You Pinspire Me
I don’t know when it began. I can’t pinpoint the day that I started referring to myself in the third person. It seemed like a normal thing to do when I first started it – talking to my (maybe?) 8 month old, saying, “Give that to mommy, please!” or “Come to mommy!”
Why? WHY do we do these things? Why do parents talk in the third person to their children? When I caught myself talking in the third person today, yet again, I couldn’t remember why I thought it was a good idea in the first place. It took a lot of thinking back for me to realize that the reason why I started speaking in the 3rd person was because my son was very verbal at an early age. He was repeating everything that I was saying, and I was worried that he would get the prounouns mixed up. I didn’t believe that an 18 month old would be able to differentiate between “you” and “me”. If I spent all day saying, “Can you please give that to me?” “If you come over to me, I’ll help you put your shoes on,” I worried that he would think that his name was “You” and my name was “Me”! How was he not to know? So, I thought that I would define the rolls a little bit. In the house during the day was Hendrik, Mommy, and Isabelle (the dog). I eventually grew out of talking about Hendrik in the 3rd person, but for some reason, Mommy just won’t go away!!
It’s gotten a bit out of hand in the last 3 years. My daughter is 2 years old and she knows perfectly well who I am – I don’t need to tell her! My 3.5 year old son does not yet look at me like I’m a bit ‘off’ when I say, “Would you please stop asking Mommy to repeat herself? She really doesn’t like it, it’s very annoying!” Mommy is also starting to find HERSELF a little annoying.
However good my reason was for starting this, it needs to end, and it needs to end now. Mommy is about to check herself in to an institution. On second thought, maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad idea for her… a bit of quiet, no little hands tugging on her shirt or saying “what did you say?” to her for the millionth time that day… So far, I’m fairly certain that I haven’t broken out the third person when in conversation with my husband or friends yet although I can’t be certain – it feels all too natural to do it. I need to break the cycle before I have a really awkward exchange with the Librarian.
Tell me I’m not the ONLY ONE who is stuck in the 3rd person?! If you’ve gotten out, please, tell me – how did you do it?!
Jenn vanOosten
Latest posts by Jenn vanOosten (see all)
- How I Epically Failed the #RenewLife 30 Day Challenge… and Why that Failure is Helping Me Kick Off a Great 2018 - January 8, 2018
- What to Watch on Netflix: Jenn’s Top Picks from 2017 #StreamTeam - January 2, 2018
- I’ll take my Netflix To Go, Please! - December 5, 2017
Anne only talks about herself in the third person when she’s writing bios for places. The third person makes Anne sound pretty awesome, like a rock star worthy of having paparazzi following her about. Anne thinks maybe she should talk about herself this way all the time.
This is too funny, and something I was just thinking to myself a couple of night ago when I was tell “A” a story and I kept referring to myself in 3rd person. I think some time in a institution is the perfect idea… a mommy institution where we can talk to adults and have wine (even tho that might be a little counter-intuitive ;))
I like to talk about myself as three people. Sadly, they don’t do each other’s work. Very cute post. Your picture reminds me slightly of the movie Carrie (original) for some strange reason…Should we be scared?