When did DD1 become eg DD14?

[Texelspreadsheet]

Back in the old days, people used to use numbers after DC to indicate birth order. Now people put ages there. When did this happen? Why do I care? 😳

Its always been a mix. Most of the time its obvious which shorthand is being used(except when discussing toddlers!)

Yeah when I first started using mn a year ago, I thought it was dd1 dd2 for birth order and then dd(6) for age

T'was very confusing seeing dd8 and wondering whether someone just had a very randy marriage

Probably Reddit influence - like 34F which I always read as a bra size 😂

Yes I find thst annoying
Why do people need to know that I'm 51F and my dh,is 50M?🤔

Thanks all. Need the laugh react as your answers made me smile.

I have always used dd15 etc. I have 6 kids plus grandchildren. I get confused who I'm talking about if I do it by birth order. I would get the wrong child.

I’ve been around since it was nothing but green fields around here 😂 and I’m pretty sure it’s always been a mix of both. I have used both 🤷‍♀️ Age is often relevant to the question/advice so it makes more sense to use the age. It’s usually pretty obvious from context what the poster means.

This is why it's so much more sensible to say "my eldest child" or "my 15 year old daughter" and not use any of the D nonsense.
😁

I really don't want to call my daughter dear daughter when she's pissed me off 🤣

Exactly.
People post about horrible husbands or toxic mothers and still call them "DH" and "DM".
It's just daft.

I think both have always been used, and agree that it's very confusing sometimes.

🤣they really should not have removed the laugh emoji

But you're not obliged to refer to DC by birth order.

It would just be make it clearer whether you're using age or birth order if you put DD2 for order or DD,2 or DD(2) for age.

There are so many ways in which the writer makes life harder for the reader when a small change would really help.

Oh yeah that makes sense. To be honest I would forget to do that though.

I think as MN has got bigger use of acronyms is less policed - which is probably a good thing. People used to explain/ tell off posters not using brackets for ages. And also become more influenced by wider internet acronyms with the 52F nonsense.

I do think wistfully of the DD2(12) days. It was clearer. But suspect it's my fuddy duddiness and failure to embrace change.

Equal rights for fuddy duddies @ChidisGardener 🤜

Yes. Imagine 67M!

I use DC1 and DC2 when talking about my kids neutrally, but DD1 DD2 etc only works if you've got multiple kids of the same sex which statistically most people don't. DD1 and DS1 doesn't give you birth order of my boy and girl so is redundant, and DD1 and DS2 is just plain confusing, so as a shorthand that style is a bit useless for me. Additionally, age is relevant to a lot of posts about kids or you get billions of responses asking for the age, so condensing it into one shorthand makes a lot of sense.

I just use the heart emoji instead. I did it at the person who posted about a randy marriage upthread. ie. Love the joke