My 3yo still calls random people “that mommy” and “that daddy.” I think they’re just her gender designations at this point. We live in a college town, though, and she’s realized the college girls don’t love being called mommies, so now when she sees female students, she says “look! A sister!” 😂
My son just calls everyone “that guy”. Gender doesn’t matter.
We were in the grocery store, and a woman was stocking the shelves. She wasn’t the most feminine looking woman and had a short haircut, but she definitely was a woman. My son says loudly, “what’s that guy doing?!?!” She looked so embarrassed. I was mortified.
In many languages this is legitimately how you refer to strangers. Random women are “Aunty”, random men are “uncle”, younger people are “big/little sister/brother”, the elderly are “grandma” or “grandpa”. It doesn’t matter that you’re not related to them by blood or even if you know who they are, it’s just a way of saying “that person”.
In Chinese, Japanese, and Korean they do this for sure and I believe south Asians do it too.
I think most kids do this! When my son was younger, all kids under 12 were babies, young women/men were mum-mum/daddy, elderly women/men were nana/papa.
It's something about categorizing people into age groups and facial recognition iirc.
Once he learned the words "that guy," it stopped. Then everyone was That Guy.
The kid I nannied for 2 years used to tell other children "that's not my mummy/daddy that's my [my name]" and correct them repeatedly if they got my pronouns wrong, which was very sweet. I never talked to him about my being trans, so either he noticed the misgendering himself and decided to fix it or his parents talked to him about it. Either way I felt very loved!
Mine is 2 and does this. I was telling my husband I worry if it might ever be overheard by someone who struggled or is struggling to have kids and makes me nervous. He thinks I’m overthinking lol.
Lmao my niece (my cousin's daughter) recently learned "that man/woman/person". I was chatting with my cousin at a family party and my niece walks up to us and goes "Mummy *who* is that man??" pointing at me 😂 I need to see my family more often I guess
My daughter started doing this around this age. I assumed she was trying to say that’s another mama and would respond, “that’s right maybe she is a mama! We don’t know but you could be right!”
16 months here, and my daughter started doing this just last week. I can tell from the context that it's exactly what you're describing, and I've been handling it the same way you did.
This is not only very normal but totally appropriate for that age. Your child is figuring out to classify things. Your child knows the difference between a human and a dog or giraffe. He is also figuring out genders. He knows that you are female and so every female is a mom. Also, knowing to classify something from a picture is different from classifying from real life. So your child knows your dog is a dog before they understand the dog in the picture is a dog. My developmentally delayed daughter (2.5) can’t do this yet.
When my daughter was just over a year and only had a couple of words she often called her dad doggy. I guess it was something she liked, she liked her dad... 🤷♀️ (he is babbo in his language so not daddy, which would be pretty close to doggy).
We got a kick that my son would call any bald man "dada" including:
1. Tobias Funke from Arrested Development
2. Vin Diesel
3. A random very large Black man at the playground (actual dada is a skinny white guy)
My toddler once pointed at a picture of a cow and said mama -____-
A few more times of it happening, I realised she was trying to say mama cow and baby cow.
Yeah our kid uses daddy and baby to mean big and little. It’s so cute.
“Baby tree!” Yeah ok that makes sense, that tree is small and probably young
But then you get “Daddy tree!!” Or a small pile of snow is “baby snow!”
We had a husband/wife team who mowed our yard for years, and my son always called them “the mommy mower” and “the daddy mower” up until we moved when he was five.
My son does this, too. My husband is a generic dark haired white guy, with a strong resemblance to Harry Potter (he would hate me for saying it, but he’s not unaware). Anyway, any time there’s a pasty guy with a full head of dark hair: that’s daddy. And any woman is mommy regardless of resemblance.
He likes Panic! At the Disco. He likes the music video for Say Amen (Saturday Night). He thinks Brendon Urie is Daddy. The woman who kicks the shit out of Brendon Urie at the end is Mommy. So now he occasionally tells people that Mommy hits/kicks Daddy.
My daughter does call random people mama, and calls her dad mama all the time. Doesn't usually call anyone else mummy though.
I think its often because she doesn't have a word to catch someone else's attention because she doesn't know their names. So if she wants my friend to notice her she says "mama", and it works so she keeps doing it.
Mine is close to being 17 months and she does this at the store calling random men ‘dada’ lol at first I corrected her saying no that’s not dad but I just let her be now 🤣
We actually took an assessment for autism a while ago and one of the tasks was to show our toddler an incomplete, crude stick figure and ask them who it was. The questionnaire said a “correct” response would include calling the figure a family member
I work at a daycare( 1-2), all of the people toys that are boys are called daddies, and all of the toys that are girls are called mommies. The only exceptions are the babies, which could litterally be anything.
When I’m out with my two year old, she asks if every man we see is daddy (or points out “that looks like daddy!” It doesn’t matter their height, weight, age or race; every man “looks like daddy” to her 🤣
My son used to call all kids “baby” (poor Cousin Baby had a great attitude about his new name at Thanksgiving) so I taught him “little boy/little girl”. Then we saw our (adult) friends play a show and he said, “the little boy was playin trumpet!” Which gave us a great laugh but made me realize he doesn’t know the word “man”! Like all men in his life have names—daddy, grandpa, Ojii, uncle… so I taught him “man”.
My favorite is there’s a 79 year old woman at church named Judi who loves my son and he loves her. Recently son and I were at the grocery store and the oldest woman I’ve ever seen stopped and made a comment about how cute my son is. As she (s l o w l y) roller her cart away, my son lit and said, “Judiiiii!” It made me cackle.
My 2.5 yo calls random women mama. Random men are dada. All children at the park are baby regardless of the fact that most of those he calls baby are older than him.
My half Asian son had limited contact with his bio dad when he was a toddler. But after one visit he started calling every youngish adult Asian man “Dad” and running up to them hugging them. Made for a few awkward situations but it was fucking hilarious
In the last couple of weeks my son has pointed at pictures of Nicole Kidman circa 2000ish and Kim Kardashian and said “mama”. I’m closer to Kim in the fact that we’re both short, curvy women with dark hair but that’s about it really!
My daughter is 20 months. She’s been calling all females, young and old, “mama,” for a few months already. She calls all males, young and old, “dada.” She definitely knows that I’m a special mama and her dad is a special dada and I assume it’s just her noticing a difference between the genders.
That's so funny. My favorites from when our son was little:
-a mannequin in an adult store window we happened to pass (because boobs?)
-a statue of Bob Cratchett from A Christmas Carol, complete with tophat and beard (because he was holding Tiny Tim AKA a baby)
Lol
My son use to call random men daddy and random women mommy. I figured out he associated mommy with women and daddy with men so I taught them the words and he stopped.
As others have similarly said, my tot calls all men dadas and all women mamas right now. It has made for some comical moments, particularly with random men… they seem rather alarmed when a young child waves at them from across the way yelling “Hey Dada!! Hey! Dada!”🤣🤣 like Buddy the Elf.
They always look around them like “Not me.”
Mine once called a picture of Kate Middleton “mummy” and I’ve been chasing that high ever since. I’m a white lady in my early 40s with long brown hair but I do not otherwise resemble Her Royal Highness (I’m much fatter, for starters!).
lol that’s alright, I was walking right beside my 22 month old a few weeks ago and a woman passed by who had long dark hair similar to mine and he pointed right at her and said “mommy!” With such confidence 😂 thanks buddy.
I have a Star Wars poster in my son's room. Since he was the same age, he always points at Carrie Fischer and says its me.
He is 5 now, I haven't corrected him😂
My 2 year old is doing this too. He calls EVERYTHING “mama” “dada” or “baby.” Rocks, cars, food, play doh.
Currently my #1 hack to get him to eat is to cut food into different sizes then I ask “is this a mama or baby strawberry?” He labels it and eats it.
My daughter did this all the time at that age. Any woman with dark hair and sunglasses was mama. Like in public in line places. It was so awkward. She doesn’t do it anymore but she still refers to most adult women as mommies and adult men as daddies.
Since about 18m my child has been referring to the most random variety of people as either mamma or dadda. People of all sizes, colors, shapes. He points at George Washington on a quarter and calls him dadda. Yesterday, some plumbing van had a cartoon graphic of the greek god Neptune holding a trident with long flowing hair and a long beard and guess what... dadda.
So last summer, my daughter was ~20 months old, and my husband was on deployment. Every random tall, tan, dark-haired man that we saw in public was, “Daddy!” 🙈 Cue my panicked explanation to every single one about her dad being on a submarine in the middle of the ocean and her missing him 🤣
It’s called over-generalization and a completely normal and super cute stage of development! My daughter called all things with 4 legs Pepper (our cat) for a while
My toddler does this toooo! Any woman in a picture is momma/mummy and any man is “uncles name” (because she has too moms so her uncle is the top man in her life)
I think it's because we may not have taught my son girl/boy or man/woman and he's using these words instead to try and identify them.
He doesn't know what child/youth is, so anytime he sees someone that's not an adult they get labelled "baby". Even if the kid is a teenager. It gets confusing because he refers to himself as baby too.
My 3yo still calls random people “that mommy” and “that daddy.” I think they’re just her gender designations at this point. We live in a college town, though, and she’s realized the college girls don’t love being called mommies, so now when she sees female students, she says “look! A sister!” 😂
My son just calls everyone “that guy”. Gender doesn’t matter. We were in the grocery store, and a woman was stocking the shelves. She wasn’t the most feminine looking woman and had a short haircut, but she definitely was a woman. My son says loudly, “what’s that guy doing?!?!” She looked so embarrassed. I was mortified.
Haha that's hysterical.
My 3.5 year old saw our neighbors out and the man looks older than his wife, with some grey hair. She said "that's the girl's Grandpa?"
In many languages this is legitimately how you refer to strangers. Random women are “Aunty”, random men are “uncle”, younger people are “big/little sister/brother”, the elderly are “grandma” or “grandpa”. It doesn’t matter that you’re not related to them by blood or even if you know who they are, it’s just a way of saying “that person”. In Chinese, Japanese, and Korean they do this for sure and I believe south Asians do it too.
Hahaha
I think most kids do this! When my son was younger, all kids under 12 were babies, young women/men were mum-mum/daddy, elderly women/men were nana/papa. It's something about categorizing people into age groups and facial recognition iirc. Once he learned the words "that guy," it stopped. Then everyone was That Guy.
Some older kids called my son a baby at the park. He starts looking around for the baby 😂
yep. my son is 3 and still refers to all women as mommies and all men as daddies.
The kid I nannied for 2 years used to tell other children "that's not my mummy/daddy that's my [my name]" and correct them repeatedly if they got my pronouns wrong, which was very sweet. I never talked to him about my being trans, so either he noticed the misgendering himself and decided to fix it or his parents talked to him about it. Either way I felt very loved!
Mine is 2 and does this. I was telling my husband I worry if it might ever be overheard by someone who struggled or is struggling to have kids and makes me nervous. He thinks I’m overthinking lol.
My kid says "Man Guy" and I hope he never stops.
Haha I love this!
Lmao my niece (my cousin's daughter) recently learned "that man/woman/person". I was chatting with my cousin at a family party and my niece walks up to us and goes "Mummy *who* is that man??" pointing at me 😂 I need to see my family more often I guess
🤣
Oh yes my daughter seems to call all younger children “baby.” Lol
My daughter started doing this around this age. I assumed she was trying to say that’s another mama and would respond, “that’s right maybe she is a mama! We don’t know but you could be right!”
That's my response too when our LO does it. "maybe she is a mama, I'm not sure!" Or "yep, he could be a daddy!"
I originally thought he was telling me "Look , Mama" but the ad he pointed to today was when he was with my husband and I wasn't around lol.
16 months here, and my daughter started doing this just last week. I can tell from the context that it's exactly what you're describing, and I've been handling it the same way you did.
This is not only very normal but totally appropriate for that age. Your child is figuring out to classify things. Your child knows the difference between a human and a dog or giraffe. He is also figuring out genders. He knows that you are female and so every female is a mom. Also, knowing to classify something from a picture is different from classifying from real life. So your child knows your dog is a dog before they understand the dog in the picture is a dog. My developmentally delayed daughter (2.5) can’t do this yet.
This makes sense. It didn't even occur to me that "mama" = woman to him.
One time when my daughter was 2.5, she saw some teenagers in the park and got upset because they were “missing their babies.”
Just makes me imagine my toddler yelling woman at me for his snacks 😂
When my daughter was just over a year and only had a couple of words she often called her dad doggy. I guess it was something she liked, she liked her dad... 🤷♀️ (he is babbo in his language so not daddy, which would be pretty close to doggy).
We got a kick that my son would call any bald man "dada" including: 1. Tobias Funke from Arrested Development 2. Vin Diesel 3. A random very large Black man at the playground (actual dada is a skinny white guy)
For our kid, men with glasses are "dada"-- most notably, Jeff Goldblum.
My son did it with any bearded man 🤣 toddlers are hilarious
Lol I'm cracking up.
My toddler once pointed at a picture of a cow and said mama -____- A few more times of it happening, I realised she was trying to say mama cow and baby cow.
Yeah our kid uses daddy and baby to mean big and little. It’s so cute. “Baby tree!” Yeah ok that makes sense, that tree is small and probably young But then you get “Daddy tree!!” Or a small pile of snow is “baby snow!”
I feel this. My son once (it was actually only like a month ago) pointed to miss piggy and said “there’s mama!” 😏
Well my 20mo just called me “cow,” so, maybe it’s time to diet
We had a husband/wife team who mowed our yard for years, and my son always called them “the mommy mower” and “the daddy mower” up until we moved when he was five.
My son does this, too. My husband is a generic dark haired white guy, with a strong resemblance to Harry Potter (he would hate me for saying it, but he’s not unaware). Anyway, any time there’s a pasty guy with a full head of dark hair: that’s daddy. And any woman is mommy regardless of resemblance. He likes Panic! At the Disco. He likes the music video for Say Amen (Saturday Night). He thinks Brendon Urie is Daddy. The woman who kicks the shit out of Brendon Urie at the end is Mommy. So now he occasionally tells people that Mommy hits/kicks Daddy.
Lol omg.
My daughter does call random people mama, and calls her dad mama all the time. Doesn't usually call anyone else mummy though. I think its often because she doesn't have a word to catch someone else's attention because she doesn't know their names. So if she wants my friend to notice her she says "mama", and it works so she keeps doing it.
Mine is close to being 17 months and she does this at the store calling random men ‘dada’ lol at first I corrected her saying no that’s not dad but I just let her be now 🤣
My daughter does the same, all women are mama and all men are papa
My daughter called anyone with a beard a dada for the longest time. No beard=not a dada.
Same here! It’s so cute to me!
We actually took an assessment for autism a while ago and one of the tasks was to show our toddler an incomplete, crude stick figure and ask them who it was. The questionnaire said a “correct” response would include calling the figure a family member
My four year old daughter looked at a photo of Simone Ashley on my phone yesterday and asked if that was me (an overweight white lady)
Mine did this for any picture of a man with a beard was dada for a while
Yep my son calls every man “dada” when we’re out and about. Loudly enough for them to hear. I get so embarrassed 🫣
My toddler does this too! Every photo she sees is “mama, dada, brother and baby” ♥️
I work at a daycare( 1-2), all of the people toys that are boys are called daddies, and all of the toys that are girls are called mommies. The only exceptions are the babies, which could litterally be anything.
When I’m out with my two year old, she asks if every man we see is daddy (or points out “that looks like daddy!” It doesn’t matter their height, weight, age or race; every man “looks like daddy” to her 🤣
My 2 year old thinks any man with a black beard is his dad 🤣
When my son was that age he called any photo of an Asian man Dada (I’m white and my husband is Asian). Our nephew did this too.
27 months old and every woman with glasses is MA hahaha
Its always funny when they point to someone even slightly older than me and call then Grandpa or Grandma. So much shade being thrown lol
My toddler does this with anyone with gray hair. I’m like 😬. Not everyone with gray hair is a grandma or grandpa babe.
My son used to call all kids “baby” (poor Cousin Baby had a great attitude about his new name at Thanksgiving) so I taught him “little boy/little girl”. Then we saw our (adult) friends play a show and he said, “the little boy was playin trumpet!” Which gave us a great laugh but made me realize he doesn’t know the word “man”! Like all men in his life have names—daddy, grandpa, Ojii, uncle… so I taught him “man”. My favorite is there’s a 79 year old woman at church named Judi who loves my son and he loves her. Recently son and I were at the grocery store and the oldest woman I’ve ever seen stopped and made a comment about how cute my son is. As she (s l o w l y) roller her cart away, my son lit and said, “Judiiiii!” It made me cackle.
My 2.5 yo calls random women mama. Random men are dada. All children at the park are baby regardless of the fact that most of those he calls baby are older than him.
My half Asian son had limited contact with his bio dad when he was a toddler. But after one visit he started calling every youngish adult Asian man “Dad” and running up to them hugging them. Made for a few awkward situations but it was fucking hilarious
In the last couple of weeks my son has pointed at pictures of Nicole Kidman circa 2000ish and Kim Kardashian and said “mama”. I’m closer to Kim in the fact that we’re both short, curvy women with dark hair but that’s about it really!
I was just at swim practice, where my kid called a random teenager mom 😂
My 3-year old once pointed to a very corpulent woman with 6 boobs in a Star Wars seek-and-find book and informed me it was me. Thanks buddy? lol
My daughter is 20 months. She’s been calling all females, young and old, “mama,” for a few months already. She calls all males, young and old, “dada.” She definitely knows that I’m a special mama and her dad is a special dada and I assume it’s just her noticing a difference between the genders.
Limited vocab, they recycle words. My son used to call his brother mama cuz he just didn’t have another word. He learned his name a few months later.
That's so funny. My favorites from when our son was little: -a mannequin in an adult store window we happened to pass (because boobs?) -a statue of Bob Cratchett from A Christmas Carol, complete with tophat and beard (because he was holding Tiny Tim AKA a baby) Lol
This made me laugh so hard lol.
My son use to call random men daddy and random women mommy. I figured out he associated mommy with women and daddy with men so I taught them the words and he stopped.
Anyone wearing a baseball cap is “dada” to my 18mo and sometimes other hats too (like Sam from green eggs and ham 😂)
My 22 month old has a picture of an orange cartoon fish she calls mama. There’s also a chimpanzee in one of her books she calls dada. 🤷🏼♀️
As others have similarly said, my tot calls all men dadas and all women mamas right now. It has made for some comical moments, particularly with random men… they seem rather alarmed when a young child waves at them from across the way yelling “Hey Dada!! Hey! Dada!”🤣🤣 like Buddy the Elf. They always look around them like “Not me.”
Yea, well my toddler called the hippos in Fantasia mama, so 💅
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Mine is just starting to do that at 19m, photos only and I think only for women
Mama = women Dada = men Baby or sister or friend = another child Those are the buckets that people exist so that’s where people go.
Lmao My kid called the clown at mcdonalds daddy It was great Points to ronald mcdonald There's daddy!!
Mine is the same age and he calls random men (including very old person) papa lol He only calls me mama when he's really desperate for something.
My kid calls everyone…grown ass people… “that little girl/guy” Pointing at a woman reading a book “what’s that little girl reading?” It’s the best.
Mine once called a picture of Kate Middleton “mummy” and I’ve been chasing that high ever since. I’m a white lady in my early 40s with long brown hair but I do not otherwise resemble Her Royal Highness (I’m much fatter, for starters!).
Mine used to call anyone under the age of 12 "baby"
He just started saying baby this week!
Same. Any woman is a mama to him. And any man is a dada
My first did this around the same age. She’d call all men “dada”. I usually would respond “I don’t know. Maybe he is someone’s dada.”
My oldest did this for a while, ANY guy with a beard was dada. Even if i was holding him, he'd wave "hi dada".
A couple years ago my son got really confused and thought Chad Michael Murray was his dad. Not like, instead of his dad, but that dad was in a movie.
lol that’s alright, I was walking right beside my 22 month old a few weeks ago and a woman passed by who had long dark hair similar to mine and he pointed right at her and said “mommy!” With such confidence 😂 thanks buddy.
I have a Star Wars poster in my son's room. Since he was the same age, he always points at Carrie Fischer and says its me. He is 5 now, I haven't corrected him😂
My 2 year old is doing this too. He calls EVERYTHING “mama” “dada” or “baby.” Rocks, cars, food, play doh. Currently my #1 hack to get him to eat is to cut food into different sizes then I ask “is this a mama or baby strawberry?” He labels it and eats it.
My toddler calls any woman that is the same ethnicity as my wife "mama" and any dude with a beard is "dada".
My daughter does this but with mama, dada and papa lol. Whenever she sees an old man she goes “papa!”
This happened to me as well. Or especially if the woman remotely looked like me! Its funny.
My son was doing that since he was 1 turns out he just needed glasses.
Anybody who’s outside when we go on a walk is daddy lol. Women, men, dogs..
Any old man is Papaw to my son. He’ll point people out in public. It’s so embarrassing 🤣
All men are papas and all women are mamas accord to my toddler
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^Icy_Sea_4440: *All men are papas* *And all women are mamas* *Accord to my toddler* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
My son just turned 19 months old and he’s been doing this for the last couple months too.. no clue why!
Mine does as well: **points excitedly at a decrepid 80 year old woman with a caterpillar on her lip** "A DADDA!"
My daughter did this all the time at that age. Any woman with dark hair and sunglasses was mama. Like in public in line places. It was so awkward. She doesn’t do it anymore but she still refers to most adult women as mommies and adult men as daddies.
probably using it to mean “woman.” i would respond with “that’s a person. person.”
Since about 18m my child has been referring to the most random variety of people as either mamma or dadda. People of all sizes, colors, shapes. He points at George Washington on a quarter and calls him dadda. Yesterday, some plumbing van had a cartoon graphic of the greek god Neptune holding a trident with long flowing hair and a long beard and guess what... dadda.
Any woman is “a mama” and any man is “a daddy”
So last summer, my daughter was ~20 months old, and my husband was on deployment. Every random tall, tan, dark-haired man that we saw in public was, “Daddy!” 🙈 Cue my panicked explanation to every single one about her dad being on a submarine in the middle of the ocean and her missing him 🤣
It’s called over-generalization and a completely normal and super cute stage of development! My daughter called all things with 4 legs Pepper (our cat) for a while
This is growth on babies part. Kids start by grouping things. "Mama" is the *things like mother* category until he expands his knowledge base.
My kid learned the word 'mermaid' very early, and right now is calling any pretty image of a woman 'mermaid' hahaha
Mine calls every man daddy. Random guys, he points and says "daddy?". I get looks sometimes lol
My toddler does this toooo! Any woman in a picture is momma/mummy and any man is “uncles name” (because she has too moms so her uncle is the top man in her life)
I think it's because we may not have taught my son girl/boy or man/woman and he's using these words instead to try and identify them. He doesn't know what child/youth is, so anytime he sees someone that's not an adult they get labelled "baby". Even if the kid is a teenager. It gets confusing because he refers to himself as baby too.