Is Mumsnet an English forum?

[Purpleturtle43]

Seems like pretty much every poster and responder assumes everyone on here is from England.

When asking questions regarding schools, health care, tenancy etc surely it would be useful to say what country you live in since the rules and laws are different all over the UK/world.

It's not because they assume everyone is English though. They just don't know school summer holidays are earlier in Scotland than England. Why would they?

because they take notice of the world around them? I mean, I know that most of Paris shuts down for August even though I'm not French. I know that at high school graduations in the US they wear mortarboards even though I'm not American. I know the cut off for school entry in N Ireland is July even though I'm not N Irish.

I only know the Scottish holidays differ, as I've holidayed there and child focused stuff like trampoline parks are deserted at the end of August, plus I've got friends with kids in the Scottish school system. It's only "common knowledge" if you go there, really. I imagine still fewer people have any need to know there's a different legal system.

I teach my A-level Economics students (in London) about the differences in the income tax system every year and very rarely are they aware there's a Scottish Parliament. Knowledge of Wales is even rarer. And I'm not confident many of them know much about NI either (despite the basics of the four nations being on the English Geography National Curriculum for Y7 I think?)

I'm in my 50s and I think it was more common to holiday in Wales and Scotland when I was a child. People go abroad now.

Eh?

You dont need to go to Scotland to know that they have different school holidays.

Every country has different school rules to each other.

There are also loads of Irish posters on here.

I know that Republic of Ireland have three months summer holidays for teenagers, compared to six weeks in England.

Of course not, you could Google.

My point is the vast majority of posters don't need to know.

I was just reading that again.

You said that your A level teens have very little knowledge of Wales and Scotland. I wonder why. Is it because they see England as better? So its not worth knowing about other countries?

Im sure teens in wales know a lot about England

No, the point is that a huge percentage of people are not even considering that there are other systems outside their own personal knowledge. Because they are not curious about the world around them.

And then they come on threads on the first week of July saying of COURSE the schools are still in for another 3 weeks at least, and nobody "in Britain" has broken up for holidays.

Since the overwheming majority of posters are in England, why is it such a surprise to you that most of them will assume that other posters are also in England unless they say otherwise? Scotland makes up only around 8% of the UK population.

You are making the incorrect assumption that posters in England are English.

People in England aren't 'forgetting' that other posters can be anywhere else in the world, but come on. If it is relevant to your post (schooling, law, healthcare etc) then just say where you are. It's not rocket science.

There are many posters from Australia, New Zealand, expats and English-speaking people from all over the world who use Mumsnet. I reckon they tend to assume that most posters on here are in England as well.

I am sure there are plenty of things you don't know about those countries though. I know when some countries have school holidays as it can effect holiday pricing e.g. expensive in France in August. I know holidays are earlier in the Netherlands and Scandinavian countries for the same reason.but when holidays are in Scotland has no impact. Why should people be particularly interested in school term dates of different countries.

Even in England school holidays aren't universal, my nephews and nieces in different parts of England are off at different times, those in private versus state often have longer breaks it seems, and then there are college and University terms to consider.

As pp said, if you spend your life getting your 'groats curdled' 😂 about what other people don't know you're in for a hard time.

Wales has the same holidays as England.

Yes, that is true and ironic that the posters getting worked up about people not knowing that Scottish school holidays are different to England aren't aware of the fact that that there is variation in term dates in England.

There are some things it simply doesn’t occur to people would be different elsewhere.

I recently met a lovely American family on their first trip outside the US who arrived and found they couldn’t plug in any of their electrical devices, because they didn’t realise that plug sockets are different in other countries. They’d only ever known American plugs - and the possibility that other countries might have different plugs had never even registered with them.

I don’t consider that to be ‘ignorant’ or failing to take an interest in the wider world - there are some things that seem so standard that you just don’t question it.

You mean British

I love it because it's made up of predominantly UK people. I'm an Aussie and our sites are too sweet and gushy for me. Here is more humorous and honest, less nicey-nice.

I don't think they see England as "better", no. London is its own city state, really (9 million people). Their knowledge of England outside London isn't terrific in many cases. They're just as likely to spend holidays (when funds allow) in Ghana or Nigeria or Romania or Poland or Italy or America because that's where granny and grandad live. My trips to Scotland and Norfolk, or even Kent, are interesting and exotic to them...they do not have experience of these places for the most part. To be fair, I have little knowledge of school arrangements in Lagos or Bucharest.

I spent some time staying with a family in rural Minnesota once. They were absolutely fascinated by the Canadian banknotes I had with me. I had to lay them on the table so they could inspect them closely. They'd never left America. These were intelligent, educated, curious people but they hadn't travelled.

Aussies are sweet and gushy? Every day's a school-day on mn. All the Aussies I've met have been brutally honest, especially about the English rugby team😄

This information about Aussie forums is the most surprising thing I've learnt from this thread!

I confront general ignorance about UK geography and politics daily: no surprise there.

Mumsnet is definitely a harsh and aggressive forum!

Im on another forum that was set up in another country, as i used to live there.

Everyone is very nice, polite and supportive on it.

There is so much abuse on mumsnet.

On mumsnet, if any op starts a thread she gets her arse handed to her. And she is always called weird, batshit, deluded, bizarre, needs mental help etc

Yeah Mumsnet is pretty much British. You get the occasional foreign poster but thats it.

What I find more interesting is how most posters are really wealthy compared to the general population. Like it's normal to earn 100k here when in the real world only 2% earn more than that. Same for other things like sending the kids to private school.

I mean I'm interested to know how it became this way, because technically there's nothing stopping a broke "trailer trash" from america posting but that'd be like a bear shitting a gold bar

The Mum ones online are. All “you're a great Mumma bear, hun!" types. Always gushy posts about how great we all are. Not a CF or parking thread to be had.

We call it character building.

It could also be referree to as online bullying

How is it ignorant to exist?