Things only frequently heard on Mumsnet (lighthearted)

[Deathofaunicorn]

Just thinking of things people have posted that I've heard countless times!

Everyone's friends in their social circle didn't have their first baby until the age of 42/43.

Their Grandma had her last baby at the age of 48.

Night of passion with their dp within 6 seconds of meeting, they moved in that night and never left and now they're celebrating 75 years of marriage.

Grandma who smoked 200 cigarettes a day, used chip fat on their face and had beautiful, line free skin at the age of 120.

DP has a hobby which means they're out most evenings and every weekend. Has a female colleague 25 years younger who he has a mutual attraction with and they text each other all day long.

Their DD/DS is 6'7, model looks, eats 10 packs of lard a day yet doesn't gain an ounce.

Has anyone else seen things like this frequently posted?

This is a funny thread!

Everyone is 40, but very very petite, teenytiny really, and looks like 16.

This is my favourite as I can empathise so much

I retired three years ago but keep getting mistaken for a fetus

Those women in their late 40s who seriously think they look 25.

There was a thread a couple of weeks ago and 90 percent of the posters claimed to be extremely attractive either now or when they were younger. None of them posted a photo though.

I also came on here to mention the posts where the OP is convinced they look 15 years younger than they are.

They post a photo of a woman looking mid forties, wearing clothes women in their mid forties wear, a haircut women in their mid forties tend to have - and are then distraught that many posters guess that they are in their mid forties.

Though I do love the ridiculous age range of guesses. 80% of replies will say mid forties woman looks mid forties, 10% will say she looks 65, and 10% will say she looks 30.

I love the style and beauty threads where the OP says she is so jealous of the school run mums who are so tall, beautiful, very MC and so well put together without making any effort THEN about 200 posters rush in to very casually say "you've described me to a T" or "all my friends say I am like this". Self praise is never a recommendation!

Poster - I'm struggling to lose weight, eating around 1200-1400 calories a day and tracking every morsel

Mumsnet - why on earth are you gorging yourself with so much food?

You forgot that they never raise their voice in their interactions with DH. If it came to that, the marriage would be “ over.”

Guess my age threads always go the same way:

"Guess my age!"

Answers:
Er, 48? but you have great skin
52- I have that same dress!
75?

"I cant believe you're all being so mean!!! I am 47 but all my friends tell me I look 22"

Answers:
You look great, but you do look mid-late 40s
Why do you need our approval so badly?
I look younger than you and I'm 64

"WTF is wrong with you? I DO look 22- strangers literally come up to me in the street every time I leave the house to specifically tell me how I look 22"

posts 3 more photos filtered to fck saying - "this is a better angle"

Whaaaa?

I hear people ask why women chose to have kids with a certain man / in a certain situation everyday!

I think the shoes things varies. I have a shoe free house put of preference. I have friends who culturally have always had shoe free homes. I fine workmen / delivery men are happy to put on this cover sock boot things they carry with them.

Yeah this! The amount of posters who swear blind that they look 10 years younger than they are, and they constantly get people telling them this.

I loved the lockdowns. (Very much only on MN, I don't know a single person in real life who did.)

I loved lockdown but won’t count because I’m on mn!

I worked through it and so did DH and my sons.It gave me a chance to slow down and reset. I couldn’t double book myself as I had been doing, I actively saved the money I wasn’t spending on incidentals and saved 1000’s

It changed me and I’ve kept those changes and live a simpler life now.

When they have clearly stated their budget is 30 quid!

Or sometimes "very rural".

I don't live in the UK but here you either live in a rural or an urban area, there are no shades in-between - and I suspect some people here live much more "very rural" than anyone in the UK!

Nobody has a job. They all have'careers'.

I feel like a massive underachiever as I have only ever had 'jobs' .

“This happened two weeks ago and you’re STILL going on about it?! You even started a thread! I just couldn’t get worked up about it.”

In real life, normal people still want to punch people in the face for something that happened in 2003.

Me being one of those people holding said grudges 🤣

Missing the point here, but what is the MN thing about not having a toilet brush? How do you clean the toilet??

“Raise your bar” usually in response to some poor woman who has just discovered her husband has spent their life savings, sold the house out from under her and shagged her friend/sister/mother. That is something I’ve only ever heard on here. As is “read the room” for anyone who mentions spending more than 37p on anything.

I can never figure out what is appropriate for children to do anything. 0-12yo cant be left out of your sight at all. 12yo can't be left alone for more than 15minutes and even then they have to see you form the window. 13yo can't possibly take the bus by themselves. 14yo are too young to be alone for the whole evening. Yet all 14yo are getting drunk and giving bj's for alcohol so no need to be uptight. But then suddenly at 15, it is totally cool to let them interrail with their mates. Also asking 15yo to go on family holiday is borderline abuse and absolutely not a single teenager never ever has ever enjoyed a family holiday.

Also teen relationship. 15yo having sleepovers with bf/gf normal and encouraged. Teenagers bringing their bf/gf for family holiday is totally normal and expected. Barely adults moving their bf/gf to their parents house is the norm. Well, also I'm thinking in mn adult children living at home in general is overrepresented.

14 year old daughter has been having sex with her boyfriend, a little older. Hardly anyone advises the Mum to read the riot act and ban the boyfriend from the premises. Hardly anyone mentions the age of consent. Loads of posters tell the Mum that it is just normal teen behaviour and she should accept it and have a serious chat about contraception.

If a young teenager gets pregnant then we get tales from MNetters who had a baby at 15 or 16 and went on to be highly paid professionals. Assume they had to "work and slog their guts out"

Not the most common, but in any thread to do with driving there are always people that insist it's dangerous to stick to the speed limit because it requires constantly watching the speedometer instead of the road!

Maybe if you're a shit driver! Tbh any driving thread eventually becomes terrifying with all the "well this is how I've always driven and it's never caused me any problems" (middle lane hogging/undertaking/ driving at 40mph in any and every speed limit etc etc)

Or those posts that say driving is a basic life skill. It took me years to pass my test and I barely drive as I get panicky, nothing basic about it.

The problem with those threads is always that the people debating about driving are always in totally different ends of the spectrum. We have a childfree 22yo living in the high street of the major city, and then there is someone living in rural Lancashire with 4 children and closest Sainsbury's is 20miles away. And then somehow these two debate on the necessity of driving.

So true! If I was having brain surgery and I found out that the person operating had had to take their exams 10 times I would be out of there! Driving is a good life skill to have but to suggest that everyone can and should do it, no matter how poor they are, is quite dangerous. I remember with horror my late father who learned to drive late in life, in his 50s, and was an appalling driver, we were nearly driven into a dock he was so bad.

People adopting an insane contrary position and then expressing it in the most exaggerated, offensive and condescending language. To be fair I suspect most of them are trolls or troll-lite (not full fat trolls!) but it happens so often that there must be some who are genuinely batshit. Usually features phrases like "Give your head a wobble" which I detest and have never seen anywhere but here and "Wow" as a single sentence with an aggressive full stop.

Like this:

My house caught fire so I called the fire brigade.

Give your head a wobble. You should have tried to put it out yourself with some wet flannels and a hose pipe. It's people like you time-wasters straining public services.

Wow. You are such a climate change denier. Don't you have any awareness of what a waste of water that was. You should be ashamed of yourself.

And someone will sneeringly say to the 22 year-old, “That’s all very well, but what would you do if you lived in a one-street village twenty miles from the nearest town and there was only a horse and cart service there twice a month?”

Erm… I’m guessing they’d either change their minds about driving or - far more likely - just not move there?

My house my rules, people are desperate to have children but only if they do what they say it seems