I've asked MNHQ...

[ChinaCupsandSaucers]

.....if we can have a little 'note' at the top of the Stepparenting board, with a list of acronyms that cause offence - to ensure that posters get support and threads aren't sidetracked by inadvertent use of common phrases that are less welcome here on MN;

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/site_stuff/1811572-Board-notes

Thanks for explaining. I agree that step-mother itself isn't a great term. I mean if an adult's parents get divorced and a parent re-marries is that person a step mother or father. I know a couple of people that's happened to and they don't think of the person as their step parent. They've got a mother and a father who are divorced end of story.

But as to the term BM. As I said I had no idea it was offensive before MN. So I am DD and DS's birth mother because I gave birth to them irrespective of whether they have a step mother or not. But if they did have a step mother and she called me BM then I could see why it would annoy me. I would think I'm their mother end of story.

Its an age old problem and it makes me sad - step parenting in hostile circumstances is so so so hard - and there are so few places to turn.

I don't understand why the frothers don't just stick the whole topic on hide

People don't usually post when things are going well (but if they do they get rounded on for gloating).

People usually end up here after looking for help - and then they have to try to pick through the insults to get it.

You will see a lot of gentle encouragement to change if you look Artex - other you would have in the past.

A lot of the old SP posters are gone - literally driven from the board - and other appears that is still happening.

Fact is people prefer to think a step mother is lying or evil than to simply believe (in a way they do on the rest of the forum) that an sp post should be taken at face value.

When someone posts in relationships no one asks of the poster deserves to be abused - but are You the OW (and therefore deserving of any amount of grief) is invariably almost the fist question a SM will get asked and usually by someone with no interest in helping

In a bully's eyes, the target always deserves to be bullied.

I can see the thread in relationships now

"My husband and his children call me names, they ignore me, they are all openly hostile to me, tjeu don't do anything to help - I work full time and do everything for 4 children, sometimes they are so nasty I am scared of them, there are days I dread coming home and I wonder if it's going to escalate, im physovally scared of the oldest child, feel so useless and I just don't know where to turn".

Reply (in relationship)

Any number of you need to get out,

Reply in SP - were you the OW - lump it you knew what you were doing when you got involved with a man with children

So perhaps the answer would be for step parenting to be an opt-in topic like SN? It might prevent the frothers from jumping on posters in desperate need of help and kindness.

For what it is worth I really hate the bandwagoning that involves scores of posters all jumping on and berating an op for the same points - that feels like bullying to me.

I don't generally come on to this topic, I don't feel I have advice to offer to people in such complex situations. But I would hope that I could have empathy, and I would certainly never gleefully expect people to like it or lump it.

12 pages because someone wanted to advise new folk not to use a term deemed so offensive on MN that you can't even warn people not to use it.

You couldn't make it up.

I disagree. It's not all people. And it's certainly not the bloody lot of us.

There is a question, however, of which people should dominate on MN.

No, there are a lot more roses than thorns. I am not the exception.

I don't see the need for adding birth or bio to mum, unless its in the correct context, so don't see the need to use the acronym.

I think there are assumptions made all over the site, it's not just on the SP section. I've seen lots of posts from SPs who seem to assume that if an RP has an issue with their ex it's because they haven't moved on, want to control etc. and I've frequently seen an NRP be asked "do you work" when there's been an issue over money. It's exactly the same as the "were you the ow" question.

It does happen all over mumsnet but generally if you invade one of the other more specialist forums - you get told to f off politely or not so politely

This attempt to DICTATE to posters what they meant when they posted is distasteful - as if a poster knows better than the OP the OPs own mind

^^ this.

As a fairly new poster it seems to me that there are some people on mumsnet who revel in taking offence where none is intended.

It's very off-putting.

Sourced from Wikipedia "Tourette's was once considered a rare and bizarre syndrome, most often associated with the exclamation of obscene words or socially inappropriate and derogatory remarks".

This is like a description of this thread.

Completely 'lost the plot' and irritatingly counter-productive. It really puts me off wasting my time trawling through all the dross, just to find the people who genuinely show they want to make a difference, support people and NOT bicker like cats in a yard. Incredible. I feel sorry for the Mumsnet moderators having to strip stuff out of here - just think .... there MUST be a reason for that, they aren't doing it for their own entertainment!!!!

artex I don't think that's what was meant.

My experience of MN is that if I, for instance, clicked on an active convo thread in 'the litter tray' and accused a cat owner of being cruel by preventing their cat going out at night (when the thread was about food choices and the poster had mentioned in their explaination that their cat is in at night) then I'd be given short shrift and told to leave. My post wouldn't rally support of others who agree with me.

On StepP board though, if I accused a SM of not allowing her DH enough one-to-one time with his DCs on a post that was about mobile phone use at mealtimes, a number of other posters will join in to support my view, with increasingly hostile language and judgement and before long, the original purpose of the thread has been lost.

china that is my frustration - people just innanely posting because they like the sound of their own voice, rather than carefully checking what the OP is about and responding in an appropriate relevant way.

This thread was originally a very reasonable suggestion, which I thought was definitely on the right lines. Rather than developing the OP's idea, it was derailed by a litany of abusive swearing. Like I said to my DSS, people who swear tend to have a limited imagination.

Evening.

We can't delete posts just because they contain swearing unless they are a personal attack, you're all adults after-all, and Mary Whitehouse isn't on our staff.

We'd rather you reported any personal attacks or posts which break our talk guidelines in some way as we're always happy to check them out.

MNHQ

It wasn't derailed by a litany of abusive swearing. A couple of posters swore a few times and then a long discussion ensued about swearing.
But oddly no one minded the poster with cunt in her username. Presumeably you ignored her because she lacked imagination.

Mary Whitehouse on the staff would be fab of course.