#for the record this isn't completely unprompted i'm not just being an ass for no reason but i'm too tired to complain about the

[hot-take-tournament]

my mother insists that they got it right the first year and then just mandela effected themselves about it later or smth. but my grandmother says that she remembers for a few years insisting that it was actually the 30th and nobody believing her.

my parents say they didn't take the birth certificates out often to check bc apparently they didn't want to lose it or smth? and didn't actually look at it when they were copying mine and my sisters' for that school.

a lot of forms don't require proof of date of birth bc they assume that the parents, yknow, know when their kid was born. and the medical record that kept being referenced was the shot record, so until age 12, my doctor's records and ID and everything said the 29th, and after we figured it out, everything had to be changed

anyway, I sort of get my mother forgetting, bc she was drugged to hell and back (which is the same reason i was dropped p soon after i was born), but my dad's got no excuse

yeah, i mean i get how you'd forget - i legitimately once missed my own birthday because i got the month wrong

and i know that you fill out a lot of forms yourself, so i can see how all that information could be wrong if your parents were totally convinced that they were right - that makes sense, especially to a terminal airhead like me

but what i don't understand is how it was right on the birth certificate, but wrong on everything else, and especially your ID

if your parents made the mistake when they registered your birth, that's one thing - but if it was right on the certificate, it would have to be right on your ID as well????

(long boring ass explanation under the cut - i'm just trying to figure out how this is even possible)

if it's legally valid ID, it would have the same information as your birth certificate - you can't get a second form of valid ID without providing an already valid form of ID to confirm the information is correct

here's an example:

when you're a baby, your birth certificate is your only legally valid form of ID

(there are other options if you don't have one, like an adoption certificate for example, but let's ignore that for now since it doesn't apply here)

so, when you eventually want your second valid form of ID - let's say it's a passport - you have to present a form of ID to confirm the information is correct, and that would have to be your birth certificate, because you don't have anything else

so the information on your passport is guaranteed to be the same as your birth certificate, which is why it's an acceptable form of ID

and then, if you want a third form of ID, like a driver's license for example, you can present either your birth certificate or your passport, because they are guaranteed to both have the correct information

and then your driver's license would also have that same information, and now you have three forms of ID, and when you get your fourth ID - well, you get the idea.

that's how the system works - it's meant to ensure that your information is at least consistent on all your legal forms of ID, even if you or somebody else makes mistakes on other forms

i know you were only 12 so you probably didn't have many forms of ID, but the ones you did have should be correct

if your ID has the wrong date of birth on it - even by one day - it's a fake ID. if it's a passport, it isn't valid, so you gotta get those details fixed before you try to leave the country - it happens all the time, so it's not as if you're going to get in trouble for it, especially since it's only one day

(unless you're somehow mind-bogglingly stupid enough to say, completely unprompted, that you did it deliberately - and if that's you, you probably shouldn't run with scissors)

and there's no way your actual medical records would use your shot record of all things to confirm your age - that's such a randomly specific form for your entire medical history to be based on, and not everyone even has one; a hospital would always use your birth certificate, because a) everyone actually has one, and b) they know that it's got your correct information on it, which is pretty important for a hospital

in fact, i'm 90% sure that when you register with a doctor you need to give them a birth certificate, and that's the same for when you register at a school - like you said, you had to send them a copy, and they then used that for the standardised test to confirm your identity when they recorded your results

so, tl;dr - any record kept by or accepted as valid by the government - your legal ID, your educational qualifications, your criminal record if you have one, etc. - should have the same information as what's on your birth certificate

the reason they need safeguards like this is specifically because of situations like yours

so if all those records are correct, i don't see how something like this can happen for 12 years without anyone noticing at any point??

and if your legal/medical records aren't correct, since your parents were right for the first year of your life i have no idea when this all fell apart to the point where they had to go back and change everything - there's no way that was because of a shot record, even if that was what caused the mandela effect for your parents

also, they were right for an entire year but then convinced themselves they were wrong because of the shot record, which I think starts on the same day as the birth, or at least like 7-10 days later?? that makes this story weirder somehow

anyway, i tried to make this concise, but this story is so baffling that i literally can't wrap my head around it, so sorry this was really long

and this is just my understanding of it, and if i got something wrong, let me know - i'm not an expert by any means

(also, side note - your grandma was not correct; she mandela-affected herself into believing she was right the entire time, as all grandparents do. my advice would be to start fully agreeing with her, and you'll become her favourite grandchild)

[jiangwanyin]

slamming doors is so therapeutic why on earth did i ever start repressing my anger