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?

Everyone is winging it, and lots of people on here are just lying 😂

Mumsnet isn't, in my experience, especially indicative of real life at all.

I had a nice childhood in a stable family and so did (I think?) the majority of my friends. But I definitely don't think all my friends are in perfect equal relationships, or have previously been.

I have this idea in my head of Mumsnet Woman, who thinks everyone who drinks more than one or two glasses of wine a week is an alcoholic, showers twice a day and thinks anything less is 'grim', refuses to allow her children any refined sugar, has banned 'UPF' from the family's diet, would phone the police if they found out someone smoked weed, have 'mum friends' that they meet 'for coffee', and would leave her husband if he ever looked at porn. But honestly, none of the women I know in real life are like this. None of my friends/family are super dysfunctional or massively chaotic, but they're all way more relaxed about pretty much everything than Mumsnet Woman is.

I'd put clean sheets on for guests, but neither I nor any of my close mates would think it was gross to sleep in a bed that another of us had previously slept in. My oldest mates have been in my life since my teens/20s and in those days we would frequently stagger home pissed and share beds, so we wouldn't be precious about kipping on slept-in sheets in an emergency.

Regarding sheets, following on from my previous post of how I like a clean orderly home-the opposite of how I grew up, I would ALWAYS put clean chests and bed linen on for guests-even if only one night. I put books in the room and a carafe of water, extra blankets and turn on bedside lights and plump up the pillows. A bedside radio. Fresh bath towels for them. Every time I do this, it’s like a little reminder of how different my life and home are now compared to my childhood and it makes me very content.

Or do if it’s some of the examples op cites; drugs and not doing all the parenting /house stuff as a woman and also working full time. Good stuff to realise I’d have said.

Looking around at my middle class friends with nice families and nice homes, they are generally all managing some health issue with the children or additional needs or something. Nobody’s life is perfect. I clean the bathroom and tidy before people come over because otherwise I’d be embarrassed.

I think it's very easy to give responses based on what you think and feel are the right way to do things- I would be honest in saying I haven't always taken my own advice or suggestions - because hindsight is an amazing thing!

I did this with relationships. I'd kept trying to better my parents' relationship, but was eventually forced to realise I was just doing different versions of the same. I unpicked that in therapy, but still had little in the way of a good relationship model.

Cue two years on the Relationships board here, obsessively following links, discussing and learning how decent, equal, well-balanced relationship work. I will always be grateful for this.

I often read Extreme Hygiene threads here but don't comment! Some people are clean freaks - there's one in my family (I never invite her to mine!) But I'm mostly reading for the gasps, laughs and groans 😄

OP just to say I totally know what you mean! I really admire how boundaried a lot of the women on here seem and the way that they demand high standards of themselves and others. I've received some wise and excellent advice on here about some difficult situations in my own marriage and family. However it does make for uncomfortable and (for me) sad reading at times as it makes me reflect on how dysfunctional aspects of my own upbringing were. I had the quintessential privileged middle class upbringing but I was exposed to alcoholism, sexism and the fallout of a lot of mental illness (diagnosed and undiagnosed) of other family members. It has definitely affected me as an adult and I still have a very skewed perspective of what is "normal" and healthy in relationships despite doing a huge amount of therapy on my own dollar and self reflection.
I'm naturally quite emotionally disregulated and have a tendency to be messy and chaotic. I try extremely hard to work on these "rough edges" of mine in order to create a stable, pleasant environment for my own family but there is so much that doesn't come naturally to me. Maybe it's a classic "adult child of an alcoholic" syndrome! (It's A Thing)

I sometimes can't believe the things that posters on here get worked up about , e.g their MIL wants to stay for 3 days, or someone rang the door bell etc, or their DH got a bit drunk on a stag. It must be quite nice to have a sense of being so in control of your life and your immediate environment that such things feel like really unpleasant and jarring interruptions. I guess I've just never had the illusion of being so... in control of it all. I assume we are all just skating on the edge of chaos, but then I come on here and realise others don't experience life that way. How boring it would be if we were all the same, eh?

MN is a strange place!
Most people are not like this so don't worry.

I was genuinely very surprised at how prude MN is, considering the main demographic are not women from extremely religious or conservative cultures. There are swathes of posters who despise the porn industry, have never watched it themselves and swear blind they will leave their partners if they watched porn. Same for those who would (quite literally) prefer to die than get a smear test. Refusing smears seems so normalised on MN which is something you never encounter in real life.

It sounds like you had a really difficult childhood OP, if it's anywhere close to the norm then the norm is awful.

My parents didn't drink and had never taken drugs. My mum worked part time here and there but was around a lot. She kept a very clean and tidy house (unlike me) and did pretty much all childcare and life admin. That was my normal growing up and I think it was a good normal. I never did drugs and after my binge drinking at uni I grew out of it and pretty much gave it up, work part time and do most childcare and life admin as much prefer that to working fulltime.

I don't think there's any reason to think most people on here must be lying. People have very different upbringings and if you don't learn in childhood that drink and drugs are the way to cope with life's stresses then you're less likely to adopt those methods yourself. If you learn as a child you are valued then you're less likely to allow a man to treat you badly.

I don't think a loving and supportive childhood and early adulthood should ever be underestimated in developing a well rounded and functional adult.

Exactly- people have no qualms about sleeping in strange beds in hotels!

How do you ‘most’ people are not like this? What, drug users? No ‘most’ people aren’t.

Scruffy dirty buggers? Yes probably, if covid taught us anything it’s that people are shockingly cavalier about hand washing (which is probably the tip of hygiene iceberg), but should that be acceptable? I say no.

…And as for equal division of labour? We shouldn’t ’worry about it’? Again no, you’re wrong, we should be teaching and role modelling to our daughters a different way.

Part of it is that people will offer advice on the bits of their lives that they're good at, but don't talk so much about the areas of their lives they're failing at.

For instance, me and DP have a genuinely good relationship. When we disagree we deal with it calmly so almost never argue and have never sworn or shouted at each other. We've been through relationship struggles over the years but have generally come out the other side even closer than we were. So I'm happy to offer advice on that stuff, I feel that I have something to contribute on that front.

On the flip side I'm a chronic procrastinator who would rather not do something than risk doing it wrong, and it gets me into all kinds of trouble. I get by on sheer luck and getting through work at great pace 5 minutes from a deadline. I am not well prepared or on top of things, I'm quite lazy if I let myself be. So if you're asking for advice on how to get your life organised, I'm highly unlikely to respond to your thread.

I also drink too much, and need to lose weight but can't be arsed to put the work in, so again, not likely to post advice on that sort of thread.

You've built up a picture @Usedtobeslummy of the average Mumsnetter, and that person is a superhuman who has their life together, and knows what to do in every situation. But that's not really an average, its actually cherry-picking each Mumsnetters best bits. In reality, we all have shit we're on top of and shit we're failing miserably at.

People like to fit in with social norms so usually those who don’t relate to something will not post about it and that’s why you can end up with an echo chamber of like minded people who all have similar mindsets and priorities. I wouldn’t even click on a thread about football, I don’t like it so I have no opinion on it but if you posted about cooking it’s something most people here experience in their life either as something they hate or something they are proud of - those that aren’t good at it and don’t care will not post anything and you get mostly people who like it so much or hate it so much they go out of their way to post their opinions. You just don’t hear from those other sections of people that’s why it seems skewed

we should be teaching and role modelling to our daughters a different way

Not our sons?

One of the things I like about MN is how it does bring women from all different backgrounds and walks of life together, which I think can only be a good thing. My upbringing was firmly middle class, and all the people I work with / encounter through work are from similar backgrounds (or in fact exceedingly privileged - there are far more people who went to private school than went to state school at my employer, so clearly not representative or very diverse), so it can only be a good thing to hear a range of viewpoints from people with wide ranging experiences.

I know the perception is that MN is overwhelmingly middle class - I don't know whether that's the case or those people are more vocal. I'm certainly not as clean / rigorous about housework (or frankly bothered about it) as some posters on here, but equally for the same reason I probably wouldn't post on threads particularly on that subject.

One thing that does repeatedly shock me though (and sadden and depress me) is how many women seem to be with truly awful men, who are contributing nothing and (at best) are an actively negative influence in their and their children's lives and at worst, full on abusive. The bar does feel very low but if posting on here and getting a wide range of viewpoints helps women in these relationships to see that it's not ok and they deserve better, then wonderful.

I read the comments and feel the same. You sound more together than me! Good career? Nope.

I've never had a career. I grew up in a MC household but I never set the world alight work wise and now I'm a SAHM. My parents and sister all had/have professionsl careers and all have more than one degree. I've always felt pretty shit in comparison but it's becoming apparent that I have ADHD or ADD if describing me. It's had a huge effect on all aspects of my life. I can't even drive fgs! Though I'm planning on attempting lessons at my grand old age.

Everyone (or majority) on here are more articulate than me and almost certainly have had better career paths.

Like you I've learned a lot from the women on here so I try not to compare and I'm grateful for the knowledge and the different viewpoints.

Oh and I don't mind sleeping in beds people I know have slept in. Well, females anyway.

Most of my friends took drug as did I. One is in N/A others have attended in the past. I don't drink or take drugs anymore because of my children as I enjoyed that life a little too much.

Would u still be friends with any of these people if they no longer fitted into " the nice mc family" scenario?

I think my bar is a lot lower than the people you mention in your OP - but as far as I'm concerned it is just fine. Most people I know enjoy social drinking, and occasionally go a bit overboard. Likewise i have no issue with people who have done drugs in the past. I certainly wouldn't want to sleep in bed sheets that a stranger had slept in but I don't change my own as much as the average MNer will say they do.

And in terms of equality in a relationship - I see so many times the mistaken belief that this means that everything has to be split down the middle - both earning the same, working the same hours, splitting tasks exactly equally. It really doesn't and shouldn't mean that. People have different strengths and a relationship should be based on people working to their own and their partner's individual strengths.

Yes everyone has their own demons.

Yes, completely agree with this! And also we go through stages when some things are going well and times when those same things are a bit of a mess really.

For example, our DD went through a very long moody phase as a teenager…like several years. Bit of a shock because DS’s phase had lasted about two months so we thought we knew what we were doing with teenagers 🤣. I spent several years feeling like a really rubbish mum, because the moods and disdain seemed like they were here to stay and I couldn’t see how we would ever have a decent adult relationship. Fast forward several years (she’s 24 now) and she’s lovely and we have a much closer relationship than I had ever thought possible when she was 16/17. She even apologised for it when she was 22! Anyway, the point is that I wouldn’t have dreamt of weighing in on any discussion about teenagers, parenting or anything like that during those years because I didn’t feel that I’d have anything to offer and would have felt like a hypocrite. These days I might just say something though, especially if it would encourage someone stuck in the weeds with teenagers that things are very likely to change.

Most people don’t offer advice on things they feel aren’t going well in their own lives and so you don’t get a true picture. We’re all just winging it really aren’t we??

This isn't real life at all. I feel like I'm kind of underrepresented on here in that I'm a childless benefits claimant who smokes pot every day.

I remember a recent thread where there was a heated debate about whether it was disgusting for married couples to share the same bath towel. 🤣
Yeah, I sleep with them, fuck them, kiss them but I won't share a fucking towel with them.

Don't take this as the world. But the good thing is most people are ultimately trying to be helpful and supportive to other women. No matter what background. X

I think there are women who, whether consciously or subconsciously, will socially avoid anyone who doesn't fit the nice middle class family ideal or who has a slight whiff of dysfunction or a little hint that all might not be well. For example, my DH had a period of extremely bad mental health following a bereavement and our marriage went through a bad patch, and we've also had a vulnerable relative staying with us for long stretches here and there (i.e a month at a time not just a few days), and it's as if some of the other mums in NCT/church just instinctively knew to distance themselves even though I myself came across as quite cheerful and don't really mention my problems. Some people have a very sharp social antenna for any kind of dysfunction and naturally keep away. In a way I don't blame them - I think on one level a very prudent strategy for keeping away from drama and having a peaceful life, and also ensuring that you are your kids aren't exposed to anyone who's life goes outside a certain perimeter of "acceptable" behaviour/life experience.
It's not how I roll personally but I think it's quite a common mindset among middle class parents although I don't think anyone ever admits to it.