My identical daughters have really begun to relish having different styles. Although they technically still share all their clothes (except underwear and socks), they’re beginning to show preferences for different items. They also express their individuality through their hairstyle choices. Until about age 3, my identical twin daughters sported identical haircuts.
I know that the American tradition is to wait until the first birthday to cut a baby’s hair, but they needed their first trim well before that. They were born with a lot of hair, and apart from the lanugo, it’s stuck around.
Soon after they turned 3, it was time for a change. As I wrote at the time:
J and M have been due for haircuts for a while. They’ve always had the same haircut, simply because I’m not creative enough to come up with two ideas. This time, though, I decided that they needed different cuts, purely for practical reasons.
J has been going through phase where she wants minimal fuss for her hair. She’d rather wear it loose or with a headband. She’ll wear a ponytail in a pinch, but barrettes and bows are out. Given her impatience with her hair, I elected to chop off much of the length and return to shoulder-length hair.
M loves to show off different styles. Depending on the day, she’ll tell me she wants two pigtails, a ponytail, a little ponytail on the side and another on the back to keep her side-parted hair out of her eyes, barrettes, a bow, a headband, a braid, or some combination of the above. I elected to keep her length and just take an inch off her hair. After her haircut, she couldn’t stop talking about the braid (plait for my British readership) the stylist had done on her right side.
J let her hair grow out for a while and both girls, again, had long hair.
When she was 5, J began to chew her hair. Warnings and punishments, rational explanation and frustration, reasoning and emotional pleas, all of it failed. It was time for serious action, in the form of another drastic haircut.
J kept the short hair for a few more cuts, but then decided that she wanted to match Sissy in length. She had successfully broken her chewing habit. I noticed J developing a distinct taste for massive bows and flowers in her hair. M decided that she wanted bangs. I wasn’t convinced that it would work, but she stuck to her guns for over a month. I gave in this summer and had to admit that she was right. Bangs look fabulous on her.
When we got ready to head to our favourite kid hair salon, Pigtails and Crewcuts, last weekend, J pulled a photo off the wall. She told me she wanted short hair again, and illustrated with her own short short hair from a couple of years ago. She seemed sure. The stylist took 6 inches off before even starting to shape the cut.
My daughters love being identical twins, but know that they don’t have to present themselves identically to the world. They can be identical twins with different hair.
Do your kids have matching hair?
Sadia (rhymes with Nadia) has been coordinating How Do You Do It? since late 2012. She is the divorced mother of 7-year-old monozygotic twins, M and J. She lives with them and their 3 cats in the Austin, TX suburbs and works full time as a business analyst. She retired her personal blog, Double the Fun, when the girls entered elementary school and also blogs at Adoption.com and Multicultural Mothering.
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