A Linguistical Problem

We have been trying to convince Matthew that he is one of the boys.  There is a big enough age gap between him and Nathan that for a long time we have talked about Matthew and the big boys.  Now that he is old enough to do a lot of the things the other boys are doing, he gets bent out of shape when Kev and I talk about “the boys” going somewhere or doing something because he thinks that means he is not going to be included.

This is only the latest twist to a linguistic dilemma we have had for years.  When Matthew was about a year and a half old, I was having a conversation with him when he told me that the big boys were at school.  I told him that only Daniel was at school.  Nathan was at home.  Matthew looked at me like I was a little bit stupid and again told me that big boys was at school.  That was when I realized that he was calling Daniel Big Boys.  It’s not that he didn’t know Daniel’s name (If I asked him to point to Daniel he would) or couldn’t say his name (I’d tell him to say “Daniel” and he would), he just called Daniel Big Boys.  I would point to Nathan and ask, “Who’s that?”  Matthew would reply with, “Nannan.”  I’d point to Daniel and ask, “Who’s that?” The response was always, “Big Boys.”  About the time we moved into our house, Matthew gave Daniel a nickname for his nickname and just started calling him “Boys.”  I think Matthew was nearly three before he really started calling him Daniel consistently.

So you can see where our current problem began.  I think that somewhere in the back of Matthew’s mind he still thinks of “Boys” as being a proper noun, not a pronoun and definitely a word used in reference to someone other than him.