From allergies to hen do beefs, the parenting site’s users cover it all. I just wish they wouldn’t use the word ‘hubby’
I have a confession: I am a secret Mumsnet lurker. It started in the small hours, when my son was tiny. I had ventured on to it a little in pregnancy during moments of panic, such as when I thought I had caught toxoplasmosis from petting a stray cat in Greece. But it was only after actually becoming a “mum” that I started reading it regularly, desperate for sleep advice.
I write “mum” in inverted commas because sometimes it feels that being a “mum” is different to being a mother, or a “mama”, the online moniker of choice. An editor I worked with once said she hated the word “mum” in copy; there’s a socialised resistance to the idea of “mumsiness” that sometimes feels like ingrained sexism. “Mums” are seen as dowdy and humdrum and a little bit silly, and this makes me sad.
Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist