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Original poster

How was I born on the wrong day?

370 replies

PossiblyDreaming · 06/03/2022 23:54

I’ve always thought I was born on a Sunday which always made me feel very smug as a child whenever I saw that nursery rhyme that goes “Monday’s child is fair of face” etc until it gets to Sunday’s child and says how much better kids born on a Sunday are.

Anyway, I was recently filling out some online form where I had to put in my date of birth and it came up on a calendar showing that actually I was born on a Monday. I double checked it with another calendar and, yes, I was definitely born on a Monday. I didn’t think much of it but text my mum to tell her as I thought it was mildly amusing that she’s forgotten when I was born.

Except my mum is 100% adamant that I was born on a Sunday. She remembers it specifically as she made my dad run to the church to drag my grandparents out so that they could watch my brother while he drove her to hospital. My grandparents only ever went to church on a Sunday and my dad was a teacher so if it had been a weekday he wouldn’t have been at home when my mum went into labour. It was mid October so wouldn’t have been a bank holiday. It wasn’t a long labour, I was born a couple of hours later so it wasn’t like my mum was labouring overnight and I was born the next day or anything.

My mum is 70 and fully compos mentis but she can’t get my dad or her parents to corroborate as they’re dead. She is absolutely adamant that I was born on Sunday and now thinks that my birthday was recorded incorrectly and it’s actually the day before the day that I’ve celebrated all my life 😂. I’ve got the original copy of my birth certificate and it says the date that I’ve always thought it was.

I know it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things but it’s really odd. Is there any really obvious way that I’m missing that might confirm either way? Do I now celebrate my birthday the day before even though all my public records show it as being the next day?

OP posts:
bigyellowTpot · 07/03/2022 01:13

yes I reckon your mum went into labour on Sunday but you were born after midnight so it was very early on the Monday morning when you were born making it still seem like Sunday night to your mum. Did mum or dad say you were born at night?

Bahhhhhumbug · 07/03/2022 01:15

Your mum's medical records that is, both gp and hospital. Both should have record of your birth

Tlollj · 07/03/2022 01:15

If we knew your date of birth someone on here might be near enough to be count backwards or forwards from their own. Or indeed be the same day. But I understand why you don’t want everyone knowing when it is.

Tlollj · 07/03/2022 01:16

Or might be another notable day in someone’s life.

Cocomarine · 07/03/2022 01:23

@Tlollj

If we knew your date of birth someone on here might be near enough to be count backwards or forwards from their own. Or indeed be the same day. But I understand why you don’t want everyone knowing when it is.
Uh? She already knows what day the date was. Nobody needs to count back from similar… how can you be posting on MN but not know that the internet is a thing? 😉🤣
NumberTheory · 07/03/2022 01:23

Given your mum’s memory of it is detailed and it’s something she’s maintained your whole life, I think it’s likely you are actually a day older than you thought!

If your mum is 70 now you were presumably born in the 1970s? When there was almost no automation that would have changed dates on calendars. Easy to forget or get it wrong. Or, as someone else said - forms/records not being filled in until the following day.

Cocomarine · 07/03/2022 01:24

@Tlollj

If we knew your date of birth someone on here might be near enough to be count backwards or forwards from their own. Or indeed be the same day. But I understand why you don’t want everyone knowing when it is.
www.dayofbirth.co.uk/
FinnulaFloss · 07/03/2022 01:29

Harvest festival special service op? Maybe school closed or early finish for the same reason?

PandemicAtTheDisco · 07/03/2022 01:34

I was reading the timeline of about someone local that went missing. All the dates and potential sightings were wrong. Market days and half day closings were not on the right days. I'm sure online calendars are wrong.

EarringsandLipstick · 07/03/2022 01:35

It seems fairly clear that the wrong date was recorded. Your mum won't have got details, like getting your GPs from the church, wrong.

At the time, I assume she just didn't clock that the date was wrong.

EarringsandLipstick · 07/03/2022 01:36

drugs were something else years ago, believe me many a women would not know what day it was.

Well, she'd have known what day it was when she went into labour, and went to hospital.

Dinoteeth · 07/03/2022 01:36

Could they have been at a funeral or something?
What time were you born?

bigyellowTpot · 07/03/2022 01:38

my mum always told me that I was born on a Thursday when I was actually born on a Wednesday which I found out many years later when I was in my early 40s. i still have a tag that was attached to the crib i was placed in In the hospital and it contains lots of information such as date and time of birth etc. could your mum possibly still have yours or your wrist/ankle band?

Cocomarine · 07/03/2022 01:39

@EarringsandLipstick

It seems fairly clear that the wrong date was recorded. Your mum won't have got details, like getting your GPs from the church, wrong.

At the time, I assume she just didn't clock that the date was wrong.

But what about subsequent ID checks? If OP was recorded a day late by mistake, then her wrong birth date would be on things like a passport. Not that people born in the 70s routinely had childhood passports… but that’s the sort of thing where the application form would be rejected for wrong date filled in (doesn’t match) or you open the new passport and think, “it’s not the 12th!”
Cocomarine · 07/03/2022 01:46

I think it would be possible - though unlikely! - for your mum to have her own personal Mandela Effect going on.

Say she thought one day, “now what day was she born?” And thought it was a Sunday (maybe mistakenly counting back) and then got into a train of thought that if it were Sunday, she’d have sent your dad off to church. Or maybe when pregnant she’d thought, “hope baby comes on a weekend when he’s not working - oh, if it’s Sunday we’ll have to get parents out of church!” Just a little train of thought that could plant a seed that could become a false memory.

Not the same magnitude, but recently a friend said about my XH visiting her with me in hospital when she had her daughter. I swear he wasn’t there. I had to travel 3 hours, there was only one visit. I divorced soon after so I wouldn’t have wanted him there. He’d never met my friend. And yet… I’ve seen the photo of him there! And even that doesn’t jog my mind, I stare at it like it’s photoshopped. After only 10 years. So… I can believe in mistakes!

bigyellowTpot · 07/03/2022 01:46

omg I've just checked on that www.dayofbirth page another poster linked to and I actually was born on a Thursday! I've been on similar calendars that have said Wednesday. please check this one op as perhaps some are not correct.

theresAtablet4thatNow · 07/03/2022 01:47

My grandmother was certain her birth certificate was incorrect by a day.

(I've always disliked that rhyme, btw. I was born on a Wednesday, and DH is an insufferably smug Wink Sunday's child.)

AnnesBrokenSlate · 07/03/2022 01:49

It's not really plausible that you've been celebrating on the wrong date all these years. Your DM, DF and grandparents (when they were all alive) would have noticed if it was a different date from when they attended the hospital, etc. It's much more likely that your grandparents were at church on a Monday for some reason or that your mum has misremembered and she had to go to the hospital the day before you were born too.
When I had my DD my DSIS came to visit at the hospital and started talking about the special event that happened the same day DD was born. But it had happened the day after. Because DD was born close to midnight by the time the news reached everyone, it was the next day for some of them. But you pick up on those type of mistakes quite quickly. There's no way, it could have lasted all your life.

Cocomarine · 07/03/2022 01:52

I’m interested in @PandemicAtTheDisco theory, though the link I posted is correct for me (70s).

Wafflesnsniffles · 07/03/2022 01:54

My thinking is that you were born on the Sunday but somehow when your birth was registered your mum/dad gave the wrong date to the registrar somehow.
Or the registrar wrote it down wrongly - like an exams officer did for my son once making him two weeks older.
Definately an excuse to celebrate twice!

Sleepyquest · 07/03/2022 01:56

I was always told I was born on a Friday but when doing those online calendars, I found out it was a Wednesday!

fallfallfall · 07/03/2022 01:58

other than the actual date i have no clue what day my trio were born on.
i could look on one of the generators that provide that info but then so could my kids (who are 37, 38, 39) no need to ask me.

SleepingStandingUp · 07/03/2022 02:02

@Sleepyquest

I was always told I was born on a Friday but when doing those online calendars, I found out it was a Wednesday!
They obv lied to protect t you from being a child of woe.

Modern version have swapped it for something nice

Cocomarine · 07/03/2022 02:04

Adding “evidence” to a Sunday…
The earlier in your life your mum said it was a Sunday, the more likely she’s remembered correctly.
For you to have been smug at being “Sunday Child”, someone must have told you.
You wouldn’t have been counting back calendars yourself in the 70s without the internet!

What day was your brother born? Could it be his story, but with him added in when your mum mistook it for yours? Your dad went to church to get your Gran for your mum, not for childcare?

My mum used to muddle our stories - and bloody names! All our first words have been mixed 🤣

RoseGoldEagle · 07/03/2022 02:36

But most people would remember the date for sure, rather than the day, right? So say you were born on Sun 5th Oct- your Mum and Dad know this, they tell your grandparents, other family and friends, who all write down ‘the 5th’ so they know for subsequent birthdays. (But are unlikely to remember the Sunday as it’s irrelevant to them). Maybe the date is then recorded wrongly as Mon 6th. That’s feasible- but then swing round next birthday, no-ones going off that record are they, they’re going off what your Mum and Dad told them about the date you were born. So when you’re one, two, three etc up until now- surely the correct date would have been celebrated - as that’s based on what happened, not what’s been recorded?

Which means I don’t see how you can have been born on a Sunday! As even if it was recorded as Mondays date by mistake- you’d still have got cards and presents for the Sunday date, if that was when your parents had told everyone you’d been born- and it sounds like everyone around you had always believed it to be the Monday date? Which means I think it was the Monday date!

My brain hurts 😂