Everyone knows that boy/girl twins can’t identical right? Wrong!

[Tincytot]

Here is my Friday night rant as a mum of twins teenagers who still gets asked if they are identical when the girl/boy twins are standing right in front of them, looking not one bit alike let alone identical. Plus they’re different sexes!

typical conversation-
“oh you have twins, what are they?”
”a boy and a girl”
“lovely, are they identical?”
”no they’re a boy and a girl”
”yeah but are they identical?”

🙄🙄

I have 2 DC 20 months apart. I experienced the same thing almost daily. I didn't once think it was because those people were stupid, fools or idiots. They were being nice, and making polite, fairly unthinking chat as we waited for the bus or whatever.

It's very common behaviour for people to see superficial similarities, not differences. We all make assumptions and mistakes here and there, and by and large, people hopefully don't judge too harshly when we do.

Seriously?!

I've heard the same in the past :-). It's too ridiculous to think opposite sex twins can be identical - though they may be alike of course.

My mum has a boy twin. When they found out, my children asked why they weren't identical. I'd say that granny Sarah's moustache was bigger than uncle Gary's and laugh it off.🤣

The number of adults who've mentioned it to me is mad.
🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️😄

I feel for you @Tincytot and I'm sorry I cant say things will get better.

^No real names were used in this post.^

I find this everyday sheer stupidity very comforting. It makes me feel I can just relax because people are mostly very, very dim.

when I was a head of year, I had a year group with loads of twins. Mature parents, shall we say? I wondered if some them were IVF? Does that make twins more likely.

I worked in a two form entry school where every single class had at least one set of twins. We had two sets of triplets too. I kept threatening to gather them all up one day to take a photograph!

I don't know when genetics made it into mainstream, compulsory education for science. It was in my GCSEs in the 90s, but there will be a point where science education was less developed, so will be some point where older people weren't universally taught it, and may not have aquired that knowledge at some point (particularly of an era when girls and boys didn't have access to an even curriculum for subjects like science and other technical subjects).

I know a twin whose birth straddles midnight so has a different birthday to her twin. I remember a teacher at school asking a twin if he and his sister had the same birthday and thinking it was a dumb question not having thought about midnight falling between the small age gap, so not such a dumb question. I know another twin who jokes that the best 5 minutes of her life were the first 5 before her brother was born.

It was much worse when mine were younger - especially when people would ask how I could tell them apart. Even now at 16 with my son a good half a foot taller than my daughter people still ask.

After the first few times, I've just started to give a polite but short "No, they aren't" and occasionally people do actually think about it and realise how much of a daft question it was. Now, if people could also work on the following that would be great...

"Double trouble"
"You've got your hands full"
"Rather you than me"
"I would die/kill myself if I found out I was having twins" - believe it or not I've had comments like this several times
"Did you know you were having twins?" - No the second popping out was a huge surprise 😂
"That's your family complete now you've got one of each then"

Then when finding out you are pregnant again after having the twins:
"You'll be hoping it's just one this time!"
"You must have been so relieved to find out it was just one in there"
"Oh, why would you have another?? You already have one of each!"

And a special mention for the people who ask if twins run in the father's family and saying it must have "came from his side then" just because there are some twins in his family. When you have fraternal twins. From 2 eggs. Them being twins is nothing to do with the father or his family sorry!

But quite clearly most people are only thinking about physical appearance, not anything else, or they wouldn’t even ask the question..

In my year group at school there were two pairs of twins who happened to have the same birth date.
Co-incidentally I knew someone else born that day too.

The maternity department will have been kept busy that day!

So then are they just asking ‘do they look alike?’ (which is a question to be answered in their own mind, because it’s subjective), or are they asking ‘are they identical twins (monozygotic) as opposed to non-identical twins (dizygotic)?’ Because those terms have specific biological meanings relating to how the twins were conceived and carried. But the word ‘identical’ for twins means the same as identical used to describe any other pair of things- exactly the same, as in, monozygotic twins have identical DNA.

Simple reason for such idiotic questions... The average IQ is 100.

Yes- non-identical twins, when more than one embryo is implanted in IVF. I think this is happening less these days as it is recognised that twin pregnancies are obviously more risky so transferring more than one embryo is quite strongly discouraged now as far as I’m aware.

Our neighbors had triplets , two girls and a boy . Their mother told me that the girls were identical twins. No idea where the brother came in.

I get it in a way. I think people are clumsily asking if they look the same.

I knew girl/boy twin, who while obviously not identical, looked identical as kids. If you had of dressed them the same, has same hairstyle, they were 100% identical apart from what was in their pants. This only changed at puberty when you could then tell them apart, one grew taller, broader shoulders, bone structure and body build started to differ etc. You could still identify them as brother/sister in a millisecond but not ‘identical’ as they were previously (apart from the penis/vag thing). I’m guessing that’s what people are asking about for twin babies/young children and are being clumsy in using the word ‘identical’.

It depends whether people are meaning biologically or meaning to say "do they look alike?"