Yeah, right, I’d think to myself. There is NO way I’m going to be best friends with these jerks!

Well, as moms often are, she was right. The two I once dubbed as geeks, tattle-talers and stupid pains-in-the-neck as I sat, punished, in one of many corners pondering the best means for their mutual demise, are definitely my best friends. I’m grateful on an almost daily basis for them. Though as kids we fought Every. Single. Day. (sorry, Mom!), now we’re all confidantes, sources of support and lookouts. We’re fiercely defensive of each other, happy to lend a listening and sympathetic ear and we share just about everything. My sisters are two of the few people in the world I know I can trust with anything, including my life. I don’t know what I’d do without them and often feel sorry for other women who aren’t lucky enough to have a sister, let alone two.

It strikes me as beautifully sweet when I hear my twin daughters say, “I love you” to each other, as they often do before bed. Andie says to Rachel, “You’re the best sister in the world,” and they hug. Just as my mom reminded us of our future relationships with each other, I tell my daughters that they will always be best friends, even more so than they are now, and that looking out for each other is of the utmost importance. When Andie’s friends choose to be mean to or ignore Rachel, Andie needs to stand up for her sister.

After all, they will be there for each other for the rest of their lives. Grade school classmates most likely won’t. Little do they know just how deep a bond they are forging for the future.

Do you have sisters? Daughters? What is the best part of the sister relationship, in your opinion?

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A lot of what comes out of these people’s mouths is scientifically impossible. Myths about twins abound and I used to believe many of them myself, until I found out I was pregnant with twins close to 12 years ago and decided to do some research.

So, for those seemingly very few of you who don’t have twins in your family, and for those who do but are unclear about the ins and outs of twindom, here are a few basic myths debunked for you.

1. All twins look the same. This is one I always thought was true. To me, the word “twin” was synonomous with “look-alike” and I’d always look for similarities between the twins I knew, thinking they must look at least somewhat alike, if not exactly alike.

The truth is, fraternal twins may or may not look similar, no more so than regular siblings. What can throw people off is the fact that they’re both in the same stage at the same time, so if they do look even somewhat alike, it can be difficult to tell them apart if they’re the same gender.

This is true of my twin nephews, who by all hypotheses and evidence are fraternal twins. I can’t tell them apart very well at all and only people who are with them a lot can. There are differences if you stop to look, but they look pretty identical to me. Now that they’re 4-1/2, they like to play the “I’m-Twin-A-(But-I’m-really-Twin-B)” game.

2. Twins show up “every-other generation” and can come from the father’s side of the family. I never heard this until I had twins myself, but I can’t tell you how many family members told me that I was probably having twins because they were in my husband’s family two generations ago. This was an even more popular theory when people found out that I have no twins in my family at all. “Twins skip a generation,” I heard over and over.

Nope, this is simply not the case, unless it’s purely coincidental. First of all, identical twins don’t “run” in families at all. They are simply a miracle of nature, somehow splitting early on from one baby into two. Identicals are much more rare, completely random and extremely fascinating. Fraternal twins do tend to be genetic, but only on the mother’s side. Why? Because fraternals are the result of two different fertilized eggs, rather than just one egg and one sperm that has split into two, so the tendency to produce more than one egg at a time run in the family. The reason why it may seem that twins skip a generation could be because moms pass on the gene to “hyperovulate” to their sons, who then pass it on to their daughters, resulting in twins in the third generation rather than the second.

3. You can tell just by looking whether or not twins are identical or fraternal. While identical twins do generally look very similar, as mentioned before, so can fraternal twins. Other factors such as environment, development and personal preferences can cause even identical twins to look different or fraternal twins to look more similar. There are plenty of twins out there who don’t know for sure whether or not they are fraternal or identical, so being able to judge this simply by looking is impossible.

The only time you can know for sure that a set of twins is fraternal just by looking is if they are boy-girl twins. Because they are different genders, they have to come from two separate eggs.

4. In terms of personality, twins are either completely opposite or exactly alike. I know, this seems like a “duh!” one to me too, but stories and legends throughout history have perpetuated this myth of one “good” twin and one “bad” twin, or one leader and one follower. As with any other child, this completely depends on personality. Obviously parents of twins should take great care to let each one develop into her own person with no expectations or relegated roles, whether the two end up having similar personalities and interests or not.

My twins are very different personality-wise, for the most part. I wouldn’t categorize them as a leader and a follower, but one of them is very outgoing and extroverted, while the other is more reserved and introverted. They do share similar traits in terms of their scholastic abilities (both get nearly identical grades ), musical and artistic abilities and their overall character traits (kind, sweet, thoughtful, loving), but except for the fact that they were born within 5 minutes of each other, they could be just regular sisters.

There are other myths out there in terms of raising and caring for twins too, everything from “you can’t breastfeed twins” to “twins must be separated in school.” I’ll be going into those more another time.

Have you believed any of these myths? What is the most surprising thing you have learned about twins, either in the past or from this post?
Sources:

Baby Zone

About.com

iVillage

The other day Logan and I were driving to town, singing along to “High School Musical 2.” All of a sudden from behind me came an angry voice. “Why do we have to do stuff for kings? It’s not fair!”

I tried to explain to Logan that we don’t have kings in this country and we don’t have to “do stuff” for them, but he would not be convinced.

After all, a 5-year-old who has watched “Shrek” multiple times understands these matters much better than an adult.

What sorts of fantasies have your kids confused with reality? Did they believe you when you told them what was what?