Identical Twin Confusion | How Do You Do It?

It’s hard to a mother to see her children the way the rest of the world does. While I know that my daughters are monozygotic, I forget that the casual observer sees them as looking alike. They look so different to me.

Today, we went to the local YMCA so that I could exercise while M and J went into the pre-teen lounge. We all had to scan our IDs to enter. J skipped in ahead of me and scanned her card. Beep. M scanned hers. No beep. She asked whether her card had been recognized.

Simultaneously, the YMCA employee at the front desk and I responded. I said, “I didn’t hear a beep” just as the employee looked at her screen and said, “Yes, it went through.” M ran off after her sister.

The employee smiled at me. “She got to the desk before you, right?”

I smiled back. “No, that was her identical twin.”

We laughed. And I remembered that to so many people, my daughters took like one person.

Readers with monozygotic (identical) multiples, do people ever fail to recognize that, as another daycare mom said to, “There are two of them!”?

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Sadia

Sadia (rhymes with Nadia) has been coordinating How Do You Do It? since late 2012. She is the divorced mother of 10-year-old monozygotic twins, M and J. They live in the Austin, TX suburbs, where Sadia works full time in information technology. She contributes to a number of parenting websites and magazines and also runs The Mommy Blogging Guide, where she answers mommy bloggers' technical questions. View all posts by Sadia

5 thoughts on “Identical Twin Confusion”

Although both of your little girls are beautiful, I can a difference between them in the photographs, although it could be harder in person.
Just think of the mischief they can get up to!!!

At first glance ..yes it is confusing to identify who is who..but if you look closer they do have many differences.
Your girls are lovely..touchwood.

I’ve really worked hard not to be too matchy with what the boys wear. . .and it is funny at 9 how my identical twins are really developing their own sense of style. One likes to dress sharp when the occasion calls for it while the other boy would be two steps below casual ALL OF THE TIME. It makes me laugh. . .but I’m so glad they are really expressing who they are

As a twin mom, I can tell right away that your twins are different For me, I haven’t dealt with much of that since my twins are REALLY different! Other than same colored hair and eyes, they’re as different as can be. They look like friends lol. But because they’re both toddlers people are correct to guess that they are twins.
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