'Moms Talk' Q & A: How Is it Different Raising Twins?

Each week the council will answer a question on parenthood posed to them by readers or another member of council.

This week, the Mom Councils members talk about the differences involved in raising twins.

It occurred to me that the Moms Council has two mothers of twins, so I figured that as a twin myself I can see how what it's like from a parent's point of view.

From an early age, I felt a need to stress my individuality, so complained when we were called "the twins" and absolutely refused to dress alike. My mom has told me that by age 3 I'd change whenever she dressed us the same, which didn't always go well since we'd be going to visit relatives who expected to see us in the same cute matching outfits they gave us.

That made me curious to see what the experience of the moms has been like.

Kim Zannetti: I am with you. I never let anyone call our children "the twins." They each had their individual names just like any other child. We did dress them alike once in a while but only when they were young infants. We made it very clear that we wanted our children to be treated as individuals.

While it is wonderful to have the opportunity to raise twins, it does pose some challenges.  When our kids were in preschool, everyone had an opinion of whether or not they should be separated in class. It was also difficult with regards to letting them make their own friends.

Now that they are in eighth grade, they each have their own "friend group," but those groups at times merge, and it is cool to see how they all interact. I think that it can be more of a challenge with this with same-sex twins. Our children are also realizing how lucky there are (when they need help with homework, or they forgot a book) now all the sudden it is not such a pain to be a twin.

Susan Jerome: My twins, a boy and a girl, are now 18 and their brother is 20. I believe birth order and gender influences how people perceive them and respond to them. They got a lot of attention when it was obvious they were twins so I tried to make sure I paid extra attention to their older brother. I let him stay up after the twins went to sleep (which was midnight some nights) so we could spend time together without the babies. We also would have two sitters on the rare occasion we went somewhere.

I did dress them alike when they were infants, as much as one could being a boy and girl, but that didn't last long. Once they grew beyond the toddler stage many people didn't realize they were twins because Ricky was so much bigger than Ashley. In addition, I don't think being a twin is as unique as it once was. There were three sets of twins in my children's class.

The most significant difference I felt was the work to care for their basic needs when they were newborns and infants. I was never fully awake for the first two years. I tried to get them on different feeding schedules so I could hold each one while they drank their bottle. When that didn't work, I would hold one and prop the other on a pillow with the bottle propped on another pillow then switch the baby I held at the next feeding. If they fussed at the same time, I held them both, one in each arm. That didn't always work so I sometimes would call my mom over to help or my neighbor would come and hold one of the babies for me!

My then-husband worked nights and I worked days. You really discover how far you can push yourself mentally and physically when they are babies. I remember being grateful I only had twins and not triplets or more! I also would cringe when someone would say they understood what it was like because they had children who were born a year apart. Nothing is the same as a multiple birth. 

I was very conscientious about treating them as individuals. I rarely referred to them as "the twins" and the names we chose weren't similar. I also didn't want my older son to think they were more special than him so we didn't play up their uniqueness, and I still don't. To him, he had two baby siblings, he was too young to know that was not the norm. I really tried to make them feel like the inidividuals they were born to be.

I thought it was going to be easier that they weren't the same sex so there wouldn't be so much conflict when they played sports or did extracurricular activities. Well, all three of them chose to be in choir and the plays at school! As they grew, each one found their own strengths and capitalized on them; only one child remained devoted to the arts.

I can't say it was extremely different than raising a singleton (just what I already mentioned). I still had the same rules and expectations for all of the children. When the twins were in grade school, they had many classes together, which caused some animosity because they weren't always at the same academic level in that class. My daughter chose to go to the public school rather than a Catholic high school, which I firmly believe was to forge her own way without the shadow of her brothercwhereas her brother would have preferred they stay together. I was disappointed she made that choice but I supported her decision.

Now, it's no different than having three children. I don't think about them as "the twins," they are Ricky and Ashley. There was only one time, in all these years, that there was a conflict of having to be in two places at one time and it wasn't even because of the twins. My older son's academic honors ceremony was on the same night my younger son's school was having a choir show.  My then-husband went to one and I went to the other.

We still face the same challenges other households face. The children sometimes fight, they sometimes think I am favoring one child over the other, they vie for my time and attention, etc. It's just like everyone else!