“I was immediately drawn in...”
—Anna B
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Mar 2010
A refreshingly irreverent blogger, http://www.selfconsciouslyunaffected.com/, wrote me an email about "One and the Same" which stuck with me. Though she didn't include a question per se, I asked if I could quote from her email (she granted permission) because she raised an important issue which I thought was worth posing as a question: How do twins lose out on in their specialness?
This is part of what she wrote:
"My boys are a novelty to their grandparents, and get extra attention because they look alike, but they miss out on so much by virtue of being twins. Most of our family members haven't bonded with them as individuals. Many people (including their cousins) avoid speaking to them if they need to use a name, because they aren't sure who is who."
Ah, yes: the underbelly of twin-celebrity: the mushing together, the glossing over, the dodging of interaction if it means having to get the name right. Especially with identicals, distinction takes effort from the people in their lives, and there's an understandable laziness when it comes to getting to know twins apart, even among those who love them the most. Having identicals in the family simply requires more consciousness from relatives and friends; they have to work harder to know them, to distinguish them, to remember them. And often the assumption is that it doesn't really matter so much; the twins are a happy team, a set, a duo -- so what if I mix them up or call them by the wrong names?
It matters. Maybe not so much when the twins are little, but as they grow up, they will indeed "miss out on so much" as this blogger put it, because they'll be missing being known, having separate connections with the people they see at every family gathering. My advice would be this: Have that awkward conversation once -- with the grandparent, the aunt, the cousin. Tell them you know it can be challenging figuring out who they're talking to and taking the time to get to connect with each twin individually (by having a longer conversation with one, taking a walk with just one, baking a cake with just one), but it's important to you. And in the long run, you know it will be important to your twins. Maybe you can figure out a system to help alleviate the relative's anxiety of knowing which is which (I've seen that anxiety in action -- people are embarrassed that they're not certain who you are.) Twins are a wonderful novelty, but they're more than that. And they need to be sure that their value and their relationships are founded on more than the quirk of their simultaneous birth.
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Comments
Thank you for writing this!! I’m having the problem in my family about relatives not taking the time to get to know my twins individually. And I’m guilty of it myself for not getting to know some of my friends identical twins. I am going to share this with my family.
-Amanda from txtwins.blogspot.com.
By Amanda Dittlinger on Mar 16, 2010
So true. Reminds me to keep on my toes about this with my boys. I try to be really open and helpful if people don’t know who is who - to the point where I just assume that people can’t tell them apart and tell them right from the beginning. I do dress them consistently in their “color code.” One twin is always in “more blue” than the other one. We do a lot of coordinating-but-not-matching outfits to hammer the point home.
Jane from morgan-zawilski.blogspot.com/
By Jane on Mar 16, 2010
I am a identical twin whose brother lives in Atlanta,Ga.
I am 58 years old and have read your book and find it very to the point, things that i have thought about but never put into words. My wife gave me this book for Christmas and i plan on sending it to my brother once i finish it. A job well done.
By christoperher keane on Mar 14, 2010