Teen twin wants a party that her twin is not invited to

[yeahwhatev]

This is hypothetical at the moment as we haven't agreed to it. But my twin daughter (soon to be 15) wants a house party next summer and is imagining all the details of this, including over 60 invited (no way), but more hurtfully that it doesn't include her twin brother or his friends. If they weren't twins maybe there wouldn't be the same tension around this but I find it sad and also a reflection of the kind of awful high school popularity contest dynamics, which I understand is something of an obsession at that age, but having twins just makes it all the more obviously mean and exclusive. I find myself becoming angry and to be honest worried that this is part of her personality, and then I check myself and think it's just her age, and hopefully one day she won't act like this towards her own twin. But what to do? Just say no to the party? When they were growing up they had big joint twin birthday parties which they both look back on with fondness, they were so fun, and everyone was invited.

I know what I got up to at 16 and there's no way! 🫣

I’d they were neither and sister a few years apart (but birthdays close) I doubt you’d expect them to share a party?

They may be twins but they are still separate people in their own right.

Let her have the party but if your ds wants the same she has to stay clear too when it’s his turn.

Remember also, that OP's DD is currently 14 and, if the friends are in the school year, most of those there will be 14.

An 18th party, where most are 17, maybe. For 14 YOs, no way.

Not sure sassys plan would work - bet she won’t care about going to her brothers 😢.

Ours have had 2 large proper parties and one is coming up (gulp) but they have been 6th form onwards. They are definitely marginally better at 16/17 to 14/15.

The party needs to be well organised by the child and to have a closed group chat. Ideally fancy dress makes it more exclusive and less appealing to crashers. We sat upstairs and checked on the hour and anyone visibly drunk I rang parents to collect. Neighbours warned well in advance. Hard end of 12.30. Biggest issue with that many is the loo. We have a big downstairs loo but they kept locking themselves in it so no one else could then use it…

I think it’s kind of parents to let them have the odd party. It’s nice for teenagers to get to go out occasionally

Anecdotally Dds friends with twins one set maintain separate social life Dd friends with the boy twin not the girl both same level of coolness though!

Dd2 best friends with identical girl twins who are basically a unit and do everything together- I can’t tell them apart tbh.

@yeahwhatev I would allow her to have her own party outside of the house but she cannot have a party in the house and her twin brother would be excluded ( on his own birthday too) just because he isn’t cool enough. It’s actually quite sad that she thinks that way

So what's her brother supposed to do whilst she has this party at the house that he also lives in. The answer would be no from me. I'd be telling her she has to change the location of the party.

I have a nerd and a cool kid. Both boys. They wouldn't want to attend each other's parties.

if we were in this situation "cool kid" would have 10 max friends round and "Nerd kid" would either go to a friend's or have a friend rouns to hang out in his room. There would be no hard feelings.

If anything, the cool kid is the least confident. He's constantly worryingaboutt being in the popular club. The other is totally happy and settled in his Dungeons and Dragons gang.

I guess it's different if your ds is less content in himself and would feel left out.

I don't think your DD is wrong for wanting a party of her own but banning her twin in favour of kids who sound like they bully him at school? Not a chance. She sounds horrible and I'd be having a stern word with her about condoning their mistreatment of her brother. If she's actively friends with his bullies she doesn't deserve any party!

I should think that at 15, she and her female friends will absolutely WANT a group of boys their that are the same age, as them! She's 15, not 6!

Oh ok. 🤣

& that's exactly why at her age my answer would be NO. I don't care that other parents are insane enough to say 'yes' I'm not!

I think it’s quite mean when your child attends lots of parties never to host one yourself. True none of us adults love it but if we all pull up the drawbridge the teens won’t have a wider social life at all - clubs and pubs are really strict on id now.

Im grateful to the host parents and felt we also needed to pitch in. The vast majority of teen parties are absolutely fine and don’t involve ambulances and police as the pearl clutches love to hear about 🙄. I was impressed by a group of lads at dd1 a party I didn’t even know them but they stayed and cleared up without being asked. Their mothers should be proud.

I agree with other posters- the twin part of it actually isn't relevant. It would be fine for her to have an external party - at the cinema or whatever - and not invite her sibling even if they were close in age to her. It would be fine to have a small party - i.e. a sleepover with a few girls at home and expect her sibling to not go in their room.

What is not fine is to be able to expect to chuck him out of his own house. If she has a big party (which tbg I think you'd be mad to say yes to anyway) it would be on the basis that he is allowed to wander through the house (apart from her room) at will and could have a friend over.

I don't really get why you're so upset on his behalf. Just because they're siblings doesn't mean they have to be friends. I doubt he'd want her to come out with his mates either.

Look (🙄), your point is what exactly? What a waste of space comment that says absolutely nothing.

I’m sure the OP’s daughter would want boys at the party but not 15 year olds. At 15 I wouldn’t have been seen dead with a boy my own age and all my boyfriends were always at least a couple of years older. All my friends were exactly the same, as was my daughter many years later.

@TheaBrandt1 Ours did! DH fell over and had a rather large cut on his head. Ambulance refused to attend as it was a party! I had to take DH to hospital and leave the teens to it.

I think this was the case years ago, but less so now.
My ds's wouldn't have considered dating 15 year olds at aged 17. It's seen to be a bit 'paedo' by lots of older teen boys now.

This isn't my experience. Teen parties are for girls and boys the same age IME (my DC are aged between 16 and 20).

Both mine seem to have a set of same age kids who hang out / go out with each other etc. It’s quite tribal. Once it’s established the group are broadly well behaved and other parents have hosted their parties it seems churlish and unwelcoming to say a flat no to ever hosting a teenage party. Fun memories of their upbringing they will have!

The waste of space was yours for suggesting your experience of having m/f siblings is the same as someone who has twins, rather than trying to see it from their perspective. You said:

“I have M/F siblings and neither invited the other to their parties. The only difference between my children and the OPs is they weren’t born at the same time”.

The whole point of this is that they WERE born at the same time. If you can’t see that then whatever point you were trying to make is quite honestly irrelevant. Try putting yourself in other peoples shoes rather than projecting your own experience onto theirs.

YABVU. More so in that they are opposite sex twins so probably don't have all that much in common. Does he even want to come to this party? The only point you have is that 60 is an absurd number of guests, I wouldnt be paying for that.

ODFO, fraternal twins are no more special or different than siblings born on a different day, your post was so condescending without offering an explanation, which is still missing BTW.

And what I didn’t say, but will now is my 25 year old godchildren are F/M twins, they haven’t shared parties since they were about 12 and went to different schools, had different home and school friends. They are as close to each other as they are to their older DB. They are two individual people who happen to be born 20 minutes apart.

This is a free site, I can contribute to this thread as I wish, you can too, but you didn’t contribute to the thread you decided to comment on my comment and add nothing. You simply policed my post.

Wtf why does she have to invite her brother to her party? Just because they share the same birthday? Stop being so controlling and let her have her own party.

I think the OP is fine with her having her own party just not a house party for half the school year she doesn’t want her brother to be at so he has to leave his own house.

it makes me realise though how much DD and DS get along considering she insisted he (12) came to her 16th birthday (which was a big party he hasn’t and won’t come to others)

parties don’t really change it is the same as an all class party you can’t exclude - which is what was happening here

It is easy to think that your DD is having the easiest time socially because she is in the in crowd, but your DS with his small set of friends might actually be the one doing so. Maintaining an in crowd position can be hard - as shown by your DD imagining a big party to try and raise her social standing with the group. Apart from the madness of having such a party, I’d be wanting to teach my children that friends that are only friends because you have big parties are not worth having,