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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask family/friends to not refer to my twin girls as “the twins”

261 replies

Bananacloud · 09/09/2020 09:17

To treat them as individuals. To call them by their names and to stop calling them “the twins”.

Obviously, as a mum, I did quite a lot of research and found that by treating them as “a pair” and not as individuals, they are more chances of them developing eating disorders etc. It’s shit cuz it feels like I’m being a little precious with everyone when I mention not using that word.
What does everyone think?

OP posts:
perfumeistooexpensive · 09/09/2020 09:45

Our twins love being called the twins. They are so proud of it. They call out to one another as Twinnie.

MsEllany · 09/09/2020 09:46

I have twins @Bananacloud identical boys. I’ve never referred to them as the twins I don’t think - they’ve always been ‘the boys’. School sometimes use twins and I know family use twinnies but in a more jokey way.

I’m not too bothered if I’m honest - mine are 11 now, they’ve got totally different personalities and aren’t very twin-like at all. I do remember my mum remarking once about how I didn’t refer to them as twins - it honestly wasn’t a conscious thing.

I would urge you to consider separate classes at school. We did (from junior school anyway) and it was a great decision. They’re good friends but not so completely dependent on each other.

Onthetrain75 · 09/09/2020 09:48

I have twins. I can’t really control what other people call them, though I have never heard anyone refer to them as “the twins”. I would say just try and lead by example, in everything you do so that your children feel like individuals.

Marmite27 · 09/09/2020 09:48

I have two non twin girls. They get referred to as ‘the girls’ all the time.

BiL’s are ‘the boys’, and SiL’s (one of each) are ‘the kids’.

You can ask, but as they’re probably doing it unconsciously, I don’t think it will be changed.

I couldn’t get worked up about it, but mine aren’t twins 🤷🏻‍♀️

WhatWouldJKRDo · 09/09/2020 09:48

Surely treating them as individuals is more important than the collective noun others use?

We have The Lads and The Kids as groupings.

PaddyF0dder · 09/09/2020 09:50

We just call our twins “the twins”. It’s a convenient shorthand.

Curious to see the evidence that calling them “the twins” increases the risk of eating disorders.

middleager · 09/09/2020 09:50

YANBU as most parents of twins will tell you. Those saying YABU don't have twins, in the main and therefore no real experience of this as a parent or twin.

It still gets my goat 14 years on.

Satsuma2 · 09/09/2020 09:51

We have twins in the family and they are referred to as the boys. Not because anyone decided to not call them the twins but to differentiate between them and the girls. I think you are being precious about it.

Howmanysleepsnow · 09/09/2020 09:51

Another one who refers to my (non-twin) children as “the boys” (not “the girl” as there’s only one girl), “the little two”, “the big two”, “the children”. It’s way easier to use a collective term than list names! They are all individuals still.

OhCaptain · 09/09/2020 09:52

I wouldn’t stop if you asked me, tbh.

The kids, the boys, the girls, the babies, the older ones...

All things that are used collectively in my circle of family and friends.

I’m not going to sit there reeling off individual names in case someone gets an eating disorder.

If they makes me ignorance to the specificity of twins so be it. I still wouldn’t adhere to what I think is a ridiculous request.

My point is that even if you asked you wouldn’t be able to make people comply.

Figgygal · 09/09/2020 09:53

Yeah you being very precious sorry

latulipe · 09/09/2020 09:54

Ffs.

OhCaptain · 09/09/2020 09:54

Bloody autocorrect!

*If THAT makes me IGNORANT.

Badger2033 · 09/09/2020 09:55

YABU - they’re not going to get an eating disorder because people refer to them as ‘the twins’.
How old are they out of interest?

Think you need to spend more time doing nice things with them or if you’ve got loads of spare time then treat yourself to doing something fun instead of internet searching rubbish like this.

Life’s to short. Enjoy your precious children and don’t waste time worrying about what ifs or your going to give yourself issues.

BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz · 09/09/2020 09:55

My children (boy and girl 3year age gap) are always referred to as "the kids" or "the cousins".

Even I sometimes call them "the RostankowskiWolowitzes"

tdm1 · 09/09/2020 09:56

I have twins and understand just how annoying this is - I have only 1 friend who does this and it makes me scream (inside) every time. Slightly better than my many other friends with daughters who refer to my boy-girl twins as 'the girls' before hastily correcting themselves Smile. But while I think you are absolutely right to be thinking about your children's individuality, this won't be threatened by random outsiders - focus as previous posters have said on helping them differentiate themselves so they're not affected by what others call them.

Twintoo · 09/09/2020 09:56

Twin here, I hate " the twins" (so did my mum) My parents referred to us as "the girls" which IMO is different because it didnt define us as any different from any other same gender siblings. *

The worst thing is people (teachers and older people generally) not even trying to distinguish who was who, even with very different hairstyles, and sometimes even when one of us had moved away!!!

*we both still had eating disorders though Confused

nestisflown · 09/09/2020 09:56

@middleager

YANBU as most parents of twins will tell you. Those saying YABU don't have twins, in the main and therefore no real experience of this as a parent or twin.

It still gets my goat 14 years on.

@middleager but how can you generalise like that when there’s several twins in the thread and parents of twins who have said they don’t mind the use of it as a collective noun? Just because you get offended by it doesn’t mean that every twin parent or twin does.
Polkasquare · 09/09/2020 09:57

@middleager

YANBU as most parents of twins will tell you. Those saying YABU don't have twins, in the main and therefore no real experience of this as a parent or twin.

It still gets my goat 14 years on.

Exactly!
spanielmum3 · 09/09/2020 09:58

I haven't read all the replies, but I have a friend who had twins, and they were called peter and john. When they started school, the teacher asked john his name and he said "peterandjohn" lol. They were always strict about calling them their names and 'the twins'.

Rocksandstones · 09/09/2020 09:58

I have twins and have read the same research as you. I used to worry about it a lot but then I figured, as other people have mentioned, if they were singles they’d be ‘the kids.’ Etc. I do tend to call them the kids rather than the twins though. And I don’t dress them the same to help with identity.
I do find that a lot of people do see them as ‘the twins’ and even when dressed completely different can’t be bothered to try and tell them apart!

Polkasquare · 09/09/2020 09:58

@Badger2033

YABU - they’re not going to get an eating disorder because people refer to them as ‘the twins’. How old are they out of interest?

Think you need to spend more time doing nice things with them or if you’ve got loads of spare time then treat yourself to doing something fun instead of internet searching rubbish like this.

Life’s to short. Enjoy your precious children and don’t waste time worrying about what ifs or your going to give yourself issues.

Do you have twins?
Corneliusmurphy · 09/09/2020 10:00

Are they still quite young? My twins tend to be called the boys, probably because they have a sister; the girl twins in my life tend to be ‘the twins‘ as they have a sister, the girls when it’s all three of them.

However I do think as they are all getting older people seem to be using their names more and more. Not every time but more often than not.

If you keep using their names also I do think people will copy you as well. I’ve never done the matchy clothes thing either.

steppemum · 09/09/2020 10:00

I call my two girls 'the girls' and I call my kids 'the kid'

so I think you are beiong a bit ridiculous
But I do see that in some contexts it would be annoying, especially some thing like
How are the twins doing at school? as if they are one entity. Instead of how is X doing and then how is Y doing.

VinylDetective · 09/09/2020 10:01

Good luck. You’re going to have a pretty frustrating rest of your life if you’re serious.

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