What has Mumsnet taught you you've been doing wrong all of your adult life without realising?!

[harriethoyle]

Inspired by a recent thread, in which I read multiple posters saying you shouldn't wear mascara on your bottom lashes (which I have been doing for the last 30 years 😂) what has Mumsnet told or taught you you've been doing wrong?

The irritating thing is then I made one eye up as usual and made one up without mascara on the bottom lashes and DH preferred the without eye! Don't even get me started on my inability to make a chicken last a week...

Scottish

There's a current thread about Christmas stuffing. I can't get my head around it at all!

Ditto on the mascara thing - why would you only wear it on half your eye?

My whole life is wrong! Thigs I should/shouldn't have done:

• Learn to drive as soon as I was out of nappies because it is "essential life skill". Just how I managed to live without this essential life skill until the ripe age of 38 is something historians are going to ponder for millenia
• Was towels after every use
• Under no circumstances should I have been reheating rice. It's apparently against every food hygiene standard (even though a perfectly legal microwavable rice is available in every supermarket in the country)
• Wear smoky eye over the age of 40
• Wear thongs at any age at all
• Have a phone conversation with a single man, or a married man. Better not to have any communications with men unless they are part of your family. Unless it's you BIL because it is weird to be talking to them without your sister in attendance as well.
• Switch your phone off ever. Red flag if you do, apparently
• Communicate with anyone about anything. They should guess what I need if they really care.
• I shouldn't take my dog to public places, including parks with children and runners because it is unsafe and disgusting. But I also shouldn't keep her at home at all times because it is cruel.
• I should never ever to ask my wider family or older children to help with the baby because it's not their fault that I chose to have them.
• Similarly, I should never let my child with grandparents unsupervised because they are senile and unsafe. In fact, I should listen to my mother's instinct and not even let them visit. But at the same time, I shouldn't complain when they don't want to see their grandchildren because they don't have a relationship with them.

I could go on...

I've noticed this so much recently - the task needs done, the sofa for sale needs gone today etc, is it a local dialect thing? My old Scottish boss talked like this a lot

Ah @ScottishPosterSpotter answered my question as I was typing!

That you’re supposed to empty nappies into toilets. It’s been years since I had to deal with them, but the practicalities of managing a wriggling baby/young toddler, wipes (can’t go in toilet) and poo (MUST go in toilet) are beyond me. I know the idea of them sitting full of poo in landfills for years is gross, but that’s the whole point of disposable nappies, I thought!

My kids don't bathe every day. I should apparently listen to MN regarding this, and not to the medical professionals who say that 3 times a week is plenty for their skin and immune systems.

Parenting. Though I haven't been doing it all my adult life.
I seem to parent very different to most people.
Being terrified of saying hello to anyone in case they are in a "click".
Travelling solo or eating solo in case tye waiter thinks you are strange, God forbid

The solution to any disagreement with DH over any matter, no matter how trivial, is to LTB. He's definitely shagging six other women anyway.

Honestly so many of the views you read on here are so extreme that they make me feel really normal. I don't constantly wash towels after each use but similarly I would never consider using the toilet flush to clean a mooncup so I feel really in the middle when I read some of the housekeeping and hygiene threads.

Hah I realise that this thread has take quite a sarcastic turn. Not that there is anything wrong with that but actually I think I have genuinely learnt a lot from mumsnet and not just from the threads I started asking for advice. I have definitely learnt a lot from the relationship board and I suspect I hold men to higher standards now than i may have done previously. Also the anti trans stance of most of mumsnet has really made me think. It has also given me an insight into areas that are just not or haven't been so far part of my life and I think maybe that has made me more tolerant and less judgmental.

Agree 100% @CookieClutter. But lots to laugh about too.

Life admin, going alongside that other MN favourite 'wife work', I often wonder who takes care of other parts of family life, garden, car, DIY etc. or are we to lump these into 'wife work' too?

That I am a filthy godless heathen for only washing my hair once a week, but also that I'm an environmental menace who wants to watch the planet burn because I refuse to share my husband's bath water.

The 'needs done' thing made sense to me when the scottish presenter on Homes under the Hammer said it. It's a nice quirk.

Haha I still do it. Be a good little buy and don't sit on the lettuce dahling.

I've learned it's not ok to have an opinion 😁

Trolling

How do non-heathens clean their loos (in hard water areas), I’m asking for a friend…

I shouldn't be sharing my joys of trying to be a vegetarian and how much it has done me good, because I'm just trying to be smug and make meat eaters of Mumsnet feel comfortable and I'm just a weirdo hippy who doesn't know how to get nutrients in.

The other thing is I've been wrongly trusting my own parenting judgement over the judgements of professional people on the telephone who don't have a clue about my neurodiverse DD and her needs, but repeat verbatim from a book as advice and I must follow it because what do I know. If I question their judgement on my own personal situation, then I'm unhinged and need social services involved and have I thought about seeing a therapist for my arrogance and anger issues.

I know the idea of them sitting full of poo in landfills for years is gross, but that’s the whole point of disposable nappies, I thought!

The poo is the least of the problems. The bacteria in the landfill will eat it in a few days. The plastic and other materials in the nappy will still be there for centuries. (But as far as I'm concerned, that's one area where we can afford a bit of modernity!)

I've been thoughtlessly and rudely inviting friends to birthday parties and proposing weekends away with the kids. Now I know that they all secretly hate me for being a CF and wish I'd just leave them alone to scroll mumsnet all weekend.

Oh, I do everything wrong. I can't drive or swim, and neither of these have noticeably hampered me. I generally answer the door if someone rings. I have no issue with unannounced visitors or phone calls unless I'm working from home, and it has never bothered me, visitors or no visitors, whether my house is tidy. Neither do I experience any guilt at employing a cleaner. I am an introvert, but have no problems making friends or dealing with rejection from potential friends, because I do not confuse introversion with being misanthropic or socially maladroit. I have close male friends, including one ex, and go out for dinner and on holiday or away for weekends with them. The school run has never struck me as an appalling social gauntlet. I have one child by choice and am not burdened with guilt that he won't have siblings to share our end of life care with. Neither am I guilty that I hated maternity leave and went back to work early. I regularly travel and go to the cinema/theatre/opera alone. My parents were dreadful parents, but I remain fond of them, and we have a good enough relationship. I'm quite fond of my PILs, despite the fact that they would have far preferred DH to marry his previous girlfriend. If a friend doesn't reply to a text message or cancels with short notice, I don't cut off contact with him/her. I don't find those 'things I don't know threads' funny, I often find them horrifying glimpses into how ignorant some adults are.

Having said that, I've also learned things from Mn, and had some excellent advice on pregnancy/labour/newborn stuff, and once a very kind and helpful group diagnosis at a distance of my toddler which let me keep him comfortable until I could get to a pharmacy.

Sad things I've learned via Mn include the prevalence of abusive and unequal relationships, often posted about by women who have no idea they're in an abusive or unequal relationship.

@CookieClutter I don't think Mumsnet is mostly anti trans - it is concerned about males in female spaces and about the exposure of children and young people to surgery and drugs without thorough investigation and/or evidence based practices.

I know, and work with, trans identifying people some of whom I like very much and I still want single sex places. It is not too much to ask.

That I shouldn't ever leave the house or go anywhere other people are as being disabled and unable to control somethings offends peoples laws of etiquette and obviously made up comfort of normal/healthy people comes before disabled peoples right to exist.

Like how you should not interact with others or go indoors unless you can take your glasses off or how you are not ever allowed to say 'no' if you don't want to be physically touched by a strangers child because its rude or how if you have any imbalances that cause any form of BO you should never be allowed around others and so on and so on...

We should all just stay in our dungeons and die alone, better yet bring back asylums and freak shows so we are out of the way of the clearly ever so much more polite and well mannered mumsnetters.

Yes, you terrible, terrible intrusive person. How presumptuous of you! Don't you know that Weekends Are Sacred Family Time?