BG: Recently I've been acting as my mother's chauffeur, as she is unable to drive. I have a 10 year old brother and 11 year old sister. My mother is 64 and I am 37 (I have other siblings, but they are adults and not relevant to my issue). One of the things my mother has to do is take my siblings to various appointments, including doctors' offices. [/end background]
Most of the time when we are at appointments for my siblings, nurses and doctors assume that I am the mother to all of the younger kids. Now, I can totally understand why people might make this assumption, considering that my brother is younger than all of my kids and my sister is only 5 months older than my youngest. If one had to guess, it would make sense to guess that I'm the mother. It doesn't particularly upset me that people do this, but I've been searching for a polite way to redirect the person without embarrassing them. Thus far, I've just smiled, pointed to my mother and cheerfully said, "She's <sibling's> mother". Unfortunately, the person is almost always a bit embarrassed about the mistake, even though I don't think they should be. Does anybody have any other ideas about how I can handle these situations? Thanks.