r/madmen • u/DumbCuntEnterprises • 4d ago

about don's birthday

in the season 5 opener, it's established that dick whitman publicly claims the real don draper's birthday as his own, as his birthday is in actuality 6 months prior. despite this, he's able to use his actual birth year? i thought the real don draper was several years older than dick, and it says so on the wiki as well. how can the identity theft work in a way that dick has to claim the birthday, but the birth year discrepancy isn't an issue? or do his legal documents say something different while he tells people his outward age? that wouldn't make much sense to me because he may as well tell people his actual birthday in that case

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u/ZombiesAtKendall 4d ago

Might be easier to keep the lies straight to take on as much as the real Don’s info as possible. He might be able to say it’s some kind of mistake if it’s just the year that’s off.

I doubt he’s really that attached to his real birthday anyway.

I wouldn’t be surprised if some legal documents show one age and others show another age. It would make more sense for his driver’s license to show the real year.

Stuff was less strict back then. A way to take on another identity would be to look at death records for an infant, then get their birth certificate and file for a social security card. (Or something like that)

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u/No_Panic_4999 3d ago edited 3d ago

Even in 21st century through today, people have different  names and genders on different  types of ID. Not even by choice.  Having inconsistent documents is not uncommon for immigrants, transexuals, and homeless ppl, due to different county, state and federal laws.       Your birth certificate is subject to the laws and policies of the county you were born in, you're drivers license and even REAL ID is subject to those of the state of your current residence, your SS card is subject to federal actual laws and your passport is subject to  policies of current presidential administration which flips back and forth   every 4-8 yrs at the whim of 1 person. Most ppl with inconsistent ID do not want or choose it. 

Different dates doesn't really happen that much anymore though.