I HATE MUMSNET: Why one mum thinks the parenting website is smug, patronising and vicious

[morningpaper]

night night

I gave up with Alison, she was trying to be clever but it was lost in translation. She obviously needs blinkies to get her point across

If you wander onto MN and pop into AIBU, then run screaming because people are horrible, ...isn't that a bit like trotting to the zoo, meandering to the waste disposal bit and then writing about how you shouldn't go to the zoo because it's full of shit?

Not that AIBU is full of shit but it's a venting station is it not?

Each to their own though.

Love the comment from 'Carla from Calgary'

"I agree with the article completely. I never had time to read the site"

No baseless judging there then, Carla....

I can see RoysRolls's point to be fair.

Sometimes, some threads do get a bit bloshy. particularly when discussing certain issues. i don't think it's bullying though I just think there are very vocal people on both sides of all arguments and threads like that one about the woman who put her child in care are prime examples. Also threads like that are used by people to be very damning against real people eho have had to face difficult situations.

It's not a mumsnet thing, it's a people thing. Some people do like to beat on people who make decisions they might not have made themselves. Some of those people are on mumsnet. Some are on otehr forums. It's just the internet!

I don't buy the 'why are we all nicer to each other specially because we're all mothers' line I'm afraid. Since when did it ever qualify anyone to be nice? And a lot of the complaining about bullying is actually people objecting to women people having something firm, or informed, or intellectual, or vocal, or political, or assertive, or even - yes - angry to say.

It is allowed in women, but lots of people don't like it because it doesn't fit with their model of what femininity should be.

aren't

it happens as a collective mass people can take opposition to a thread, and then all the rubberneckers pile in too

Why does it all have to be sweetness and light, though? What is wrong with a bit of robust debate and arguing?

Sometimes it gets a bit out of hand, especially when wine has been had (just like real life ). I was pretty disgusted by some of the posters on thread but on the whole people were reasonably behaved towards each other.

What's interesting is that I don't think it would be any different if we all used our real names. Obviously there would be very few of the serious cries for help and MIL moaning threads but essentially people would still tell it like it is; it attracts that sort of person. It's wrong to assume that we hide behind user names.

I think AIBU is quite harsh, but it is the internet... issues about 'veiled by the anonymity of a screen name' etc are hardly issues for mn alone. I stay off it mostly. That is the bear pit of mn.

x posts with Will.

Donna, from Cardiff.

See, I'm not scared!

The comments seem amazingly contradictory.

'I'm a working mum so MNers will hate me' vs 'It's for overly ocmpetitive career women'

Whilst i don't totally agree with the article i am not surprised she got that point of view from the Cameron and Brown threads.

i am consistently nasty to children BUT i am very mature.

that is why i pay good money to see Roy Chubby Brown and Jim Davidson.

you might think them offensive and/or racist but in a world of pc clap trap, they're a breath of fresh air.

anyway, i don't care what any of you poshknobs think with your Charlie Brooker, oatcakes, carrot batons n shit... now that i've found a kindred spirit in Sarah Chalmers, i don't care what any of you think. you're probably all foreign anyway.

RoysRolls(just got your name) A lot of the people on the thread you decided to bring up, have, or are in that situation.

Maybe those people who were vicious on that particular thread (the disabled child given away into care)were or have been in the same situation, ie) caring for a child with special needs. Does that give them the right to judge and condemn someone else who could not or did not want to cope?
That is what I mean by being cruel and judgemental.

Is this what counts as good copy in the DM? I can just see it now;

Paul Dacre; "What have you got for me? LRA entering Darfur? Iraq inquiry?

Chalmo; "I saw this website, and I wasn't all that enamoured by it."

Dacre; "What a scoop! Run with it!"

Pffft.

at the DM.

pc gone mad

I like mumsnet. but I hate the dm.

RoysRolls why bring it up on here?
it hurt a lot of people, it that your intention

Whatever we think about the article it is going to bring some more people to come alonmg and join the forum just like when the Gina Ford episode was going on.

MN has been very useful at times and other times I can see posters having a hard time. A few years ago I think there was an element of 'bullying' or ganging up to 'protect' certain MN's but i dont see that so much any more.

but is it "bullying"
i remember having a thread going really wrong and being flamed, it was awful and really upset me, but It was never bullying.
I could always walk away.
tbh I think the word bullying is used far to much on here.

more posters is good though.doesn't matter why anyone comes,more matters why they stay