What I’ve found is that after a week socializing with twins, it’s pretty much impossible to confuse one with the other, especially if they’re older. There’s always some little quirk that differentiates the two. The parents who raised them would have to be out of the world shitty if they can’t tell apart their children.
I could see this happening when they are babies though. Like 6 weeks in Bob becomes Tom and Tom becomes Bob and you might never know. I don’t think that would be harmful at such a young age though.
Where I live, birth certificate registration require footprints taken by a nurse. I imagine identical twins still have different footprints pattern?
Imagine when you’re old and tried to compare your footprints out of curiosity only to find out your identity has been swapped this whole time.
registration require footprints taken by a nurse
Can confirm.
Yeah I can’t recognize my own daughter in the first few weeks/months of her life even if I look at the pictures and know its her.
Shit, I still can’t recognize your daughter.
That’s actually my childhood picture you’re holding. I would like that back please.
As long as they don’t have different allergies or had biometrics recorded and assigned to them at the hospital it arguably wouldn’t even matter.
And if one of them do have a bad allergy or disease you should really have a system in place to tell them apart and not rely on just looking at them and hope for the best.
Yeah, there was an episode of full house with this idea - they used their footprints to tell them apart. I can imagine you couldn’t be doing that all the time tho.
Can confirm. During my whole primary school there were two twin girls in my class and me and all my other mates could tell them apart instantly but any other child in the school couldn’t. Actually we were quite surprised when they couldn’t because for us was quite obvious to differentiate them both.
Have siblings who are twins. Can confirm. In fact growing up with them it was weird to me that people got them confused with each other at all given how different they really are
I have two boys who are not twins, 4 and 6, and I switch them up all the time. They don’t even look the same. One looks exactly like me and the other looks like if my wife were a man.
I just get my wires crossed all the time. I do the same with my two dogs (ones stocky and brindle and ones leggy and tan…both about the same height/weight though).
That is fascinating! My dad always called me by my brother’s name and vice versa. He would start with the wrong name and end with the right name, so it would feel like we both had two names.
My dad always just called me Jesus Fucking Christ.
He hath cometh!
My grandmother had this quirk where she’d start reaching for names of people she knew because she just couldn’t remember your name right then. I like to think her brain was buffering.
They’d usually be in the vicinity of each other, like my brother or father’s name, but sometimes she’d be way out there with a cousin or the neighbour.
I tell you though, it didn’t feel great when she looked right at me and called me by the family dogs’ names before she got to mine lol
This is super common though. I mix up my kids’ names on a daily basis, it’s not because I don’t know who they are or can’t tell them apart. They do think it’s hilarious when I mix them up with the chickens.
The common factor is that I am usually saying the same mindless stuff to my kids (and chickens), like “get down from there” or “move out of the way please” or “stop making so much noise”.
That’s why I tattooed my twins initials on their foreheads backwards at birth, that way if they ever forget who they are, they can just look in the mirror. Billy and Bobby will never forget who they are.
/s
Wait, what
Woosh
It’s had to have happened at least once.
I feel like if I ever have twins, I’m going to stress about that more than is necessary. Like, documenting freckles or using a sharpie or something.
We painted their toe nails for the first month but even after about a week could tell them apart pretty easily. Their position in the womb and the birth means they can have quite different head shapes from one another. Also as another comment said, differences in personality are big and start surprisingly early.
My best friend is a mirror twin. His brother cried a lot more as a baby. When they became toddlers his brother complained a lot more. Now as adults, his brother still complains and argues a lot more. I don’t understand how they can be genetically identical, have the exact same upbringing, and be so different from the moment of their birth, but they are.
he was the second sperm that entered the egg
That’s not how identical twins are formed. An egg, fertilized from a single sperm, splits into two, creating two people with identical DNA. You’re thinking of fraternal twins, where two separate eggs are fertilized by two separate sperm.
wait what
Normal: 1 egg + 1 sperm make 1 person
Identical twins: 1 egg + 1 sperm make 2 person
so i just read the wikipedia article and i don’t udnerstand what it says. i’ll stick with my missconception xD
Yeah was going to say, one or the both of them is going to have a ‘tell’ right from birth - head shape, a birth mark, hair differences… something.
That’s pretty impressive. Having twins sounds awesome.
Baby tattoos. Solves some issues. Causes some issues. Gotta figure out what matters more
There’s a This American Life story about a mom who was keeping track of which twin was which using diaper pins. When she took them in for a checkup, they changed the diapers for her and handed her the pins afterward. So she guessed!
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/691/gardens-of-branching-paths/act-three-27
See that’s why you gotta think ahead and brand one of them with the hot safety pin.
No, that’s why they mark them on the head with permanent marker! /s
Can confirm. Had to go back to check prints. Were then color-coded for life and I still don’t wear reds or browns.
Relativity
As someone who has 14 month old identical twins, I was almost positive this would happen. We painted their tiny toenails to try and avoid that. At this point they are different enough we can tell them apart. Everyone else struggles, but we can tell easily
