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?”

🙄🙄

No. It's a weird question to ask a stranger who is minding their own business.

I had IVF many times so it's absolutely normal to me. Still a weird question to ask a stranger.

Not a lot of time but maybe once, before becoming an adult or at least very early in their adult life? Although this thread is making me realise how incurious some people are. And how loosely people understand language (not the first thread on that point).

If someone said they were unaware of the concept of an 'identical twin' I'd find that more understandable. But you had the concept in your head and used the words and just never... wondered what it meant?

Agreed!

How very odd.

And yes, fraternal twins can have different fathers, conceived at different times in the cycle. I know. I have some. (Not different fathers, but conceived at different times. Phew, that was close.)

Are you okay? What an odd response.

I would hope adults are intelligent enough to know you can’t have identical boys and girls. Do they not know the difference between boys and girls?

How so, could you explain?

Well my comment was a lighthearted one about a children's book, you seem to be taking things a little too seriously.

That what I was going to say. Sesquizygotic twins, same egg, different sperm determining sex.

However, yes @Tincytot , I would expect adults to know that opposite sex twins cannot be identical. That must be very frustrating and the kind of things that makes you lose faith in humanity 😅

They just mean 'do they look like each other'. Thats all. Nothing sinister about not understanding biology 😒.

Of course – but as I’ve said, I don’t think they give it much thought.

Lol

Once again, I don’t think they are thinking of anatomical correctness or the biology of egg splitting or hyperovulation when they encounter twins. They are just asking a very common question.

Is that not a strange question to ask though if the twins are standing right in front of them? (Which is the situation described by the OP). If the questioner wants to know whether the twins look alike they can use their eyes to look at them and then use their brain to reach a conclusion. That’s like me asking someone ’Is that car red?’ I’m not colourblind, so why would I ask that question when I can see for myself what colour the car is?

I think in many cases it’s this or the person doesn’t hear correctly. I’m sure there are people ignorant of the meaning of identical vs fraternal twins but in many cases it’s just people giving a quick response without thought.

I think the Blyton reference is a really good one - because it illustrates the level of common knowledge expected of children, so they’d get the joke.

I’d have taken that lightly. But in the context of a thread where adults are saying they honestly didn’t know this - it invites explanation.

My children are G&B, 4 years apart and members of the public used to refer to them in passing as 'the girls'. 🙂

In my experience, the twin questions are almost always initiated by the other person (generally someone I don't know). This is why it's annoying. They approach us, interrupting whatever we're doing at that moment and then ask a dumb question.

I have definitely said it when seeing twins, but then going "doh!" once my brain engaged properly.

I think it's a bit of small talk that people hear twins and pose it as the next question without actually thinking what they're saying.

18% of adults in the UK have very poor literacy or are "functionally illiterate" so it's not particularly surprising that a percentage of adults don't understand the full meaning of the word identical.

Yes IVF makes twins more likely although I think less so now.

Also older mums are more likely to have non identical twins … the chances of releasing more than one egg increases with age.

I remember a lady peering over her glasses, into my double buggy and shouting “one egg or two” 🤣

Now there was a Mumsnetter! 🤣

I get that it must be tiring as parents of twins to continually explain things to folks who just don't know and probably don't even care, they're just passing the time with idle chit chat.

We met up with a colleague of DH, his wife had just given birth to twin boys and they launched into extraordinary amount of detail about what type of twins they were and both their backgrounds (the parents) and whether twins were in the family, the level of detail that we just weren't interested in, but clearly they felt the need to explain it all to us.

I'm childfree by choice so to come with a gift was my maximum interest / effort level, I don't really care how many different types of twins there are / are not.

My DH used to say , no they’re not identical only one of them has a oenis
😁

It is curious when fraternal twins are just so different though. I went to school with girl twins; one was tall, slender and blond and the other was short, full-bodied and dark.

Are you okay? That old chestnut 😂Classic MN! Used to be "Are you on glue?"