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?

What is frustrating is when some posters think its easy to seek professional help such a CAMHS and simlar when infact it can take years and them there's a pile on of others agreeing you should do this not understanding there's years of waiting and then you have to hope you reach the criteria

General:

“Sell something” in response to major financial problems. Very few items are worth enough second hand for their sale to solve a crisis - and the people who own such items aren’t generally the people in major financial shit.

Anything that assumes the OP, in dire need of space, has a spare room/dining room/utility room/garden she can just move things or even children into. Ditto the assumption that every family has two cars (or even one).

“Try being kind.” When the supposed kindness would mean major upheaval in the OP’s life, or a huge financial/personal sacrifice.

Specific threads:

The currently running one where the OP’s daughter hasn’t been invited to her stepsister’s wedding. Sensible people are telling her that yes, her stepdaughter is being a bit of a cow, but that it isn’t worth causing a permanent division in the family. But a huge number of people are desperately trying to convince her to leave her husband because he won’t force his daughter to issue an invitation; gleefully advising ways to ostracise her stepdaughter from the family; telling her that she absolutely can ban the stepdaughter from her home and that her husband can do NOTHING about it… it’s all insane.

A thread from years ago where the OP had seen two of her colleagues at a hotel and wondered if she should tell his wife (who she’d met a grand total of once) that they were having an affair. People were advising her to buy a “burner phone” to tell the wife anonymously; to cause a massive scene at work because “you’ll only be sharing the facts” (no facts whatsoever) and that it can’t possibly backfire… even suggesting that it would all be fine because the hotel’s CCTV would back her up! How the hell was she meant to access that?! Never mind a hotel room - if the OP had done half the things suggested, she’d have been in a padded room!

A thread that turned out to be a troll, but even so… the OP claimed her ex-husband had asked her and her current husband to take his daughter (not OP’s daughter) to Disneyland with them. Apparently the husband was an awful person because he didn’t want to do it. Who the fuck would take responsibility for their partner’s ex’s child on an international holiday?!

About 98% of the fucking people saying "I'd leave... divorce the bastard" would infact, not divorce anyone, let alone for the menial things they're described as doing in the OP.

I’ve just remembered a thread from back in the days when MN had real thing about older children and buggies. If you mentioned that your 4 year old sometimes went in a one, someone would inevitably appear, muttering about “the obesity crisis” and how THEIR child walked 12 miles a day by the age of 18 months, yadda yadda. Anyway, the OP had no car, no safe cycle route and a limited time frame to get a preschooler to nursery, and people were tying themselves in knots to avoid the obvious solution of a pushchair, to the extent that someone actually suggested the OP buy a bike with a child seat and push the bike to nursery. Because that’s totally different to riding in a buggy 😂

I’m glad that doesn’t seem to be an issue anymore (or my children are so far past the age of pushchairs I no longer notice).

Yes! As if it hasn't occurred to the OP to ask the deadbeat dad for any maintenance!

The 2020 Covid ones were batshit:

no milk? Don't go out and kill granny. Just put cheese in your coffee!

don't go out and buy Easter eggs or cucumber as part of your necessary grocery shop, you're killing people ! With the cucumber one I basically responded with "my guinea pigs don't care there's a lockdown on. Heckerslike am I going to stop buying cucumber!"

In 2020, I was told in real life I should either leave my 7&8 year olds at home alone for two hours to go to the supermarket, or leave them on the village green for two hours.

Now, 5 years later it is debated in MN whether you should leave a 12yo home alone for 2 hours. Those 12yos which it was apparently fine to leave 5 years ago when they were 7.

Today’s thread about the doorstep shitter. Someone actually suggested that the OP should bag up the mystery poo and put it in the freezer so it could eventually be DNA tested. Ewww. Yeah, just put shit in amongst the fishfingers and frozen peas. Sounds like a totally sensible solution.

Hilarious!!!😂

I need to read this. Was it a recent thread and does anyone have a link please? I’m not having much luck with advanced search.

Seems strange that you've picked on what is a ridiculous question as a thread to call out ridiculous responses.

Out of interest what your response be, a cling film wrap??

I'm not very good with searching either but I think it was OPs brothers wedding. Her kid's weren't invited, not sure about husband. I think she had an injury that meant she couldn't drive for a bit. The thread was full of the, it's your brother's wedding, you absolutely have to go, it's famillllllleeeeee!!! types.

I was living in a commuter village about five miles out of Cambridge when roadworks started on the a14, and it was gridlocked. I started a thread about it and oh lord … the posters who would not accept that cycling down the a14 was not a good idea.

Dog threads. It isn’t possible or easy to rescue and retired greyhounds are not ideal family pets.

While not exactly brilliant advice, it was far from the most ridiculous. The OP had inherited a house which was in an awful state and needed a load of repairs. It also had a sitting tenant who could not be evicted and neither could the OP increase the rent. The OP, as landlady, would have had to carry out the expensive repairs to keep the place safe for the tenant.

Nowhere near as ridiculous as some other advice on here.

Mums of toddlers turning up on teenager threads lecturing about how we are wasting money buying iPhones, Xboxes, and designer gear. You don’t need to spend any money on activities for them, it’s all a massive indulgence. Big food bills? Nah, just fill them up with lentils.

Come Back in 10 years and let’s hear all about your child who sits in their bedroom staring at the wall all day wearing their Tesco trainers starving because they’re only allowed half a sandwich and a handful of grapes for lunch.

Similarly I work in adult social work (mainly older adults) and have seen many posters suggest respite for older people as if you can just phone up social work and get respite immediately as if booking a hotel room.

Certainly in my local authority, there are very few respite beds, they are subject to very strict criteria, you need to have funding approved for them and the manager of said nursing home needs to approve it too. Social work don't have a supply of unlimited respite places that can just be made available on demand!

And in total agreement of the food threads. Anywhere else fruit is considered a healthy snack but here some posters think giving it to your kids is like giving them crack cocaine. Similarly supermarket bread. In the real world I am not going to waste time "baking my own" or tracking down an "artisan bakery" to buy bread!

The one thread that stands out for me was recently a poster had posted that her daughter who was 19/20 was on a night out with friends in a new city an hour away and had got lost coming out the toilet in a pub and went outside BRIEFLY before being found by her friends five minutes later.

The poster was then in a complete meltdown over this absolute non incident and was tracking her daughters phone obsessively and was all set to drive to this city and book herself in a hotel to "be on hand". There were obviously sensible posters telling her to not be ridiculous but a large amount falling over themselves to say the poster should be absolutely doing that, she should be banning her daughter from drinking, sitting her down for a good talking too, track her phone all night and why wasn't she already on her way to book herself into a hotel and that tracking her would be the ONLY way to stop her being murdered. And that parents who weren't thus hysterical obviously didn't care about their daughters.

When it was put to these posters that the OP being in a hotel wouldn't be able to immediately rescue her daughter in the very tiny chance something did happen to her, tracking only showed where her phone was and would make no difference if her phone was lost, no answer was forthcoming.

On a thread moving sbout somone wanting advice about moving away from London one poster advised not to move away because they had moved away to somewhere very rural with one bus week etc
As though everywhere outside of london is jus one big wasteland .

Og I remember that one. It was insane. Clearly all us sensible people pointing out she was fine and knew what to do wanted her to be kidnapped and murdered

Any thread about an adult daughter (less so a son) trying to do adult things without Mummy hovering will usually be met with hysterical advice about "warning her", "not letting her", "tracking her" and "secretly follow her"

Grapes!?!? Full of sugar!!

I remember a thread asking for opinions about a child's packed lunch and someone actually advised leaving out the grapes.

It made me wonder what their child was actually allowed to eat.

I was coming on to say that too!

Someone also suggested that OP bag it up and pop it down to the local police station to get it tested straight away - or send it off to one of the "ancestry" type companies.

For me the misinformation about diet/food/nutrition/weight loss on here sometimes is pretty batshit and these same ones always seem to come up....

• people believing cutting out carbs is the only answer to weight loss
• people being dogmatic about UPF because they don't want acknowledge the bigger picture of how much they eat day to day - i.e only thinking the obviously bad stuff like McDonalds, packaged cakes etc is UPF and justifying supermarket bread, protein powder etc with 'it's not going to kill you' 'nothing wrong with it'
• believing exercise is going to make huge difference to weight loss > being in a calorie deficit

I think you’ve misunderstood.

The question isn’t “What can I do to fit myself into a seat that’s too small for me”. The question is “I am this size, so is it likely that a seat/seatbelt in this airline will be too small for me, or will it be OK? Will I need a seatbelt extender?”

Agree on the nutritional advice - so many restricted eaters who post total nonsense.

I started a thread once asking for tips as i'd just been told my cholesterol was too high. A poster told me that I should not be using Benecol type spread or eating low fat yoghurt, and that lard/butter was the ideal choice.

I posted about my husband lying, cheating and coming out as gay last weekend and got told to get kind and that I'm homophobic not being happy fir him to be finally free to live his true self.

I got the post deleted because it got so derailed in the end. Yes I know I might be friends with him in the future, but right that day I just needed to address the cheating and lying, not him repressing his sexuality. Tbf, most of the posters offered good advice and sympathy which I was glad of

Had this advice in real life.

Nah, I prefer my kids alive and healthy, not having fallen out of a second floor window or overheated in a car or died of hypothermia or not fed and given drinks. Or whatever else they could manage to get in trouble with as he has no executive skills and can not spot potential danger.