To be surprised at how 'together' commenters appear to be

[Usedtobeslummy]

Posting for traffic really.

I started reading mumsnet about 2yrs ago which coincided with when my ex and I split up.

I was encouraged by what seemed to be lots of empowered confident women unafraid to stand up for themselves. I realised my bar was low.

Mumsnet has made me realise I have quite a different bar to most. I grew up in a very chaotic household - parents in addiction with significant mental health issues, frequent police and a&e trips etc.

I'm very settled and have a good career and kids, quite different to my family. But mumsnet makes me realise I'm not quite where the other posters are.

For eg I am really surprised at the zero tolerance for any drug taking, even weed. People (and parents) taking drugs has been very normal to me.

I'm also surprised at how little people seem to drink and lots of people think poorly of people getting drunk.

I was mega shocked that everyone seems to think sleeping in a bed someone else has slept in is incredibly gross.

I change bedsheets for guests but I thought my friends were pernickety. I didn't realise it was normal (I am 40!) The idea of sleeping in a bed my best friend has slept in doesn't gross me out. But I have learnt I am not the norm!

I"m also surprised at how many posters have equal relationships with husbands. Most of my friends work full time, do most childcare and life admin.

I'm sure there are other examples but I suppose I am surprised at wholesome / ordered people seem to be on here. I thought I had my shit together but my bar is still miles away compared to others!

I still find it inspiring. Has opened my eyes. Would love to hear others' views. And maybe to hear if everyone who has their shit together came from a family that also did?

I grew up in a house where we used to have to hide from bailiffs and parents were recreational drug takers (but not addicts). Now I know plenty of people who take drugs (my siblings, some old friends) - in fact a close friend recently died of an overdose. I’ve never tried drugs, would have zero tolerance for it in a relationship and will in no way facilitate drug taking (eg I won’t be designated driver so someone else can take illegal drugs).

I rarely drink, but DH drinks a can most nights with his meal.

I don’t mind sleeping in a “dirty” bed, but would think it weird not to have had fresh sheets put on.

I shower 2-3 times a week and hardly ever wash my hands.

I have a 50:50 relationship, in fact probably 70:30 to my benefit but I’m in the main earner.

I’m mostly shocked by what people will accept
in a relationship on MN. Some people’s standards are shockingly high, but I think a lot of people exaggerate for rage bait on here.

Most people who say their dog has perfect recall are deluded. My precious baby pupster is a stubborn sort of trained dog that never gets let off a lead as she can’t be trusted with any sort of responsibility.

I bet most of the MN’ers perfect recall dogs are the ones I’ve grabbed by the collar to walk away from my nervous, fear reactive dog to take back to their owners who are merrily ignoring their dog crowding mine.

Each post is a snapshot. Maybe I have that aspect of my life sorted, maybe I have an idea or opinion or experience, but a post is generally without wider context and doesn't give all the other stuff in the background of life. I wouldn't take things too seriously. It's not a big picture you're seeing.

Sometimes I get the feeling that some people on here are just pretending to be middle class rather than actually being jr 🤷‍♀️

I have my shit together because my upbringing was a weird combination of extremely controlling in some ways and extremely neglectful in others (parents very unconcerned with my emotional wellbeing or development but I had to behave myself and not embarrass the family in any way).

So I now have my shit together because it’s the only way I can keep my mental health stable. If I start to think things are slipping out of control, I start to spiral into panic. My routines literally keep me sane because if everything is in order than I am safe and no one is going to shout at me.

Not everything is as it seems on the outside.

Yes everything is ‘grim’ 😅

I also feel like my family/upbringing is very different from posters on here but a lot of what people describe (private school etc) would actually put them in a very small and privileged minority in RL.

PPs are also correct that posters can be whoever they please online.

Sometimes I wonder what percentage of written content on mumsnet is actually real or not- annoying that we can never know!

What I write is real but there's a lot of missing context that might change how people perceive my answers. Face value on here is too simple.

If everyone on Mumsnet had to post under their own real name with a verified photo, it's be a completely different place.

Infact, it probably wouldn't exist 😁

Agreed, and people might be kinder. However, I don't think we're ever really anonymous. Too much data linking, etc.

I think probably the questions draw engagement from people who mind the most about something.

I don't have rigid cleaning routines so I don't post about them. But I used to have to have them, for a family member who was ill, so I posted about that back then. It felt interesting at the time. I'm not on a diet, so I'm not getting involved in intense discussion of what to have for breakfast, but probably when I decide I'm a pork bun in February I will.

I just don't post much about what I'm not that bothered about. I don't mind about people taking drugs, but I've never had a drug problem so, you know, it just don't really affect me. Maybe if I'd had an alcoholic parent or something I'd mind more and be on all those threads.

So I don't think MN is normal - I think it's got lots of normal people on it, mainly posting about something they mind about an abnormal amount.

I grew up in a fairly strict household, parents in professional jobs, I have no tolerance for drug taking whatsoever, I’ve no doubt that’s because of my upbringing, drinking I don’t mind so much but not to excess but I have to say I’m with you on the bed thing, I hardly ever change the sheets or wash towels, I just don’t think they get that dirty that quickly and I’m not grossed out by someone else sleeping in the bed before me as long as they don’t smell!

Yes, I frequently think this.

And that they post a 'learned Mumsnet response' on some relationship threads.

It doesn't mean their relationship is anywhere near as equal as they're making it out to be.

You can tell this sometimes when if for example and OP says something like, "I was packing my DH's clothes for our holiday when the doorbell rang...."

And without asking any questions at all, they'll leap in with "WHY were YOU packing this manchild's clothes?????" Because they've seen that sort of reply before.

Whereas in an equal relationship, it may well be because he's sorted the car for the journey, he'll be doing the 5 hour drive and unpacking everyone's clothes at the other end.

But that sort of thing doesn't occur to them, so that tells me it's probably not the sort of relationship they have with their DH.

Social mobility comes into play here.

You're doing better than your parents and friends and in turn your children will see your example and absorb it and hopefully do better again.

It takes generations to break cycles. X

You are not getting the whole picture

all well in one area doesn’t mean all is well in all others

and then there is the competitiveness of some …

This.

I had a not great childhood, I had to learn what “normal” was. I didn’t feel really bad about it, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. But I did regret that there were some things I didn’t know, opportunities missed etc.

Yeah, I'd take everything I read on Mumsnet with a pinch of salt.

Yes, I can post about some things that are going amazing in my life and it would sound like it's great and I have it all together. But in the background, I'm really struggling with the turn my life has taken in suddenly finding myself full time caring for a seriously ill child, when I was just starting to really get going and find myself post raising children. Among it, I'm struggling with hormonal changes at this time of life. Yet there are some amazing things too. It doesn't mean if I post about those things it's not true, because they are true. It's just a snapshot of one thing.

A lot of people react how they think they should, it's hyacinth bucket syndrome.
I am very anti drugs and would be clutching my pearls saying no weed. I wouldn't mention that I feel that way because my brother started taking drugs at 11 along with my parents and I'm now 10 years clean and determined my children won't be near drugs though!

my friends and I all are all similar. Nice caring 50/50 partnerships with loving husbands. No divorces. Good kids. Middle class, educated, well travelled. Some with BIG jobs some not. All very normal and ordinary.
.
this is my close group of about 6 families. Go beyond that…it’s a mixed bag.

however I have yet to meet a controlling husband m/downtrodden wife. And no close friends have had a divorce….bar one.

so that’s my normal.

my parents however…dad wasn’t very nice. Mum was pushed around, they did not have many adult friendships and we grew up in a rough area. functioning alcoholics. Both died in their 60s.

so am I bucking the trend? Socially mobile? Who knows.

I feel like I am probably a MN stereotype but I grew up in a council house and have known true poverty. Despite where I am now I always look over my shoulder and have weird stockpiling tendencies.

I went to school with a boy who hung himself cos he owed about £100 to some small time druggies. He was 14. A uni mate overdosed.

I don’t care if people do drugs recreationally around me. I think it’s a very slippery slope and would always caution against.

I’m firmly working class and from a deprived area but I like to live with integrity, honesty and cleanliness.

My marriage is a happy, completely equal partnership of 30 years and a disordered, grubby, druggie life is not for me. Many of my friends and neighbours are the same. They grew up like me, in the 60s and 70s, with post war parents who believed in high moral standards.

I don’t see what is wrong with aiming to be civilised, law abiding and expecting men to step up and be equal partners.

I grew up middle class. I have never seen my parents drunk, though they regularly drink a glass of wine at dinner, and have never been drunk myself. There were certainly never any drugs around.
On the cleanliness point, I wouldn 't sleep in anyone else's sheet (possible exception of my sister), but when it's a kids sleepover and the kid is only sleeping one night I have to say I don't always wash the duvet cover (I do wash the pillowcase). That being said, my house is constantly untidy because there are always piles of ironing / things to be returned / things to be sorted / things to be given to charity shops / things to be carried up the stairs!

I have a very equal relationship (and would not have suffered it otherwise, as my mother had given me many messages of warning growing up about not ending up as someone else's skivvy, so I was very conscious of this) - he does all the cooking and food shopping, I do all the homework, we do housework about 50-50 and we have a cleaner for heavy duty cleaning. We also earn about the same, which perhaps helps, and my hours are longer than his. Funnily enough I continue this with my DD - ever since they have been toddlers I have been telling them they need to marry someone who doesn't treat them like a maid, and who pulls his weight.

This equality point I do think is exaggerated on MN, as IRL I can only think of about 2 or 3 couples I know where there is anything like an equal relationship. Most of them might talk as if it was equal, but I can see the reality is that it is not.
But it constantly amazes me the number of posters who complain about how they are literally left doing everything at home whilst their DH swans off to play golf or sleeps or something.... and I have little sympathy because you can absolutely see that coming even before the children arrive!

But what do you mean you don't know anyone like it? You don't know anyone who changes the sheets six times a night or you don't know anyone who has a drunken husband who is absolutely fucking horrible to them? There's such a massive range of experiences on here. I do really like it when posters start a thread saying something really niceabout their husband, though they usually get told to leave him!

I really really wish that I had had Mumsnet a long time ago to tell me that my marriage really wasn't healthy, in fact to tell me I shouldn't get married in the first place! I had to learn it the hard way because I wouldn't talk to my friends about it.

It’s the deep cleaning and boundaries on MN that are not on my radar IRL !
Have always considered deep cleaning for an operating theatre and boundaries for measuring land 🤦‍♀️

I take everything I read on Mumsnet with a Dead Seas worth of salt.

I'd be willing to bet at least 50% of the middle class well-to-do's with the 6 figure husband, the 2.5 strapping, sporty, impeccably behaved children and the Labradoodle and/or spaniel with absolutely flawless recall are actually completely regular bums just LARPing as all of the above.