# When did your mother stop talking to you in the third person?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-your-mother-stop-talking-to-you-in-the-third-person/914527>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [July 6, 2020, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-your-mother-stop-talking-to-you-in-the-third-person/914527 "2020-07-06T19:38:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\
**Post date:** [July 7, 2020, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-your-mother-stop-talking-to-you-in-the-third-person/914527/21 "2020-07-07T23:13:24Z")

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> [@MichaelEmouse](#):
>
> The “Jedi mind trick” is what irritated me. I think she was trying to infantilize me or refused to accept that I grew up from being an infant/toddler…

That’d be my guess. I have a friend whose whole immediate family call him Mikey. Now, he should have spoken up sooner (he’s “all growed up”, but only started asking them to call him by his real name in the last few years).

Everyone else in the world calls him Mark…  
(Michael is his middle name!)

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**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\
**Post date:** [July 8, 2020, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-your-mother-stop-talking-to-you-in-the-third-person/914527/22 "2020-07-08T00:20:37Z")

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I presume he wouldn’t be fond of “Mikey Mike”.

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**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2020, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-your-mother-stop-talking-to-you-in-the-third-person/914527/23 "2020-07-13T07:39:27Z")

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My mother wasn’t perfect, nor was our family life, but I can’t recall my mother _ever_ talking like that.

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**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2020, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-your-mother-stop-talking-to-you-in-the-third-person/914527/24 "2020-07-13T10:34:52Z")

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Whenever it was, it was young enough that I don’t remember. I did with my kids until they were about 2 or 3. But as I remember it, it was less a matter of me speaking in the third person and more a matter of avoiding pronouns. IOW, I didn’t just refer to myself as “mommy” instead of “I” or “me” , I also referred to the kid by name, rather than “you” and to other people by name instead of “he” or “she”. Of course , I didn’t avoid pronouns completely but I used them was less than I ordinarily do.

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