Baby Squared

Very interesting post, I look forward to reading other comments.  And also, in a blog full of adorable photos, this one has become my all-time favorite of your duo, that is so sweet!

It's so interesting to think about, isn't it?  Having twins is like a constant sociological study, I swear!

I don't think Kate and Emily (two days older than Elsa and Clio) are at all aware they they are "twins" - they seem to only identify with each other as sisters.  Then again, all of our regular playmates are also girl/girl twins, so to them it must all seem so completely ordinary.  Emily, though, does seem to be increasingly aware of the extra attention they get out in public, and I wonder what she makes of it.  The other day she told a gaggle of (fawning) older Asian women, "No!  No look at you!" - so it's obvious she's not crazy about it.  :/

We have the same book and I agree completely.  The kids love it, I think it's okay, and they each relate to a character.  I bought it in an attempt to bring up the twin thing too.  My boy/girl twins are now four and I just heard my daughter explain that they are twins to someone for the first time on Friday.  We were at the library and I was looking at books for them while they played games on the library computer.  Another child's mother asked them who was older (my daughter is, by one minute, but they don't know that yet) and my daughter replied with such authority, "Nobody is older because we have the same birthday.  We're twins."  I was proudly giggling over by the books.  I often talk to them about how lucky they are to have each other and they always agree.  I think that they are starting to realize that they are slightly special (now that they're in pre-school) and, for now, they like it.  I'm sure that will change.

Hi...my girls will be three in a few weeks time. I have also pondered the implications for them of being twins and wondered if they truly understand what it means yet. My current theory is that they enjoy a relationship not so different from any other "close-in-age" sibling relationship, just much more intense (for them and and for their parents). I did dress my girls alike for roughly the first 2 years. For me it simplified the decision making processes involved in shopping and choosing each days outfit ( my tired brain could only manage so much). Now one of them insists on choosing what she will wear each day (I only intervene in cases of extreme "what not to wear" moments) and the other could care less, prefering nakedness. They have now assumed "ownership" of certain colours and pieces of clothing, and one prefers dresses so now I am now dealing with satisfying their individual preferences whilst trying to stay sane.

  I really do not think dressing fraternal twins alike is any more a problem than dressing siblings alike. I find having them dressed similarly makes it easier to keep tabs on them when we are out in a public place. We can spot them quickly and other people see that they ''belong ' together. I was very aware that from the moment they were born we have responded to them differently because they are not identical (apart from gender, height and hair colour). I do think that if we were  raising identical twins we would need to be much more concerned with nuturing and protecting individuality. Instead I think we are going to become obsessive with "fairness".

 We have the same book that you have referred to and our girls are also able to identify which of the twins they "resemble". I find it scary that Charlotte is depicted drawing in her books so I skip that part! My two need no help coming up with more "good" ideas. They are very fond of a board book called "My sister and I" by PK Hallinan. It is more relevant to the relationship between them as sisters. The little girls are drawn in a way that they could be fraternal twins. I do talk to them about the fact that they are twins. I think for them  it means that they share a birthday and were in mummy's tummy together. Very recently they met a friend of mine who is 35 weeks pregnant with "two pink babies just like them". I think it won't really dawn on them that they are twins until they start preschool and when they start the "where do babies come from" questions.

As for being the product of IVF I don't think it should mean anything (at least until they have to consider their own fertilty issues) .. other than that they were very much wanted.

All the best,

CP

When and what to tell our kids about their conception is a very interesting question! Although ours are still babies and not aware of much at all, one day they will be aware that they are twins!

I am thinking we will be honest with them, the fertility treatments sure weren't easy. Maybe it will give them an extra sense of belonging that we wanted them so badly we went through all that work and pain to get them:)

I would hope by the time they are old enough to ask those questions they will know for certain they are loved and know how greatly we wanted and valued them being a part of our lives.

I really don't remember a time I DIDN'T know I was a twin. Of course, I had an older sister, so not only did my parents often refer to me and Evan as "the twins", but knowing my older sister and her friends made it rather clear that most people were not twins. I actually never thought of it as a big deal, really. I suppose I was lucky in the sense that there were two other sets of twins in my elementary school class, so it wasn't like we were some exotic species. Most of the questions I got, as a twin, were really about Evan and I being different genders. The idea that we were twins but so very different I think confused most people. It would have made sense if we were night and day and the same sex (as, actually, the two boy twins were - they don't even LOOK related) or exactly the same and inseparable personality-wise (like the two girls), but the fact that we were twins who were nothing alike AND different genders? Impossible. Actually a lot of student teachers used to assume we weren't "real" twins, like one of us was born about ten months after the other in some freak accident or that somebody got held back or skipped a year. It probably would have been even worse if my mom had decided to take my nursery school teacher's advice and have me start kindergarten a year earlier than Evan (because I'd taught myself to read at three and they pretty much felt I was being wasted there, or something. I don't know. Why would a teacher ever suggest that? It seems super-weird to me, like saying "guess what, one of your twins is better than the other, which was so patently untrue. Evan was capable of having friends, and I so was not unless they were Evan. Incidentally, this was an idea I was obsessed with as a kid. Evan might be bigger than me, but I'm smarter! I read more! I graduated to big kid underwear first! Hah hah hah!) The questions I'd get would be, like "is it really like you're twins?" and "are you still close even though he's a boy?" and stuff like that, but that usually faded pretty quickly.

I didn't actually resent being a twin until I was in about first grade, at which point I went through a phase of loathing it (but not enough, of course, to want to get RID of Evan, because he was so very convenient and willing to do whatever I told him to). I hated that I had to share a birthday party and no one else did. I hated that Evan followed me everywhere (which really was just an Evan thing, not a twin thing). I hated that he was bigger than me. I hated that if Evan did something stupid I got teased about it. I hated that if I made a comment that was the same as something Evan said, our teachers would act like we'd just solved the grand unified theory of everything, whereas if two other kids happened to say the same thing, no one would care. I hated that I had to share my friends and toys with him. Evan, for his part (poor Evan) could not understand my sudden change in attitude or why I needed space and we no longer were best friends and why I'd be mean to him. It's highly possible neither Elsa or Clio will be as mean to each other as I was to Evan (though, to be fair, he really dd copy me to an awful extent - I didn't make that part up.)

By time we got older and got to bigger schools, people stopped even knowing we were twins, and as that happened I stopped caring about being a twin, but that was just me. I don't know how this works for other twins. The other two sets of twins at our school went completely different paths. The girls are still, as far as I know, very twinsy. They have the same group of friends and reveled in joint birthday parties for many a year (to the point where it got sort of weird, like, I'm pretty sure they had joint birthday parties as long as we were in school together), and the boys were about as separate as possible (one is a short, blonde, uber-pale jock who hangs out with really idiot frat boy types, and the other is pretty much the gayest guy I know, super into theatre and the arts and dance and is so dark and tan people used to ask him if he was Hispanic). If I had to guess, I'd say Elsa and Clio will be pretty chill about it. There will inevitably come a time where they hate each other and scream things like "I wish you were never born!" and "I wish I wasn't a twin!" or "I wish anyone else was my twin but you!" or various other mean things that kids say to each other, but they'll get over it, because it really isn't ever a big deal to anyone, unless you're the type to encourage them to do a double act in a traveling circus, which clearly is totally not the case.

I have a twin brother.  It was never anything but just the way things were.  Some friends had older siblings, some had younger--I had one the same age.  I don't remember any of the dicey questions entering my mind, or thinking that it was even a particulary interesting or influential fact.  If anything, there was a momentary thrill when people would ask if my brother was older or younger and I got to happily announce that it was none of the above! Guess what! Something you hadn't even considered! We had some issues with wanting to have different friends over the years, and with one of us being better than the other at one activity or another.  Luckily, it pretty much balanced out (or else my parents did a good job of making us believe that it did. He might have made the swim team and you didn't, but you wrote a wonderful story last week that we are just so proud of. You know. That kind of thing.)

I think it's probably a lot more difficult being an identical twin than a fraternal one.  Except for fraternals like a friend of mine, who look so much alike they seem identical.  With identicals you have the added drama of people confusing you for the other one, thinking you are the same person, etc.  

I guess it's more or less like having any other brother or sister (except for the same birthday thing mentioned above).  Any of the other stuff, like sharing toys, could be the same with any other brother or sister.  It probably depends a lot on your personality whether you're super close, not close at all, or somewhere in the middle.

Oh, and SWEET picture!

Very interesting indeed... And that picture totally made my day.

I think with the IVF thing, you could make a point to say, that you wanted them so much, you did everything you could to have them. It's the opposite of "an accident".

I don't know many singletons. We mostly hang out with other twins that I met through Mothers of Multiples. So they are probably more confused by singletons like "Where is your twin?"  Mine look nothing alike or act alike. I have had people argue with me about whether or not they are twins....like I would know duh! Eric is much bigger so they think I had them right after one another and with different fathers possibly since the only similarity is blue eyes.

I plan on telling my boys on an age appropriate level all along about our infertility journey. They need to know how hard we worked for them and how much they were always wanted. They also need to know they have two siblings in heaven that died before they were born, but that info won't probably come until they are teenagers.

I do get a little smug about the fact that my children were not accidents. They were wanted years before they were born and to me that does make my love for them stronger. Children need to know how much they were wanted and in us infertile parents cases we don't have to lie, we can be perfectly honest that they were planned and wanted always while others may have to fudge the truth.

I had a sweet moment today. I asked Harrison where his brother is and he smiled and threw himself onto of Eric and hugged him. It was so sweet. :) Eric got crushed though so he fussed about it. :P But still so sweet. They watch out for each other about as much as they fight. It is so fun watching them play with each other on their own with a game they make up. I just hear their laughter and feel so warm inside. :)

When I did the IUI I had 5 mature eggs so I could have up to 5 babies. They asked if I wanted to proceed with a high possibility of multiples and I said YES! There was no worry or doubt in my mind. I would be happy with whatever God gave me whether it was one baby or 20. When you arms are empty for so long to have them overflowing with more than one baby you cannot feel anything but blessed.

I think that the thing to remember is that you can't predict or control how your children are going to interpret and internalize the world. That includes how they came to be. I am adopted, have always known and it has literally never been a salient fact about my life for me.

I think a good, general concept is that people have a need and a right to know where they came from whether through fertility treatments, donor sperm, adoption, or whatever. Speaking about adoption as an area I know more about, some people are not able to deal with the fact that their origins are cloudy and seek desperately to know who they look like and where they came from. These people get a lot of play in the media because they want something. People who feel content like I do aren't talked about because we aren't really talking about it ourselves - because it isn't an issue for us. This has led to public assumptions and misconceptions in many cases - that all adopted people need to know their biological heritage and can not possibly be happy, psychologically sound adults until they do.

The other thing to remember, I think, is that your daughters will have a wholly new perspective on things than you do. Now that I am a adult contemplating my own fertility I am beginning, barely, to have an idea of how painfully it must have been for my mother to not be able to bare a child. Your daughters may not think about their conception in terms of natural/not natural or what have you.

oops sorry...my girls were IVF (I have a 10 year old via Clomid as well) and I was commenting in respect of our situation rather than yours. In my situation the more difficult issue is whether or not to ever reveal to them (including the 10 year old who has daily moments of resentment toward her sisters) that they were actually a set of triplets. ...now back to planning that birthday party!

Adorable photo.

My niece has identical twin girls when they were small the parents tried to stress individuality.  As the girls got older they insisted on dressing alike (possibly different color but same outfit) doing everything together.  When their singleton sister was born they had great pity for her as she was only one.   Cracked me up

I think they must have some primal awareness of a psychic/physical other. Their togetherness has an embryonic orgin which must leave some deep and probably lasting imprint. The single most fascinating aspect of "twin-ness" for me, is the sharing of that pre-birth phase - an utterly fascinating and unsolvable mystery I imagine. @Corina, thanks for casually touching off an ethical firestorm!

As a twin, I always found it to be special. People were constantly trying to make us 'non-twins.' i decided it was because they were either jealous or threatened. being a twin is a gift, and should be celebrated, not de-emphasized. of course, you want your own identity; but a big part of that identity is having a twin. more people than i can count have told me they wish they were a twin. they should dress alike and have fun with it!

I just want to say that photo is so sweet I burst into tears at work.  

Has anyone run into identity confusion with twins?

I have 19 month old twins in my class this year and one in particular seems somewhat confused with her name and her sister's name. Also they often use the wrong names when identifying themselves in pictures. I'm curious if this is common in twins?

@Alli At that age, yes.  It is super confusing for my girls to point themselves out in pictures and they're 21 months old and fraternal (look nothing alike).

Very interesting topic!  @Julia, sounds to me like you and your brother have a very healthy and normal relationship.  Thanks for sharing your experience!

I have no clue at what age twins become aware of their twin status.  Just last week a mom in my Mother of Multiples group was talking about how her 7 year old daughters only refer to themselves as "us" or "we", they never use the words "me" or "I".  She says that's been going on for a number of years.  She seemed to find it disturbing.

I'm pretty sure my girls aren't really aware of their twin relationship, aside from the fact that there's always someone else around and that they get upset when they steal each other's toys.  I think part of the joy of parenting twins is watching that relationship grow between them.  Obviously it also presents a lot of challenges, but the excitement in hearing them laugh in the other room because they enjoy each other is such a great reward!

I just recently checked out a kids book called Twins! by Charlotte Doyle.  Very cute!  Features identical girls.  Very simple rhyming language.  Starts out, "One baby, baby two.  Baby, Baby, We love you!"

Another one I have is called Twin to Twin by Margaret O'Hair.  It has cute redheaded boy/girl twins.  It isn't nearly as heart-touching as Twins! but it's also very cute and even in very basic terms addresses their sense of identity.  "Am I you? Or are you me?"

I am the big sister of a twin brother and sister.  They have different hair colors, eye colors, skin tones and even different birthdays.  To further differentiate them, my sister was left back in 1st grade.  (Similar to a PP's comment;  my mom was quite distraught over the decision to keep my sister back or not.  She ultimately decided it was the right choice for a myriad of reasons.)  Thirty years later, people we have known from elementary school are still surprised to find out Peter and Lily are twins.

I don't remember my parents ever explaining the twin thing, either to me (aside from the "Oh, wait, we were wrong--you're really going to have 2 new siblings" conversation, of course), or to my brother and sister, it's just the way things are.