Calling children by the wrong name

[LemonSnake]

Bit complex. I have 3 sons from a first marriage aged 23-18 and now a daughter 2.5 and 1 year old son from a second marriage. The younger 2 children and 18 year old get on very well. Sometimes I can inadvertently call the youngest son by the 18 year olds name when describing something ie not to his face. My wife finds this insulting and disrespectful but for the life of me I can’t see why? Am I wrong or missing something?

Your wife is overreacting. I regularly get my son and step son’s names mixed up, especially if I’ve just been spending time with them. I also call my husband by my brother’s name on occasions.

But what do you all call the ddog?

I have one child and one dog and I mix their names up all the time.

My wife finds this insulting and disrespectful but for the life of me I can’t see why?

Perhaps because you’re asking about her children in a forum dedicated to discussing dogs?

Not sure if you really wanted to post in the doghouse (forum for dog owners), but for what it’s worth, I occasionally called my ex by the dog’s name. He was never impressed.

My three children all answer to whichever name comes out of my mouth. This can include the dogs name and grandchild name ! It really is very normal and absolutely not disrespectful. As a family we just laugh l

My husband called me my sons name earlier. It happens

Nothing wrong with that we all do it by accident, I've called my fiance my ex husbands name, my sons name and even the dogs name, it's easily done.

DH does that sometimes, particularly now that ourDS looks so much like his eldest.

I'm pretty sure the OP has posted here as they feel like their wife has placed them "in the doghouse". Likely an innocent submission which I'm sure we can recognise!

Personally I can see why your wife might feel sensitive to this given the different mums (assuming I've read the OP right!), but I couldn't get wound up about this. I only have two children, a boy and a girl and I still manage to misname them on a frequent basis. My dad thought he'd overcome this by numbering my sisters and I 1-3 instead of relying on our names, but all that happened was he'd misnumber us on a daily basis. I think if it's innocently being done as a slip of the tongue, which I completely believe it likely is, then I don't think you're being unreasonable OP.

Welcome to The Doghouse @LemonSnake .

Thanks all. First post so wrong part of the forum. Yes doghouse is where I am currently residing 😁

I have called my sons girlfriend my dogs name😦 , in my defence she is a fairly new dog and they both have the same initial . New dog gets called dead dogs name , it's been over a year 😂 . I'm getting old .

My dad calls my son a mix of my brother, his brother and our dearly deceased dog. But only my eldest. He does however frequently mix up all three boys names. When my youngest was born I had a new found sympathy for Captain Von Trapp and the whistles.

This is why I call everyone in our household "babe" "love" or "darling"....

I'm always confusing my son and my boy cat... I don't know why - very different names- but I've done it an embarrassingly high number of times!

That said, it seems easier to laugh off mixing up animals and children - I can sort of see why your wife might be upset re your sons... but this is likely because, as a second marriage and second trance of children (if you know what I mean!), it implies favouritism of some sort.

I couldn't get worked up about it but I can empathise!

I’ve a boy and a girl, they answer to each other’s names, I also occasionally mix up my daughter and sisters names.

weirdly, I never get the dogs names wrong...

My dad neveR got our names right, we also got called our aunts name or cousins name, I’m a bit like that with my kids, both my dad and I dyslexic and I struggle with names anyway. I often call the dog my youngest sons name but never called kids the dogs name. Your partner is being silly, some people just struggle with names, I try not to though.

I do this all the time, I have 3 children and sometimes go through all their names before I get to the right one. My mum used to resort to calling us all by the same name as she could never get it right. It’s very normal so not sure why your wife is taking offense. I once read an article that names of people (or dogs!) you love are all stored in the same part of your brain, and it’s very normal to mix them up.

I call my DDs by the wrong name a lot and often call them by the dogs name too. They find it hilarious.

Hi, OP. We've moved your thread out of the Doghouse and into Relationships for you.

Five kids here and I got used to saying things like 'you there! The tall one!' rather than running through the first syllable of all the names; kids, dogs, cats, horses and chickens before I hit on the right one.

My kids all answer to “Which one are you”

I have 2 sons. I get their names wrong so often I've taken to calling them "big child" and "not so big child" (there's only half and inch between them)
DS1 also answers to my brothers name because my Mum calls him by its so often.

I read somewhere that we do this because the store the names of people we care about in the same part of the brain and sometimes there is like a wiring glitch.