For most of us, we develop our own identity, personality and style easily, but what about identical twins? A twins identity is much more difficult. From the moment they are born, they are seen as a pair, yet they are two very different, unique individuals. The world sees them as the same on the surface, yet they have many differences in personality, style and thoughts.
My twins never dress the same, apart from their coats, only because there was no other option at the time of buying.
However, they do share their clothes, which does mean they have similar styles. Even though they share clothes, they still like to display their individuality.
For example, Boo often prefers skirts to dresses and rarely thinks to do her t-shirt buttons up, while Pinky likes dresses and always insists on doing every button up on her school t-shirt, yes, even the awkward top button.
One is very neat and tidy, while the other is more laid back. They are trying to find their own style and identity.
Many people struggle to tell my twins apart. To me they look completely different, but to others, they don’t. At school, most of their close friends know who is who, but not all.
Pinky and Boo have a new teacher (again). This week, he pulled me aside to ask if they could wear something to make them identifiable. Initially I didn’t have a problem with this, teachers need to be able to identify their pupils. However, on reflection, it is not as clear-cut as it seems.
I asked Pinky to wear a headband every day. That’s fine, she often likes wearing them and agreed. However, the first day of headband wearing threw up a problem… Boo wanted to wear one too.
It was very hard to explain to a 5-year-old, she can’t wear a headband any more, not because it’s banned, but purely because the teacher needs to identify you without a headband. She really didn’t understand…”if Pinky can wear one, why can’t I?”
I can see her point, she wants to be able to choose each day, chop and change her style. Some days she likes to wear a headband while others she doesn’t. Other children are allowed to choose their hair style, etc, so why can’t she??
I feel quite cruel insisting on the headband wearing, but I can see how the teacher needs to be able to identify them.
How do twins find their identity, when they are constantly hit with these sorts of hurdles? A twins identity can be so difficult for them to find.
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It must be hard for Boo to understand why Pinky can wear a headband and she can’t and trying to find your own identity as a twin can be challenging.
My twin and I are non-identical and have quite different styles so we didn’t have the issue of people not being able to tell us apart (although there were moments when we both wished we were identical as we could have had a lot of fun with that one!)
That said, I definitely relate to your comments about people seeing twins as a pair and sometimes it did feel that people just saw us as “the twins” rather than two individual people. Even on our 30th birthday, we got given a card that was addressed to both of us – we were living 50 miles apart at the time!
The flip side of that though is that being a twin always feels quite special and that was nice, plus having a sibling the same age was and is lovely (our next oldest sibling is nine years older than us).
I think I found the teenage years hardest though as that’s when you’re most aware of the way people label you – my sister was the “pretty twin” and I was the “clever one” – as you can imagine, both of us flipped that in our minds and struggled with being the “stupid twin” and the “ugly one” respectively.
I think that’s something that a lot of teenagers probably struggle with though, regardless of whether their twins or not.
Sounds like you are doing a great job of trying to help Pinky and Boo with being confident in their own identities – good luck with it all! 🙂
Gosh, I can see the dilemma you and the teacher have. Your teacher clearly wants to give them their own space and identity however he’s struggling to find it within your girls other than via some outer form of clothing.
Of course you want them to express themselves and have their own identity and it must be a struggle ensuring that this happens, but as you say you don’t want to suppress either of their creativity.
It’s a difficult one. I only hope the teacher identifies each one via their personality!
How special to have identical twins, but I can see the dilemma. What we take for granted (being our own people and having our own style) must be so difficult for twins, especially identical ones).
I hope as they get older they find it easier or they develop their own separate quirks, that make them more easily identifiable to outsiders.
I think I understand why the teacher has trouble telling them apart. How about wear a different headband each. Like say one wears blue and the other one wears red? 😉
There are identical twins in my daughter’s class and I struggle to tell them apart.
They’re her closest friends and to her it’s really obvious who is who and the way that she talks about them makes it so clear to me that she sees them totally separately as they are very different children.
However, I know their mum’s having problems with them being treated the same at school, with very similar parents evenings, school reports and notes home being sent, despite them being individuals.
I can see the struggles of ensuring they do feel they have their individual styles and for teachers to recognise them as such, too.
Hope the new teacher manages to tell them apart and treat them as such soon x