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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:
AllThatFancyPaintsAsFair · 07/03/2022 08:40

@AllThatFancyPaintsAsFair

Does anyone remember the Indian lady from the1970s who was a mathematician who could tell you the day of the week from the date. She wrote a maths book and was on Blue Peter

We need her now Smile

Found her,

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakuntala_Devi

Sadly she's no longer with us so no help at all, sorry

Poshjock · 07/03/2022 08:41

@Cocomarine

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!

I would say it almost certainly is this - False memory

Research is showing that our memories are VERY unreliable and very easily influenced. The examples given above are quite likely - maybe she think a lot about the logistics of the birth at that time and the stresses of these memories have imprinted as fact, to the point she starts thinking of them as real and repeating them, further cementing them as her truth.

The problem with false memories are they are utterly unshakable and the person will not accept that the memory can't be true, sometime evangalistically defending their memory.

There is quite a bit written about false memory and it is fascinating stuff. I would say it is far more likely that you mum has misremembered and it is probably best left as accepting she may be mistaken will be upsetting for her

Cailin66 · 07/03/2022 08:44

My father has a birth cert that makes him 10 years younger. My wedding cert is missing the date on it as the register filled it in beforehand but left the day out, obviously he later registered it correctly in the register but I still have the blank one. My inlaw was never registered at birth at all, not until 4 decades later when they needed a passport.

I imagine the mother is correct that it was a Sunday but that the birth was registered in office hours on the Monday and an error was made then.

sodastreamer · 07/03/2022 08:44

@PossiblyDreaming can you lay your hands on an actual physical diary from the year you were born, to check the date against the day? Or tell us the year and perhaps someone on here has one. I have some of my childhood 'a line a day' diaries in the attic, so it's not inconceivable!

LakieLady · 07/03/2022 08:45

I think it's quite understandable that if a baby is born just after midnight, their mother doesn't quite realise it's now Monday, not Sunday. Whether the minute hand had gone beyond 12 would be the last thing on my mind, especially after a long and tiring labour. My mum fully expected me to be born on a Friday, as her labour started on Friday morning, and used to have to remind herself that it was actually Saturday morning by the time I emerged.

I know a pair of twins with different birthdays. One was born just before midnight, one after, so different days.

Bornon2ndNov · 07/03/2022 08:47

@Powertoyou

In October it could of been All Souls’ Day.
All Souls Day is 2nd of November. Grin
ittakes2 · 07/03/2022 08:48

Are you an only child? Maybe she mixed the labour story up with another sibling?

ittakes2 · 07/03/2022 08:50

Honestly - if we accept your mum remembered the labour correctly....which she also not have remembered the date? And your dad and your grandparents? If you were celebrating your birthday on the wrong date surely one of these people would have noticed? Maybe she went into a false labour and had a false alarm and this was her memory of the Sunday.

Stravaig · 07/03/2022 08:51

Wish I hadn't looked that up! Wednesday 😭

Juno22 · 07/03/2022 08:52

But if the date was registered incorrectly it would mean that every single family member remembered the date OP was born incorrectly. It makes no sense. This would only make sense if the OP had celebrated her birthday on say 1st March all her life, only to see it recorded as 2nd March. The chances there are that it was recorded incorrectly. But in this case the Date of birth the OP thinks it is and the birth certificate match. The only thing that is different is that her mum remembers it being a Sunday, but in fact it was a Monday. It's more likely the mum remembers the day of the week wrongly than every family member and friend getting her date of birth wrong.

MrsLargeEmbodied · 07/03/2022 08:56

@Onlyforcake

Harvest festival practice?
good idea
BuanoKubiamVej · 07/03/2022 08:57

You probably were born on the sunday but when the date was registered the wrong number was written down. Registration sometimes happens when the baby is several weeks old and it's easy enough to get muddled and for noone to notice what's on the paper.

I am "loving and giving" apparently but I am also full of woe, and have far to go, and I work hard for a living, and am bonny and blythe and good and gay, so it would have been fine if I had arrived a day or two earlier or later. I think "full of grace" is the only one I'd have trouble with as I am as clumsy as a confused elephant but I could probably spin it as spiritual/attitudinal grace rather than physical grace if I had to.

I don't think the adjectives of Sunday children are especially better or more desirable than those for the other days of the week though.

JustAnotherCrack · 07/03/2022 09:00

My mum always thinks my birthday is the day after it actually is. Apparently I was born 1 minute to midnight, I’m 35 and it’s still confuses her!

In saying that I recently got someone’s death certificate with the completely wrong date of birth of the deceased on it that I had to have it corrected, so registrars do make mistakes too.

BoredBoredBoredB · 07/03/2022 09:05

How does it all work re registering a birth? I thought you just went to the office and gave the details with no questions asked as far as corroborating it.
Just asking.

Jvg33 · 07/03/2022 09:05

Oh well. It's an amusing party story!

GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing · 07/03/2022 09:05

Seems quite likely she’s either remembering it wrong re the church or you were actually born after midnight.

If it helps, I don’t think the rhyme is meant to say Sunday’s children are better than everyone else Grin I mean, it’s just a rhyme but lots of the other ones are pretty nice too! Being fair of face doesn’t mean you’re not the other nice things too.

ivykaty44 · 07/03/2022 09:07

What about your NHS record? Surely that is correct?

would be taken from the birth certificate used to register baby at doctors, so if BC is incorrect then all other documents will be wrong

its the mums records that have baby on being born

girlmom21 · 07/03/2022 09:07

@ivykaty44

What about your NHS record? Surely that is correct?

would be taken from the birth certificate used to register baby at doctors, so if BC is incorrect then all other documents will be wrong

its the mums records that have baby on being born

You get an NHS number as soon as you're born. It's in your red book.
MrsLargeEmbodied · 07/03/2022 09:07

was it half term?

Tetherless · 07/03/2022 09:08

I don’t think your mum has got it wrong. I can imagine in theory being mixed up if you had been born at night but she remembers the Sunday details AND says it was a short labour and you were born in the day. In October it gets dark early so it makes sense your grandparents were at morning church and you were born early afternoon.

I can imagine that in the days before phone calendars someone just got the date wrong initially and no one questioned it. Congratulations Mrs X, baby born on Sunday 10th”. It’s actually 9th but then Mrs X tells everyone that you were born on the Sunday/10th October. She’s in hospital for a week no one paying much attention to dates. When it comes to register your dad says 10 October and it sticks.

I think that’s most likely. Your mum sounds solid - I wouldn’t doubt her!

MrsLargeEmbodied · 07/03/2022 09:08

would the grandparents have been in church for harvest festival, with school?

GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing · 07/03/2022 09:08

My ds was born on a Sunday, where as a extremely sunny dd was born on a Thursday

2catsandhappy · 07/03/2022 09:09

How about a google search, what happened this day in history, type thing. See what day the newspapers give as your birthday.

Dailytoil · 07/03/2022 09:10

My grandmother had the wrong date on her birth certificate. Her father got confused when he went to register the birth on his own and was too embarrassed to go back and change it when he realised. The whole family always celebrated her birthday on the actual day and just treated the birth certificate as an anomaly. I suppose nowadays this wouldn't happen as there are so many electronic records but this was in the 1910s.

peboh · 07/03/2022 09:11

I won't lie to you, my dd is 3 and I can't remember what day she was born Blush
I know the date, but the day is something that just hasn't stuck with me ... I would honestly just think your mum has the day you were born wrong. There are any number of reasons gp could have been at church on a Monday.