When you are expecting you will hear plenty of pieces of advice, parenting woes, battle plans and everything in between. When it comes to expecting twins all bets are off. While you will hear plenty of parenting gems throughout the course of your pregnancy, there are some things that no one tells you… but probably should.
Let’s take a look at a few twin parenting secrets you need to know:
#1: They Will Work Together
When they’re babies, they start crying at the same time on purpose. With twins, there’s no such thing as a coincidence. They will create an unspoken language and have a knack for working in tandem.
#2: The Love / Hate Relationship
Their first complete sentence will be uttered in unison and directed toward each other: “Go away!” Okay, so maybe that’s their tenth sentence or their hundredth, but it’s the first one that’s uttered with real passion. “Me want baba” will never be spoken with such vehemence.
#3: They Keep Being Twins
One will never get more mature or more insightful than the other. Nonetheless, each will claim, privately, that they are the superior child. One boy will stomp out of the room, and the other will murmur, “He’s got anger issues.” Later the supposedly calm one will slam shut the bedroom door, and his brother will remark, “I can’t help it if I already finished my homework, and he hasn’t. It was easy! Easy for me, anyway.”
#4: A Common Enemy Bonds
No matter how much the twins fight, never think for a moment that you enjoy “protected” status. Know that when you leave the room, they stare into each other’s eyes and intone, “Parents are the real enemy.”
#5: Life is a Zoo!
Wrestling will no longer be a sport that you refuse to watch on pay-per-view. Instead, it will become a way of life that occurs in your living room, your bathroom, and at the festively decorated kitchen table that bears a birthday cake with two names inscribed on it. After you get tired of yelling “Stop!” for ten years, you will reflect that lion cubs wrestle, and probably baby gorillas do, too. Everyone in the animal kingdom wrestles! And yes, you are raising a couple of animals. You pray that no one finds out.
#6: The Twin Bond is Real
Just when you are convinced that the best thing would be to have a huge house, so that each child could come and go without ever having to see the other, you will hear them laughing and playing in their shared bedroom. My God, they love each other! You give thanks that, at least, each is the other’s best friend.
#7: Raising Twins Is Really Hard
Other people’s children will acquire a saintly glow. You will imagine them gently helping a younger sibling. Maybe the older children even read books to the little ones! At home, your kids never glow. They certainly don’t read to each other. Instead, they hunch over devices and yell at one another. Just remember that no child is perfect, so have realistic expectations for your children.
#8: They Are Not the Same Person
They will want to watch different TV shows. They will want different foods for dinner. But they will always want to play with the same toys or the same devices at the exact same time. And guess who will have to play judge and jury?
#9: They Will Take Sides
They will effortlessly use the Jedi mind trick upon each other, often without realizing it. Beware when you ask them what homework is due for the next day, and one of them quickly shouts, “There is no homework!” Watch the eyes of the other twin glaze over as he slowly repeats, “Yeah, there is no homework.” He will believe his own words. You should not.
#10: They Will Grow Up
They will grow up and move away. You will wish you could endure the early years of their twinship all over again.
While many of these are humorous the reality is that raising twins is hard work. Many of the rules that apply when raising singletons can be thrown out the window when multiples are on the way. Just remember that your children aren’t perfect and neither are you so take it one step at a time.
