[Hope I don’t accidentally post this thread twice; I hit Submit, but it didn’t show up. :(]
So I’m having this disagreement with my mom. Despite the fact that there are 15 years between me and my youngest brother, she keeps getting our names wrong. I don’t mean that she really thinks I’m him and he’s me - I just mean that when she starts a conversation with me, she’ll at times call his name: “Hey Paul, I mean Dan …”
She claims that her mom did this, too. My grandmother had five kids - not a lot, actually - and my mom claims when she wanted one of the kids, she’d call each of their names until she got the right one.
And! And she claims - and this is a direct quote - that “all mothers” do this.
Hogwash!
Then she defied me to ask my online friends about it. Poll them, she said. Go right ahead, she said, confident she’d be vindicated.
So, you parents of more than one child - do you accidentally call one child by the other child’s name?
And those of you with no kids, or only one kid - did your parents ever do this with you?
My Mother-in-law does that all the time. She has three daughters and no sons. Mrs. H is the youngest. Her sisters are fraternal twins and are eight years older than her. All three of them get called by the other two’s names.
ALL mothers do this. I grew up listening to my mother recite the four child litany: “Ju-lin-chi-mike-GODDAMMIT!” My friend Beth and her sister Amy grew up thinking their names were “A-beth” and “B-amy.” Mothers who have only one child will often call that child by the name of the cat or dog. My daughter answers just as readily to the dog’s name as her own, and when I am well and truly furious, she also answers to my younger sister’s name.
My mom did that to each and every one of us. 5 girls in my family. She’d go down the line in order of age, and stop when she got to the correct one, depending on who she was talking to. So if she was calling me, she’d say all 5 names. And she did it daily.
In fact she still does it, and we are all old and moved out.
With my son, I don’t do it unless his cousin is around, and then for some reason I mistakenly start calling my son by the cousin’s name.
My mother did this all the time to every one of us. There are four of us, three boys and me. You’d hear Al-Br-La-Wes…down the line until she got to whichever one she was yelling for (or at). And like someone else mentioned, she was also known to throw her sister’s names in there at times.
Then there were the cousins that she had the hardest time with. Instead of Jenny and Ben, they were often Benny and Jen.
Not only do my mother and I do it, my grandfather took it to the next level. He mixed the grandchildren and great-grandchildren’s names together with his children’s so that he might call my nephew by my uncle’s name, or my mother by my daughter’s.
My mother does it still (we kids are 45, 50, and 54) and I do it (Mol-ames and Jam-olly are very tolerant) and my sister does it and my sister-in-law (she has identical twins…can’t even get the names right if you aren’t mad!). My neighbor used to just yell “twin!” out the back door at her boys. I sometimes add the pets names to the mix…and I even call them by the wrong names.
You’re just gonna have to admit you were wrong, Euty-Flam-dantheman
My parents don’t, nor did my grandparents, but my great-grandmother did all the time. I don’t know how many time she’d call me my aunt’s or mother’s name before getting it right… She was diagnosed altzhiemers when I was in my mid-teens, so I just chalked it up to an early symptom of senility <shrugs> Guess now it might not have been, who knew?
According to a book I recently read, this phenomenon is well- known among memory researchers. It doesn’t indicate any kind of memory deficiency. It’s just one of those weird quirks of the human brain.
Good grief, my Mother does this all the time with her six kids despite the youngest being over 30. She’s added one too. Just tonight when I was talking to her on the phone she called my sister’s cat by my cat’s name.
Both my mother and father do this to me. Never to my brother (there are only two of us) just to me. My Mom will often be staring right at me and she’ll want to say something and she’ll be like “Janice, blah blah. No, Claire, blah blah.” and my Dad too. We’ll be at the dinner table and he’ll be like “Corinne, pass the potatoes.” “Dad, Corinne’s not near the potatoes.” “Oh sorry, I meant you Claire.”
ARGH I am NOT my aunt’s! They are at least 20 years older than I am. And they were looking straight at me when they said it!
My mum does it all the time. It was OK when she mixed me up with my sisters - I could kind of understand that, but somewhat annoying to be called Andrew.
My grandmother does all her children, grandchildren, a few of the sons/daughters in law and pets before giving up and using “hey you”.
My mom doesn’t do it, but my dad does all the time. His sister and I answer to each other’s names quicker than to our own. Of course, it’s easily understandable since we could be the same person trapped in a 20-year time warp. My uncle (my dad’s younger brother), his sons, and my little brother get mixed up too, but not with the same frequency.
On a similar note, Dad can’t remember our birthdays. He’ll get the months right but switch the days, or some other combo. Sometimes we quiz him on our names and other trivia just for fun. Scary part is, the man is a psychiatrist. He’s the meter by which others’ mental health is measured!
My uncle (my dad’s younger brother), his sons, and my little brother get mixed up too, but not with the same frequency.