where some posters became almost gleeful at demonising a teenager and I can absolutely imagine ‘slap the bitch’ being posted as a comment in those threads and 100s of posts clamouring to agree with them. There was also (an incredibly annoyingly written) post which got similar comments in summer about an 8 year old (pre-teen, anyway!) being a brat, and although the post was eventually outed and deleted for trolling, the joy in which some posters (who were not trolls) took in ripping this imaginary child apart was truly quite disturbing. I imagine that is the sort of thing the poster was referring to?

I have just remembered reading a thread about a mother at the end of her tether with a severley autistic child who was being agressive mainly scratching an nipping ,one poster just blithely suggested the op just put the child in care because life was to short and slap the child ,it makes me shudder I also have a severely autistic child who bites and scratches so can empathize, but the crap some people come out with

There is some good advice but too many shoot from the hip without engaging brain.

If you were to belive mumsnet schools are responsible for EVERYTHING ! Every difficulty your child has is because schools are at fault nothing to do with parenting .As for the safeguarding and SEN advice people put on here, well simply most of it is based on a scary level of ignorance . I hope to god no one ever follows it !