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 […]
Category Archives: Competition
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 […]
Don’t Kid Yourself—Are You Loyal, or Overaccommodating?
A few months ago I received an e-mail from a gentleman asking for marital advice. He had been married for four years to his wife, an identical twin. He described that his wife grew up in a terribly dysfunctional alcoholic family. She and her sister survived the ordeal by relying on one another. While I am not privy to many details, I have imagined or assumed what must have transpired to give rise to the marital difficulties. The husband described […]
Ganging Up on Mom
A twin mom with four-year-old fraternal daughters called me for help with a behavioral issue. She discussed her frustration about her daughters’ inability to be patient and considerate while she attends to one of them. For example, she described a situation in which one of her daughters demanded her immediate attention. She had fallen off her chair unexpectedly and was startled. At the moment Mom rushed to comfort her, the other daughter started to scream that she had a “drastic” […]
It’s Hard Work Now—the Payoff Comes Later
I continue to be awed by an acquaintance of mine who is a mom to eight-year-old identical twin girls. Some people comment that having twins is like having two singletons born close together, but without the experience of parenting identical twins, a person might never understand how difficult daily parenting decisions are with two same-age children. Let me give you an example. My friend decided to make a chart so that each of her daughters could work on behaviors that […]