Page 31 | What do you wish people would stop romanticizing, because you’ve lived the reality of it?

CharloMoulin · 19/04/2025 10:34

AlphaRadiationIsHeliumNuclei · 19/04/2025 09:37

Another vote for university.

My whole childhood and teenage years were built around me going to university. My hobbies were chosen to look good on an UCCA form (UCAS now), my GCSE and A level subjects were chosen for me. I had to save all my Christmas and birthday money, plus money I earned doing part time jobs. All 'for university '.

I was constantly told how wonderful the experience would be (by parents who hadn't been).

It was OK. I made friends but not ones who I stayed in touch with. I didn't really find any clubs that interested me, although I joined several and really tried. I ended up with a crap degree from a wrap university.

I know my parents meant well but it makes me sad that I wasn't allowed to be myself or make my own choices.

Oh God - I can relate to this SO SO much!!

Why on earth can parents not have more common sense??!

x2boys · 19/04/2025 10:36

Peony1897 · 19/04/2025 10:30

Oh and - giving birth.

I have had 2 nightmare vaginal deliveries complete with drips, vomiting, actively shitting myself, screaming, blood, stitches and eventual iron tablets for the anaemia through blood loss.

Seeing first time mums on here dreamily plan their ‘chilled out waterbirth’ makes me hoot. Yes of course some people have a great experience but 75% will end up in heavy intervention.

Lol me too its not helped by the way its potrayed on tv labour starts ,two pushes and the baby is out if only!

CiscoTS · 19/04/2025 10:39

HazelMaker · 18/04/2025 13:11

The 1990s

I was a teenager in the 1990s. I loved it then, and I romanticise it now.

So I’ve lived the reality of it 😂

topcat2014 · 19/04/2025 10:43

Ted27 · 18/04/2025 19:56

@topcat2014

Has it really been 5 years? You will probably always think about him, but I hope you've been able to move on to a good life, even if it wasn't the path you wanted.
My adoption story has had its challenges but my young man is at university and doing well.
I've been fostering for 18 months and had two placements break down. I feel devastated about both of them, both young people have very uncertain futures but the support just isn't there.

Time does indeed fly. Our "little one" will be about 12 now. They returned to their foster carer who was going to continue until 18. The FC were lovely people, and so that was good.

Life moves forward. A good friend said "don't waste the life you have thinking about the life you wanted", and we stick to that.

FlowerUser · 19/04/2025 10:43

The high energy bills, the ph testing, the lack of time to it in it. I love a hot tub, just not owning one.
And it's rude to tell people they're doing something wrong on a thread about their actual experience.

cardibach · 19/04/2025 10:48

Definitelymaybenoyes · 19/04/2025 07:03

For you yes, clearly not for the poster. Everyone leads incredibly different lives and like another PP points out, shoes how unique us humans are.

I for one also find it too much to juggle the dynamics of a friendship group whilst also ensuring I spend time with my children, husband and immediate family.

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That doesn’t mean friendship groups are ‘romanticised’ though. They are incredibly valuable and enjoyed by most I’d say. If someone can’t ‘juggle’ the time (and I was a single parent with a full time job who lived over 100 miles from most of my long standing friends so I get the logistics) I still maintain that’s a shame and they may regret it at some point. Like if a marriage fails, for eg.

TheaBrandt1 · 19/04/2025 10:49

Rude! That’s too funny! Sad for you to have had a hot tub and not used it properly. Mine has been a life enhancer for me since 2017. Getting in it now 😀

Thepeopleversuswork · 19/04/2025 10:51

Fraaances · 19/04/2025 06:49

Women needing to “Have it all” to feel fulfilled or valued. It’s almost fucking impossible.

What does this actually mean in practice though?

I see posts on here all the time where people rail against women wanting to “have it all”. What are you actually saying? That women should be restricted to either having a career or having children? You realise that’s a physical impossibility for millions of us?

This phrase is such a knee jerk cliche. People read it a few decades ago in Cosmopolitan and then brandish it on Mumsnet as some sort of “gotcha”, but if you take it through to its logical conclusion it basically says women should not work and have children. No thanks, I will keep my job and keep my kid out of poverty.

BlackeyedSusan · 19/04/2025 10:52

EilonwyWithRedGoldHair · 18/04/2025 14:12

They can do. Like being told having an autistic child is going to be an amazing journey - that has been said to me.

DS is amazing, he is funny, clever, caring and interesting, I love him to bits.

But it's also hard work to do anything, just getting him to leave the house can take an hour or more, he's put me in A&E on multiple occasions, the sleep deprivation has been brutal, the stress over every aspect of life is brutal, the financial side is heading towards disaster, DH and I are constantly exhausted. I would not describe the 'journey' as amazing, more as frustrating and damaging.

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Going to fucking Holland!

(A poem that is supposed to help you feel better about life with a disabled child. )

TheaBrandt1 · 19/04/2025 10:52

I read it that men should step up - they seem to “have it all” quite easily.

pictoosh · 19/04/2025 10:57

French grey.

Looks perfect in Provence, a soft, subtle, tasteful shade that is gentle on the eye in the glare of the sun. Lovely.
Terrible in Britain where the sky is overcast and the same colour of grey for the majority. Drab and grey outside...and now inside to match. And what's more...the carpet, sofa and fitted kitchen are all grey too. So is the bedroom and the hall.

I'm being facetious tbh. I didn't paint my house grey so I didn't live it. There are lots of grey corner sofas on FB marketplace and Gumtree now though.

TeamMandrake · 19/04/2025 10:58

BobbyBiscuits · 18/04/2025 13:48

I think as far as music was concerned, the noughties were horrendous. At least some decent music came out of the 90s, though more the earlier part.
The 00s was the worst era to be romanticising about I think overall. Especially the way that young female celebrities were treated.

Edited

Ah, see, I think of the early 00's as a time where genuinely new and inventive things became available - ceramic hair straightners, smart phones, WFH. Everyone I knew was buying a flat at 23 for <100k with a 95% mortgage, and furnishing it from Ikea for a few hundred. Flying Easyjet for cheap holidays. It felt like life was good, and everything would get better forever. Until the bubble burst, obviously. But it seemed good at the time.

mrsmiawallace3 · 19/04/2025 10:59

And better music too.

Thepeopleversuswork · 19/04/2025 10:59

TheaBrandt1 · 19/04/2025 10:52

I read it that men should step up - they seem to “have it all” quite easily.

Yes indeed.

But from bitter experience usually when people tut on here about women “having it all” it’s based on a vague, non specific distrust of working mums. Usually delivered by someone who has the option not to work or to work part time and rails against women “farming out” their children.

As you rightly point out no one ever accuses men of wanting to “have it all”. It’s only women who are required to choose between financial agency and children.

Bubblesgun · 19/04/2025 11:01

FastFood · 18/04/2025 13:48

Being a Parisian

Why? I love being french and being a parisian.
i m not romantising it though. We re great people and fun, but yes we can be rude as very blunt. But every communities have their flaws. We re on the receiving end of good jokes though so you should love it.

life in paris can be very competitive and exhausting. Always have to sound and look smart, and very intellectual. We re quite judgemental too especially in the way you dress although this is changing. My mum for instance is a lot more tolerant of her grand daughters wearing leggings and hoodies outside of sport 🤣

Abitlosttoday · 19/04/2025 11:03

Windowtothe · 18/04/2025 13:18

University

Yes. I had an awful time at university. My partner never went and really regrets it. I can't make him understand how shit it is for lots of people.

Dandeliontea123 · 19/04/2025 11:08

A ‘nice quiet little job in a library’. Maybe in a nice quiet little village only.

dottydodah · 19/04/2025 11:18

DDs ex (bit of a tool)was "envious" when I had hallucinations from morphine! Would like a free one Errr no!

MrsSkylerWhite · 19/04/2025 11:19

PivotPivotmakingmargaritas · 19/04/2025 07:54

Gardening …. I keep waiting for my passion to kick in but I hate it… I think city living with a balcony life is for me

Absolutely. Spent decades of my life looking after large gardens at our family homes. We’re retiring to a lovely, top floor flat with beautiful views and a large terrace. Can’t wait to swan about in my Margot style kaftan under my big sun hat, picking the occasional dead leaf or flower from one of the pots. 😁

Tbrh · 19/04/2025 11:26

TheaBrandt1 · 19/04/2025 10:52

I read it that men should step up - they seem to “have it all” quite easily.

I disagree because men's definition of 'it all' is pretty short

PowderMonkeys · 19/04/2025 11:28

NW3Lady · 19/04/2025 07:04

Living in Hampstead.

It’s really hilly, really windy, there’s nowhere decent to park, getting around by car is hellish, getting around on foot is hellish, there are so many bloody 4x4s which don’t suit the roads, so many bloody annoying people, the whole selective school scene is absurd, trying to do the school run is absurd, a lot of the houses aren’t even that nice and are not well-suited to modern life.

This made me smile because I always thought I’d like to live in Hampstead, in the unlikely event I ever move back to London. Good to have a bit of cold water dropped on that.

BobbyBiscuits · 19/04/2025 11:31

TeamMandrake · 19/04/2025 10:58

Ah, see, I think of the early 00's as a time where genuinely new and inventive things became available - ceramic hair straightners, smart phones, WFH. Everyone I knew was buying a flat at 23 for <100k with a 95% mortgage, and furnishing it from Ikea for a few hundred. Flying Easyjet for cheap holidays. It felt like life was good, and everything would get better forever. Until the bubble burst, obviously. But it seemed good at the time.

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Yeah, I guess for me it was a bit of a fuck up decade! Lol

Peony1897 · 19/04/2025 11:31

And being a woman.

Bubblesgun · 19/04/2025 11:32

Liveafr · 18/04/2025 14:46

Paris is one of the city where housing price is the highest (in the world) so the majority of parisians live in cramped appartments
Everything basically is so expensive
Very old underground, a nightmare during rush hours
Pretty dirty, though it has gotten better in the last years
Traffic in awful
Quite unsafe for women

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Disagree

BlackeyedSusan · 19/04/2025 11:33

SpringSunshineanddaffodils · 18/04/2025 14:42

God, yes
Please, people, stop romantising this.

Remember that thread a few weeks ago? Oh, I have too much money, life was so much easier when I had less choice. Boo hoo.

I don't know whether to eye roll or puke

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Being poor effects the way you think/live for life. Having money after being poor doesn't change that fear/thinking in some cases. And it's generational in some cases. My dad (and mum) never recovered from his upbringing,(absolute poverty) I won't from mine even though we had more money than dad did growing up, (still had periods of lack of spare money, and rare to have day to day luxuries such as heating and the food was shit and rationed, second hand clothes from male cousins and dad would rarely spend anything he didn't have to when he did have some money) the fear and the attitudes have been passed on. I am passing them onto the kids. I learned to save and not spend as life was in and out of work redundancies, single parenthood relying on the whims of an abusive man, and illnesses and disabilities and insecurity. I've got enough money now but it sure as hell doesn't feel like it!