Referring to your children as the twins!

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Forum -> Parenting our children -> School age children

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ny21

Sun, Jul 16 2006, 9:37 am

the twins

Last edited by ny21 on Mon, Jun 24 2013, 2:10 pm; edited 1 time in total

amother

Sun, Jul 16 2006, 10:25 am

Expecting twins so doing research in that.

Turns out, if you call them the twins, dress them the same, etc. then one is bound to be a very big troublemaker in an attempt to be individualized and to establish a unique identity.

It is important to give each one an identity so they don't need to resort to trouble to gain that. Dress differently, and call them and treat them as individuals.

goldrose

Sun, Jul 16 2006, 10:34 am

I dont have twins, so dont know - but my girls are very close in age. they have a lot of matching clothes, but dont necessarily wear them on the same day. I ask them "do you feel like matching today?" so I dont force anything on them.
until then, you can prob dress them matching without referrin to them as 'the twins' (unless they're out of earshot) --just like I'll tell my dh, "I took 'the girls' to the store today..." (easier to say 'the girls' than refer to them by name every time)

Tefila

Sun, Jul 16 2006, 10:54 am

Not really since I have boy and girl and though I love to coordinate them as much as possible they don't look at all alike. Also one is so different from the other. So sometimes yes but mostly not 8)

lubcoralsprings

Sun, Jul 16 2006, 10:54 am

I guess it's just a personal choice?

amother

Sun, Jul 16 2006, 1:45 pm

I know a set of twins that are not called "the twins" but by both of their names mushed together. They are hardly ever referred to separately. Even when the mother only needs one of them she will sometimes use both of their names and either one or the other responds. They don't seem to mind. Neither of them are rebellious. They are actually very happy, well-adjusted people. They are identical. People who know them well can tell them apart but I cannot. I guess these things depend somewhat on innate personality.

chocolate moose

Mon, Jul 17 2006, 10:30 am

I guess that's very diff. than if you have alll boys, ref. to them as, the boys.

didan

Mon, Jul 17 2006, 10:41 am

B"H

amother wrote:

I know someone like that as well, except they're both married now. Say their names were Rivki and Esti, the mother world just say "Rivkesti" even if she was only talking to one of them:)

chen

Mon, Jul 17 2006, 11:48 am

calling them the twins now and then will probably not do lasting damage, any more than calling the baby "the baby" will, unless you do it forever and go the whole nine yards, rhyming names, dressing alike, and doing e/t else identical. you don't need to be militant and insist, when a neighbor asks you "How are the twins?", that she say "how are "Yossi and Pinny?" though you can certainly say "yossi rolls over and pinny laughs".

we felt strongly about not falling into the "twins are so cute, let's emphasize their sameness" trap, and also we had a lot of secondhand clothes, so we had very few identical outfits in any case. when they were infants, the different outfit was how we told them apart without having to check the secret sign, and woe betide us if they ended up dressed alike! Plus we never dressed them alike in pictures b/c how would we know which was who? At least when they were dressed differently, if we were lucky we would remember Sholom was wearing the sailor shirt and Nissim was wearing the polo shirt.

bottom line, don't go berserk either way.

Chani

Mon, Jul 17 2006, 1:25 pm

sometimes we say the twins, but generally speaking we call them by name. We occasionally dress them alike, in general because THEY'VE pitched a fit wanting to wear the same thing, but usually we don't. Frankly, I don't see it as a big deal either way.

ny21

Wed, Aug 02 2006, 1:32 pm

chen - I realy like the names of your sons >

chen

Fri, Aug 04 2006, 8:31 am

momoftwins wrote:

chen - I realy like the names of your sons >

Thanks! But those aren't their real names, that was just for illustration embarrassed

They wouldn't dream of letting me use their real names.

momofgirls

Fri, Aug 04 2006, 10:49 am

I have twin sisters & we always referred to them as twins, I personally think it does not indivualize them & they hated it they always used to say we are 2 diff. ppl.

Annie

Wed, Aug 16 2006, 11:43 pm

sometime we call them "the boys" or just "boys" or by their names. When they were really little people used to ask about the "twins." My sister calls them her "babies" still (they're 4), but it's like a nickname. They have some outfits the same and some that coordinate, but they're a size apart now, so mostly wearing different clothes. The other day I let them get dressed by themselves and they picked matching outfits because they wanted to. I don't want to take away their individuality, but at the same time, I don't want them to miss the special wonders and benefits of being a twin.

professor

Tue, Oct 10 2006, 12:34 am

I cal them "the girls" I hate when pple call them "the twins"

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