With the author’s permission, I am sharing a paper she wrote this summer. Gwendolen Huo is a sixteen-year-old identical twin who has an interest in exploring her relationship to her twin and their older sister. I trust you will appreciate her burgeoning efforts to articulate her emotional perspectives. Two Is Better than One, Right? Two pairs of feet, each with crimson red flats, marched forward together in unison. Further up, the two are wearing identical scarlet dresses rimmed with […]
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Two for the Price of One: Not Always a Good Deal
Often, parents ask me to weigh in on various issues that impinge upon the lives of their multiple-birth children, such as a school issue, a behavioral problem, or a policy issue. Recently, a woman contacted me via my website to ask me to write a letter to the administrators of her identical sons’ school regarding a specific school policy that discriminates against multiples. Although to some people her concern may appear trivial in the larger scheme of things, it is […]
The Second Book in the Multiples Illuminated Series Offers More Unique Stories from Parents of Twins and Triplets
I was recently asked to write the foreword to the second anthology of Multiples Illuminated: Life with Twins and Triplets, the Toddler to Tween Years, which was just published. Once again the editors, Megan Woolsey and Alison Lee, have compiled a collection of beautifully written stories by parents of multiples. The essays are arranged developmentally and chronologically, each one highlighting recognizable familial situations and parenting predicaments. There is a comforting authenticity to the mixture of feelings expressed—anger, frustration, fear, disappointment, […]
Enemy or Frenemy?
I asked an older adolescent twin patient the other day to tell me some of her thoughts about competition. She related the following: Oh, it’s horrible. The only good competition is the Olympics—those athletes train and train to be able to compete for one of the highest available honors. When I played softball in high school I had to think that the girls we played against were all bad; it’s silly to think about this now, but I had no […]
When the Bough Breaks
I realize I have written about this issue previously; however, each time this situation comes to my attention, I become terribly upset and feel as if I must educate others to take heed. A concerned mother of 15-year-old identical twins called me to ask for help regarding her daughters’ social woes and difficulties. She explained that they have no friends. Both girls feel as if they have made attempts to connect with their peers, but to no avail. When they […]