Excerpt:
Emotionally Healthy
Twins
A New Philosophy for Parenting Two
Unique Children
By Joan A. Friedman, PhD
CHAPTER ONE
TWO UNIQUE CHILDREN
The Twin Mystique
As
we begin to consider a new perspective on how to raise
emotionally healthy twins, it’s important to think about how
twins are romanticized in our culture. Stereotypically, most
people think of twins as intensely close soul mates connected to
each other through a kind of sibling ESP. Many of us assume that
one twin not only knows what the other is thinking and feeling
but can automatically provide what the other needs. Twins are
seen as inhabiting their own private world for which only they
hold the map. It is assumed that each feels lost without the
other and that they seek to preserve their twosome status even
as adults. Nontwins fantasize that, in a twin relationship, one
always knows what the other one wants and needs, and for this
reason, it is thought that twins are each other’s predestined
partner and confidant.
Each of these assumptions contributes to what I call the “twin
mystique,” a mystique that has been around for a very long time.
So, why do so many people cling to the mystique? What’s behind
the infatuation with twins as mysterious, inseparable, and
magical? There is something inherently captivating about the
idea of having a double because it invokes a human longing for
an intimate, lifelong companion who thoroughly understands us.
With such a companion, we feel we would never be abandoned or
alone. People project this longing onto twins and see them as
enjoying an idealized relationship.
In
fact, twins can be lifelong friends, and they can fulfill many
emotional needs for each other. But if they are expected to
fulfill the fantasy of telepathic soul mates who inhabit a
mysteriously wonderful world of their own, they will not feel
free to develop on their own. When the longing to see twins in a
romanticized way prevents parents and others from seeing them as
individuals, twins feel as if they are merely playing a role in
someone else’s fantasy.
And
then there are the cultural references that further embellish
the romantic notion of hyperconnected, indivisible twins. Media
images portray twins as cute, funny, mischievous, and seductive,
and, again, as sharing a unique telepathic bond. The long-lost
twins in The Parent Trap, the adorable-turned-foxy Olsen twins,
the wholesomely seductive Doublemint gum twins who promise to
double your pleasure and your fun: each of these pairs feeds our
fantasies about what it would be like to double our enjoyment of
life by being a twin or simply hanging out with twins. The myth
of inseparableness is perpetuated by such diverse cultural icons
as Tweedledum and Tweedledee in Through the Looking Glass and
What Alice Found There (Alice in Wonderland); Marge’s cynical,
chain-smoking twin sisters, Patty and Selma, on TV’s The
Simpsons; and the squeaky-clean Bobbsey twins in the classic
children’s book series.
Although the equally rotund Tweedledum and Tweedledee express
contrary opinions, they appear to Alice as inseparably joined,
each one’s arm firmly encircling the other’s neck. In fact,
Alice perceives them as so closely connected that she becomes
anxious about whose hand to shake first, fearing she’ll hurt the
other’s feelings. To resolve the dilemma, she shakes both their
hands at the same time!
Marge Simpson’s twin sisters, Patty and Selma, have
indistinguishable gravelly voices and display the exact same
crankiness. Their sisterly bond extends to the fact that,
although now middleaged, they still live together and never go
anywhere without each other.
The
Bobbsey twins are actually two sets of twins from the same
family—the older twins, Nan and Bert, and the younger, blonder
twins, Flossie and Freddie. In the book series, which has
appealed to young readers for more than a hundred years, theirs
is an idealized, happy family in which neither set of twins ever
has any interpersonal conflicts. Both sets of twins are
adventurous duos, and it’s clear that their adventures could
never take place if they weren’t always together.
Sometimes it is twins themselves who contribute to the twin
mystique. They may exploit their twinship in order to attract
attention—or customers. For instance, a restaurant in New York
City is owned by twin sisters and staffed by thirty-seven sets
of identical twins, with each set working the same shift. New
York Times restaurant critic Ruth Reichl became an inadvertent
cheerleader for the twin mystique with this cleverly written
restaurant review: “Twins sounds like a pretty silly gimmick.
Until you get there. When you are greeted at the door by two
gorgeous and identical hostesses, then glance at the bar to find
two identical men pouring drinks, the idea begins to grow on
you. By the time a pair of waitresses arrives, one wearing a
sign saying ‘I’m not Lisa,’ the other a sign saying ‘I’m not
Debbie,’ it is hard not to be charmed. Twins, owned by one pair
of twins and staffed by many others, creates its own giddy world
of doubles. Most times there are twins at some of the tables as
well, which makes those of us who came into the world alone feel
as if we were somehow cheated. Where are
our doubles?”1 Reichl adds
that a pack of Doublemint gum comes with the check.
It
seems everyone wants to buy into the twin mystique. Twinsburg,
Ohio, has put itself on the map by hosting an annual “Twins Days
Festival,” drawing more than three thousand sets of twins from
across the country who compete in talent shows, as well as for
titles proclaiming “most alike” and “least alike.” In response
to a frequently asked question on their Web site, “Do we have to
dress alike?” festival organizers respond that, although some
twins hate calling attention to themselves by dressing alike in
“real life,” at the festival you stand out by dressing
differently: “It’s part of the festival to dress up. Heck, there
are even boy/girl twins who dress alike, just to show their
common bond to any doubters who might say, ‘Hey, you’re not a
twin!’ Many sets don’t normally dress alike. Some, though, enjoy
dressing alike whenever they go out together. More power to ’em,
I say. Wish I had that kinda confidence to stand out in public.”
The message seems to be, the more bonded to your twin and the
more confident you are as a person, the more you’ll want to
dress like a twin forever.
At
a recent Twins Days Festival, the Discovery Health Channel
scouted for “America’s Most Identical Twins.” The festival
organizers identified sets of twins who shared similar
personality traits, as well as food and fashion preferences.
Those judged to be the most alike later underwent a battery of
tests and were filmed separately while ordering in a restaurant,
shopping for an outfit, and meeting a prospective dating
partner. But guess what happened? The twin brothers who were
found to be the most identical according to the Discovery
Channel’s psychological and behavioral criteria reported that
they actually felt quite different from one another and were
thus surprised by the findings. They believed that they were
different, even if the show organizers, judges, and television
audience perceived them as behaving
identically.2
Why
the ongoing focus on behavioral similarities in twins? Although
many psychological studies emphasize the individuality of twins
and the latest scientific research reveals that even identical
twins are different on a cellular level, the general public
still has the desire to find twins to be more similar than they
actually are. Again, there is a longing for twinship to be about
likemindedness, which seems to have been behind the Discovery
Channel’s attempt to prove how alike twins are behaviorally.
Twins used to be relatively rare, contributing to society’s
fascination with them. With the prevalence of infertility
treatments, which increase the number of fertilized eggs, twins
have become increasingly common. Between 1994 and 2004, the
multiple-birth ratio in the United States increased 32 percent.
In our country in 2004, 3.4 percent of
live births were multiple deliveries,3
marking a dramatic increase in the number of twins. Despite a
concurrent increase in scientific research related to twins, the
twin mystique persists, and fantasies about twinship still
dominate.
A New
Parenting-of-Twins Philosophy
While many parents of twins seem to embrace the concept of
encouraging individuality, most unwittingly undermine it.
Getting caught up in the twin mystique is hard to avoid when
relatives, friends, and the media persist in promoting it. But
when you consider how crucial it is for each of your children to
develop a unique sense of themselves and the freedom to decide
who they want to become without being typecast as half of a twin
set, your parenting decisions will be that much easier. The
following are my core parenting guidelines for helping your
twins develop into happy, self-realized, unique individuals. In
the chapters to come, we’ll see how each of these concepts can
be applied to the parenting of twins at every stage of their
development.
1. Think of your
twins as two unique individuals.
Twins need to be addressed as individual children who will
grow up to be individual adults. If you relate to them as
“twins” rather than as separate beings, they will relate to
each other and the world as “twins” because that will be the
reality they’ll know. Thinking of your children as distinct
individuals from the moment you are told you’re pregnant
with twins will ensure that they think of themselves as
unique.
This concept may seem obvious, but every
parenting decision you make will be based on it. If you
think of your children as two separate individuals, rather
than as “the twins,” your treatment of them will follow
accordingly. It’s a question of creating a new mind-set. It
may help to remind yourself repeatedly that twins are two
babies who happen to have been born at the same time, not
conjoined souls destined to be forever linked together.
2. Expect to
have different feelings for each child.
Even parents of singletons can feel guilty about having
different feelings for each of their children. Parents of
twins tend to feel such guilt even more strongly. If you
accept that your children are unique, however, it only makes
sense that they will elicit different feelings in you.
Feeling impatient with one twin baby and delighted by the
other, feeling angry at one two-year-old’s willfulness and
relieved that the other plays happily by herself, or even
feeling that you have more in common with one preteen twin
than the other does not mean that you love one child more
than the other. Accepting that you have different feelings
in response to your children’s behavior and personalities
means that you acknowledge their uniqueness.
I have read many studies of twins, each
of which lists various reasons why parents may prefer one
baby over the other. For example, one study shows that when
babies don’t come home from the hospital at the same time
due to medical reasons, the baby who comes home first may be
preferred because the second baby is perceived as an
intruder. Other studies reveal that some parents prefer the
smaller twin, the more sociable twin, the twin who sleeps
longer, the twin who cries less. The important thing to
remember is not to suppress your feelings; they are normal
and to be expected. Suppressing how you feel can result in
unnecessary guilt and uncertainty about your parenting
abilities. In fact, preferring one child to the other for
such reasons as those listed above changes with time because
children’s behavior constantly shifts, and so do your
reactions to it. Being conscious of your distinct emotional
responses to each child and accepting those distinctions
will help you normalize feelings that are simply a fact of
life in raising twins.
3. Give each child
consistent “alone time” with you. They need it in order to
adequately bond with you.
Every infant benefits from one-on-one
time with his or her parent; it helps fulfill a basic human
need. If a newborn could talk, he would likely say, “Pay
attention to me, look at me, listen to me, know me.” A child
and his or her parent will know each other better with the
opportunity for regular, focused time together. Tuning in to
your child’s needs in the first year of life helps you
attune to your baby’s emotional and physical communications,
and this attunement is enhanced when you are with one baby
at a time. As your baby experiences your responses to him
again and again, a secure attachment develops. He comes to
expect that he will be appropriately soothed when he is
hungry or tired, happy or excited. Allowing him to get to
know you—and feel known by you—helps lay the foundation for
his sense of who he is in relationship to the world.
The importance of alone time with one’s
parent doesn’t end at infancy. It extends throughout one’s
entire childhood.
4. Don’t attempt
to provide a “fair and equal” childhood for your twins.
Just as it is impossible to create a completely
safe environment for our children, it is also impossible to
create a fair and equal one. Yet most parents, especially
parents of twins, understandably feel the need to do just
that. In fact, an important part of our job is to help our
children learn how to adapt to or overcome unfair
circumstances. If we’re always trying to make things “fair”
for them, they might not learn how to meet this challenge.
Learning to cope with unfairness and inequality is an
inescapable emotional task. As parents, when we attempt to
create a fair and equal environment for our twins, however
well meaning we might be, we give them a false impression
about themselves and the world and inhibit their ability to
deal with life’s inevitable inequalities. Life is not fair,
and twins are not equal.
As a twin and a mother of twins, the
notion of inequality is something I have always treasured
because it denotes distinctions between two separate people.
When you treat each twin differently, you communicate to
your children that you realize they are distinct
individuals. And as parents, we can redefine “fair” to mean
fair with regard to each child’s unique needs and emotional
makeup.
5. Don’t compare twins
to each other; each is on his or her unique life path.
Twins begin life in the same place at the
same time, but that doesn’t mean they are headed in the same
direction. Too often, parents believe they are helping their
twins by making distinctions based on how each compares to
the other. While saying, “He’s the athletic one, unlike his
brother, the math whiz,” may sound benign, all children want
to be seen in their own light, not in the shadow of someone
else. Even siblings who are not twins don’t like to be
compared to each other. They need their parents to know who
they really are, not how they stack up against their brother
or sister. For twins, this need is especially strong.
Labeling one twin with one description
and the other twin with another is usually a well-meaning
attempt by parents to differentiate between their two
children—Linda is the creative one; Laura is the scholar.
Unfortunately, the labels can stick. When used frequently,
they affect how others see the twins and how the twins see
themselves. So, the label becomes a limiting,
self-fulfilling prophecy. As parents of twins, we need to
make a special effort not to promote comparisons and labels
to define our children. We must respect that children
constantly change and develop in their unique ways. Helping
them gain the tools they’ll need to chart their own paths is
much more beneficial to their personal growth than saddling
them with restrictive labels.
6. Encourage twins to
pursue their own friendships and interests.
Being the same age and most
often going to the same schools, twins draw from the same
pool of potential friends. But it is important that each
child be encouraged to develop her own friendships, apart
from her twin. Again, this is part of the individuation
process through which children come to develop a distinct
self, personally and socially. Engaging in activities that
reflect their own interests and having experiences separate
from their twin likewise helps children and teens to
discover and define themselves as individuals.
As parents of twins, part of our job is
to ensure that each child has sufficient opportunities to
seek out his own friends and develop his own interests,
apart from his twin sibling. We need to create these
opportunities for our children beginning when they are very
young, and we can only do so if we accept how important
separate experiences are for each child’s individual growth.
7. Don’t rely on your
twins to be each other’s constant companion or surrogate
parent.
With today’s hectic schedules, it can be
a relief for parents to assume that their twins seem
naturally to want to be together and to take care of each
other. As young children, they may seem like built-in
playmates; as they get older, they may appear to enjoy being
each other’s best friend and most trusted confidant. And one
twin may actually take on the role of surrogate parent,
seeing to the other’s emotional needs. But when “too much
togetherness” shuts out parents and others, twins don’t
learn to socialize in an age-appropriate manner. And the
lack of psychological boundaries between twin children can
lead to confused roles and, sometimes, inappropriate
behavior.
One of the dangers of twins parenting
each other is that they develop an intense need to maintain
an emotional equilibrium. This means that in order not to
rock the boat of their overly close connection, each child
denies her own feelings or prevents herself from branching
out on her own for fear of upsetting the other. When twins
become each other’s parental figure, it may be a sign that
their actual parents are not adequately fulfilling their
parental roles. All children, even those who have close
relationships with a sibling, need focused attention,
guidance, and emotional support from their parents. Twins
shouldn’t be expected to provide these for each other.
An Invitation
Raising emotionally healthy twins is more involved than simply
memorizing these seven points and vowing to adhere to them. In
the upcoming chapters, as you read about how other parents have
successfully used the seven-point philosophy to face the unique
challenges of parenting their twins, I hope you will be inspired
and encouraged. Whether you’ve just found out you’re pregnant
with twins or are the parent of twin teens, I invite you to
consider your own emerging twin-parenting story as you hear
about how others have shaped theirs.
As
to how this twin-parenting philosophy relates to identical
versus fraternal twins, the issues are quite similar. While
parents of identical twins must be even more aware of the need
to perceive and treat each child as a unique individual, parents
of fraternal twins also need to adhere closely to the seven
principles. Whether twins are identical or fraternal, they must
be valued for their individuality, and they need their parents
to teach them to develop their unique abilities, as well as to
handle the inevitable competition and comparison with their
same-age sibling. It’s true that these challenges can be greater
for identical twins and for fraternal twins of the same sex, but
regardless of which type of twins yours are, the seven
principles will guide you in making sure that your same-age
children have every opportunity to grow into the emotionally
healthy, self-determined individuals they deserve to be.
Footnotes
[1]
Ruth Reichl, “Twins at Twins—Diner’s Journal,” New York Times,
January 13, 1995.
[2]
Nancy L. Segal, “More Extraordinary Lives of Twins,” Twin
Research and Human Genetics (June 2006): 477.
[3]
National Center for Health Statistics, Final Natality Data,
March of Dimes, 2007, available at
www.marchofdimes.com/peristats (accessed May 15, 2007).
|
