To not know my own child

[Crowwithgardenhose]

Bought 3 year old DS a new swimming costume, and aside from thinking he looked grown up thought no more of it.

Then at the pool went ice cold with terror when I saw a man walking out with him. Thankfully realised it was another boy with blonde hair and an identical swimsuit before I made an arse of myself!

So AIBU to not know my own child? And has anyone else ever done similar?

All babies look the same, just like all old people look the same. There's the gap in the middle where people look different, but if your kid is still pretty young then it's easily done.

During Covid times, my kids had different staggered start times at school. My dad was giving us a lift so I left youngest in the car with him to take eldest in, then went back for youngest. Got to the car, opened the back door and was ushering the wee boy out when his mother turned round and yelled “what are you doing?!”. My dads car with my son in it was a few cars further down 🤦‍♀️ x

My DD has a friend in dance class that looks very similar to her, same hair colour and glasses frames and they need to have their hair in the same style for the class. I struggle to tell them apart when they're both on stage together in their shows.

potatoe57 and all high school girls. We have a school nearby and all the girls have the same just over shoulder length hair, length of skirt, bag etc. It always makes me smile that while they may say as teenagers they reject conformity they are probably all a bit self conscious and desperate not to stand out and fly under the radar fitting in with everyone else. I couldn't pick my daughter out amongst the groups going by, they all look the same!

They all look identical in swimming lessons.
Funny to see the ginger confusion as well- I remember happily keeping an eye on my ginger toddler as I drank tea at toddler group, only to realise with horror that there were at least 3 ginger toddlers there…

Before a ballet show when dd2 was about 3yo dh appeared in a mild panic saying he'd lost her. I looked down at his side where a small child stood and pointed out she was there. He looked down and exclaimed "but that's not her!"

Tbf to him, dd2 had Shirley Temple ringlets, and having had her hair put back in two buns she did look quite different. but she is also missing her arm, and was in a sleeveless leotard so you'd have thought that gave him a little clue. 🤣

Sorry I just really cannot understand this. Presumably you would have had your eyes constantly on your 3yr old son so how would you have looked up and saw someone walking out with a boy that looked like him? Was your partner with your son and you weren’t looking all the time? 🤷🏼‍♀️

I had this with my DS, another child wearing the same swimming shorts and goggles with dark hair, totally threw me.

In my DD's nursery they stripped them all down to play in the afternoons so 90% of them were small blond kids in white baby vests. I struggled with a room full of them but thankfully DD had a birthmark so I could distinguish her.

I'm awful with faces anyway so rely on clothes, hair, etc. If that changes I'm screwed.

This hasn't happened to me yet- DD is only 2 and rarely more than a couple of inches away from me as she is clingy, however I'm totally expecting it to be me as I'm awful with faces. I have been known to not pick my own mum out of a crowd and when asked what colour DP eyes were (we had been together 15 years) I couldn't remember. I assumed this was a strange fluke until at the weekend I said something about everyone in my family having brown eyes only for my dad to say 'uh except me' 😂

I remember picking DS1 up from school when he was in reception. I saw him coming out of the classroom in the lovely new coat his grandparents had bought him. I was about to go over to him but was massively confused when another mum got to him first and started fussing about his book bag and asking him about his day.

Then I looked up and saw actual DS1 coming out of the class in his identical coat.

Yes. Isn’t that remarkable, two parents were there?

I put my son in a random car once - I opened the back door and told him to get in. I then opened the drivers door and started the engine and then looked in horror at the lady in the passenger seat who was not my 17 year old daughter. She looked at me I looked at her and mortified turned the car engine off. To be fair I was parked right outside the school and so was this car and they were exactly the same make model and colour. I had left my daughter in the passenger seat and other dad had left his wife.

I think I blustered something like wrong car, wrong car and tried to get my son out - my son then mentioned it didn’t look right and not the right car seat when he got in.

I also pulled up by some traffic lights once with my two kids in the back and a lady opened the car door and got into the passenger side and put her seatbelt on ( this was right near a local train station ) she then asked me if I’d had a nice day and I said great thanks but who are you 😂😂😂she screamed and apologised and said you aren’t my daughter and I said no I’m not meanwhile said daughter was running down the road shouting mum mum you daft bat you got in the wrong car!!

That's hilarious!
But how did you start the car?

Luckily my son is the goalkeeper at football so I know where he is!! Otherwise I’d struggle 🤣

When my daughter was about ten I took her friend home with me by mistake. I only noticed when she started talking to me about where were we going. They are vaguely similar with long dark hair but even so. Don't worry, we've always got a million thoughts in our heads.

My mum and gran once went shopping together, with me in the pram. They split up briefly and when met up again both were pushing identical prams.