To ask what the most ridiculous advice/suggestion you've seen on here is?

[Phillipconnarthy]

I was looking for ways to pay off my credit card faster and was told by somebody that I should sell my TV (it cost around £110) on which I only have Netflix and don't pay for a licence as I don't watch anything else.

I was told watching TV is a luxury and I should be happy with just listening to the radio!
It made me feel that some people think people with debt or low income don't deserve even the simplest of pleasures.

Has anyone else had silly advice?

When I read WFH job so I can stay with the baby … or my boss is fine and I can work in between.

Its ended up with our place now bringing back being in the office and each week days changed. Flexibility gone out the window that was in place :(

Can confirm the accounting advice is usually bollocks as well. It's said with such confidence though!

"Poster posts a concern about fitting into an outfit, airplane seat, car (y'know, something size related) within the next week or 2"

"Lose weight then you'll be fine" "that's not healthy, you need to go on a low calorie diet" " no not a low calorie diet as you'll put on 37 stone after" "Excerise and diet" "the NHS can't support the obesity epidemic"

HOW DOES THAT HELP THE POSTER RIGHT OW? THEY ARE NOT LOSING 6 STONE BY TUESDAY LUNCHTIME ARE THEY

Every fucking time.

Its very fucking annoying, especially when its a v long first post

My favourite “advice” was from a thread where the OP’s DH had been sacked from something like an accounting or finance job and she was panicking about finances. The proposed solution? The DH should get a job as a bin man. Like he could just put overalls on and pitch up at the council office the next morning and say “right lads, I’m here”.

I only read the threads about children with autism because a friend’s child has recently been diagnosed. I would never comment because I have never been a parent to a child with autism. I’m amazed at the posters with no experience or professional knowledge doling out advice though. And it has made me look at other topics on mumsnet through a new lense, as I suspect they are also full of posters spouting rubbish.

But the advice on mumsnet has always been “if you want to be a mother then you have the right to be a mother” with no thought whatsoever given to what kind of life the child (ren) will have.

Yes to the spa day or booking yourself into a hotel for the weekend. So unrealistic

On the disability bashing threads there are always posters who pop in to say, 'There is absolutely no reason at all why a disabled person can't work a few hours a week from their bed proofreading', as if editing and proofreading aren't actual professions requiring specific skills. Anyone can do it apparently, which is just as well as the demand for them has never been higher what with the advent of AI and all that.

Are you are called a mysognist! For daring to say that men are human, make mistakes or may even be in the right. Lots of posters ALWAYS come out in support of the women even if she's in the wrong...

I posted a thread about my son’s extreme fussiness, from 6 months we introduced a variety and he still only eats certain textures 2 years later. He had oral motor problems after birth for months, lots of feeding problems.

I had so many comments from posters clueless despite me making it clear he had issues, about how I should just put cucumber sticks in front of him 3 times a day and eventually he will eat. No one believed me when I said he would rather starve. I’m not kidding, he would. Getting called a bad mum for offering safe foods is really hurtful, people couldn’t believe he was still having fruit and veg pouches or that I was mashing fruit into his cereal, that’s the only way he will eat it.

Whenever someone says “Always trust your gut OP!!!” to a poster who is clearly paranoid, obsessive and hyper-anxious to the point of mental illness.

“AIBU to be sick with worry over this? I borrowed DH’s phone to do something I could easily have just done on my own phone, and I accidentally logged into his work Teams account and saw he had messaged a girl in his office four months ago to ask if she was going to the same meeting as him later that day, she is younger than him and when I looked her up on Facebook I can see that 15 years ago when she was celebrating her A-level results she once posted a photo of herself on a beach in a bikini. DH has also recently bought a new shirt. When I quizzed him about her for six hours and threatened to kill myself, he told me I was insane. AIBU to think he is gaslighting me and is having an affair? This is what the demonic voices in my head are telling me.”

“Always trust your gut OP. On the face of it this could be innocent, but if your spidey senses are telling you something’s wrong, it probably is.”

As someone who has anxiety I absolutely agree. When you have trust issues and things to work on you can’t really trust your gut, especially when you’re an over thinker.

The recent thread where the male OP left with his 8 year old daughter because her mother was being abusive towards her was quite shocking. Lots of posters telling him how outrageous it was to take the child away from her mother despite the mother's abusive behaviour, and despite her mother making no attempt to make contact, accusing him of favouritism, accusing him of projecting his marital problems onto his daughter etc. If the OP were a woman it would be LTB, go to a hotel NOW and don't tell him where you're going, hope his name isn't on the birth certificate, move away somewhere he won't find you, hire a shit hot lawyer and so on.

There was one recently along the lines of...

'I borrowed DP's phone to check the time and came across a message from a woman five years ago in his deleted WhatsApp chats folder'

On a diet thread a poster advised the OP to not eat a raw carrot as a snack as they were too high in sugar, they were deadly serious!

Every weight loss thread is a hub of dangerous disordered eating. Exercise will barely be mentioned in the first 5 pages of bizarre faddy diets and then someone will bring it up only to be shouted down with "you can't outrun a bad diet!"

Also "show them the thread" - yes, I'm sure they will take very kindly to you bitching about them on the internet and an ensuing 20-page character assassination, you'll get exactly what you want!

Yep the double standards on here are something else ,i remember reading a thread years ago where the father had residency of the children and the mother was pretty useless and wouldnt come and visit the kids as she didnt hsve the money ,the father was told he needed to mske every effort to facillitate a relationship between the kids and their mother by sending her money or offerring to pick her up / drop the kids off ( she had moved away) otherwise HE was denying his kids a relationshio wuth their mother
Had the sex,s been reversed the answers would have been very different.

Any thread moaning about teenagers being teenagers and someone always pipes up: 'I wouldn't have that OP. My son is only two and he already helps me sort the laundry/tidy up/clear the table'.
They don't realise the mummy's little helper stage will have disappeared when their child is 14.
Likewise, any response to a picky eaters thread boasting that their 18-month old loves olives and calamari (it's always those two for some reason) without realising that most babies will pretty much eat anything before they hit two. They think it's their splendid parenting, bless them.

Or the perfect parents who havent yet had kids...

Putting the neighbour’s dog shit through their letterbox. Yeh, that’ll really help the dispute won’t it.

Alot of bad advice, but the one that sticks in my mind is the poster who advised the OP to stage a protest outside a suspected peadophiles house.

The thread where some woman kicked off in a toilet and someone suggested the OP offer her a creme egg because she was obviously having a tough day.

Sorry, I know it's awful but that has made me laugh.

I remember a similar one where an adult was behaving aggressively in a cafe or something and someone claimed that they'd send their child over to the table with a doughnut.

In fact that sort of advice in general. Like if you hear your neighbour shouting at their kids you should go round with a cake. I don't know about you but when I've lost my shit with the kids it's never been because I didn't get a cake gift earlier in the day.