A heartfelt congratulations and welcome to Angelina and Brad’s newborn son and daughter – healthy fraternal twins! However, let’s not allow celebrity births to minimize the realities of raising twins…

What is not brought to light in these star-studded reports about twin births are the real life day-to-day emotional and physical hardships particular to raising twins. I know that many moms of twins have no forum or outlet to feel validated for their sacrifices and challenges.

So, to add a bit of balance, here’s my list of my top ten twin parenting challenges that impact moms who are raising twins:

1. Surviving an uncomfortable pregnancy filled with anxiety and fear times two
2. Deciding if you can withstand the social challenge and pressure to breastfeed two babies
3. Feeling guilty and heartsick about not feeling bonded in an equal way with both babies
4. Harboring murderous feelings toward your partner who got you into this mess in the first place
5. Secretly ruminating about how you can feel so upset and disappointed after you have spent thousands of dollars on infertility treatments
6. Silently envying how your friends who have just one baby can juggle their lives with such ease and meet a friend for lunch
7. Acknowledging that having preferences does not mean that you love one twin more than the other
8. Hating to ask others for help because you wish you could feel masterful and competent on your own
9. Wanting to kill the curious people who ask you the dumbest questions about twins
10. Managing the constant comparison and labeling of your twins by well-intentioned friends and family who are not into “individuality”

Of course, as usual, all feedback and comments are welcome! Am I on target or am I just way off base - have any of you mothers (or fathers) of twins ever felt any of the above?

To Raising Emotionally Healthy Twins,

Dr. Joan Friedman

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have plenty of money.

With unlimited monetary resources and limited personal time, I would advise them to do the following with their older three children and twins to be.

First, I would advise the expectant couple to prepare their kids for the birth of two babies and try to minimize the use of the word TWINS. While it is so ingrained in all of us to use the word, the word itself conjures images and stereotypes about twins as ESP conjoined soulmates who inhabit the private and exclusive world belonging solely to twins.

Second, I would set up two separate rooms with nonmatching accessories. Twin babies do not have to sleep together although they have shared the same womb for 37 weeks (hopefully). Their names should not begin with the same letter and their distinct personalities should be identified and respected from birth going forward.

Third, the parents need to spend time with their older children so that they do not feel eclipsed by the birth of two babies. The media will be jumping all over this because a twin birth captivates the public. These new twins are fortunate to have older siblings because their relationship will hopefully be a source of loving support when the parents are unavailable.

Shall each twin have his own caretaker? Absolutely – every baby needs that one-on-one relationship.

Will Angelina feel resentful about the babies’ bonds to the caretakers?

Time will tell.

To Raising Emotionally Healthy Twins,

Dr. Joan Friedman

A mom of two and a half year old twins explains that one daughter cries whenever mom attempts to take her out alone without her sister. Her daughter yells and screams and protests that she does not want to leave her sister at home. Mom feels angry and guilty about this situation.

She feels badly about the fact that her daughter misses her sister but at the same time resentful that her daughter is unwilling to spend time with her alone – without her sister present. Mom reports that her other daughter exhibits none of these behaviors when she is separated from her sister. In fact, mom notes that this daughter relishes the time alone without her sister present.

How do we understand this dynamic? Sometimes, one twin is more attached to her twin than to her mother.

Thus, the over dependent attachment to her twin is an attachment to mom via proxy. Parents need to understand this dynamic and attempt to make some restitution. While it’s exceedingly difficult to see one of your twins longing for the other, there is an important developmental lesson to be learned.

The intense separation fear has much more to do with an insecure attachment to mom and NOT unrequited love for one’s twin.

“One of the twins has always been the leader and has bossed his brother since early on. I have enrolled them in a preschool and this is their 4th week. The boys seem to block out the teacher and do not want to follow rules. They will not make eye contact. The biggest issue today is M pushed another child and stomped on the teacher’s foot. M doesn’t seem to want to sit at circle time and one day this week he got up and pulled pictures off of the wall. His brother T then followed him doing the same thing. So in a nut shell they are disruptive to an existing class.”

I recently received this email from a mom feeling distraught about this situation with her twin boys. She read what I wrote about “too much togetherness” in my book and concurred that this is truly what has happened. I can’t tell you how many times I have encountered this issue with preschool age twins. The twin dynamic that has characterized the twin pair can become a problem within the contextualized social world of preschool. If this pattern of one twin controlling the other and the other twin imitating and accommodating to this pattern, entry into a preschool class with other children will only exaggerate the difficulties. Hoping or believing that the presence of other children will help to minimize this dynamic is often wishful thinking. In fact, often times the opposite occurs – there is a resurgence of the dynamic in spades as both twins are threatened and uncomfortable by the socialization demands to which they are unaccustomed.

Don’t deceive yourselves – there is no magical solution. What it takes is dedication to the principle of separate experiences with the hope that given ample time the twins can adjust to being in separate classes so that the strength of the twin bond is reduced, thereby giving each child the opportunity to be acting on his own behalf rather than feeling like half of a pair.

The media announces that the quadruplets born in Baltimore will be presented to the media next week!

The keynote speakers at the upcoming annual convention of the National Organization of the Mothers of Twins Club (NOMOTC) are the parents of twins and sextuplets. Their family life is filmed and aired frequently on the Discovery Channel and the Learning Channel and they have been Oprah’s guests.

I remember hearing about the Dionne quintuplets. They were identical quintuplets whose lives were sensationalized and destroyed by the exploitation of the Canadian government and their family. Their books reveal the horrific aftermath of their lives’ ordeals.

Perhaps, seeing other parents with so many children to care for makes some of us feel less burdened by our parental obligations and tasks. Having twins is a breeze compared to these broods of children.

I think about these large families and wonder how the kids will develop.

Certainly they will thrive emotionally and physically within the framework of their sibling network. They will grow up in a rich communal environment. Yet, will these experiences provide them with any opportunity to know themselves as individuals?

Jon and Kate plus 8 put enormous faith in God to help them with their large family. Faith is a viable resource along with the monetary benefits of television fame and exposure. They certainly will need all the help they can get.

Parents of twins often feel like dreadful failures if their twins are not close. Do they need more reasons to feel inadequate?

Most parents hope that their children will be close; however, some parents of twins seem to assume or expect that closeness is part and parcel of the twinship.

I do understand how this expectation is created.

It is another manifestation of the “twin mystique” – a mindset which defines how twins should feel about one another. While it may seem counterintuitive, the more latitude and permission that you give your twins to have ambivalent feelings, the more psychic room you are providing to articulate, manage, and negotiate predictable conflicts that most siblings encounter.

Remember, often in the course of human interactions familiarity breeds contempt. Are twins exempt from these feelings just because they have that special twinship bond? I don’t believe so.

I do firmly concur that twins share an undeniable intimacy that is viable and authentic.

In my opinion the healthiest way to nurture this special bond is to foster free expression of twin differences so that they are free to love one another as individuals instead of feeling obligated to love one another because they are twins.

Food for thought? What do you think - do twins have to be best friends?

Jennifer Lopez’s adorable infants appear on the cover of People Magazine with the caption “Twin Bliss”. While most of us remember that blissful feeling when our twins were born, we also remember those less than blissful moments when both babies were crying at the same time, not sleeping at the same time, and eating all the time.

Twin bliss for most moms of twins might not include diamond engraved rattles or 600 count Egyptian cotton linen. Rather, it may be something like this . . .

My Twin Bliss Wish List:

• Four pair of hands, two laps, and comfortable breasts that produce just the right amount of milk
• A breast pump that works while I sleep
• A husband who comes home from work and lovingly suggests that I go out with my girlfriends for a cup of coffee because I need a well-deserved break
• A food delivery service guaranteed to put a healthy and delicious dinner on the dining room table every night
• A genie committed solely to the task of doing laundry and cleaning
• A fairy godmother who appears every night for a year so that she can help me take care of the babies so that I can replenish my sleep deprived body and psyche
• A sound, deep, refreshing sleep full of lustful dreams where I do not awaken worried that someone is crying
• A trainer coming to work out privately with me three times a week so that I get back into shape and feel great
• The perfect nanny/babysitter available on weekdays, weekends, and evenings – her schedule is arranged so that she is free whenever I need her

All kidding aside, authentic bliss is sometimes recognizing – albeit in hindsight – that doing the best you can in challenging times helps generate an inner bliss that evolves into strength, resilience, and mastery.

We often “label” our children as a means of distinguishing each one’s personality, quirks, or differences. We innocently remark, “He’s very sociable, she’s a go-getter, he’s introspective, she’s a people pleaser.” However, in the case of twins, this naming or labeling frequently turns into an identity rather than a well-intentioned description. Twins struggle throughout their lives to find and define their uniqueness. Careless and thoughtless labeling by family and friends makes a challenging situation even more overwhelming.

With two same age siblings sharing mom, dad and physical space practically 24/7, neither twin has much of an opportunity to be known or recognized for him or herself. So, what often begins as a seemingly harmless distinction may turn into a long lasting characterization.

The other day I was speaking with a mom who has 2 1/2 year old twin girls and a one year old son. She described how one twin is very kind, maternal, and loving toward her younger brother while the other twin is angry, rejecting, and disinterested. Mother expressed concern that the “angry” twin was not behaving like her sister. I explained that most children have some sort of reaction to the birth of a sibling. In the case of twins responding to a new baby, there can be a definitive difference.

If one daughter covets the role of loving mommy toward her baby brother, what role is left for her sister to play? If she, too, acts as the loving mommy, she has one more reason to compete with her sister – this time for the attention of the new baby. If she does not feel like participating in yet another competitive struggle, she can devise a different and distinct strategy – which is to behave in an oppositional way as the hostile, angry, and unloving older sister.

I told this mom that I appreciated this mean-spirited strategy because the “angry” daughter refused to pretend to be a good girl; she was articulating her distress and sadness in an authentic way. I advised that mom attempt to help her daughter talk about her angry feelings with empathy and understanding and to let her daughter know that she understands how she feels and that things will get better. I also suggested that she take out her “angry” daughter alone so that she feels reassured that her angry feelings don’t make her unlovable; also taking her out alone with the baby will provide her with an opportunity to engage with her brother without being burdened by her sister.

The twin dynamic makes the sibling issue a bit more complicated. Parents seem more accepting about a singleton’s ambivalent feelings toward a new baby because there is no other child with whom to compare or judge his behavior. Parents of twins are consistently thrown into this world of compare and compete.

Parents who have worked diligently to carve out a separate attachment to each twin will feel better equipped to handle these inconsistencies with less guilt and fear that they are showing favoritism or special treatment. They won’t “label” their twins because they will understand this behavior is an adjustment reaction that will resolve over time - NOT a permanent personality trait that will distinguish one twin from the other.

I do understand that it is very difficult – especially the first time – to send your child off to preschool. The action itself proclaims that the child is entering into a wider world where parents can’t control their well-being. Letting go and helping your child feel that he can master feeling safe in the world without mommy and daddy is a vital developmental hurdle that lays down the internal groundwork for inner reliance and self-confidence. In this generation of “helicopter parents” this fundamental child development tenet is largely ignored.

Parents of twins approach the preschool experience with a special perspective.

Granted, mom may feel bereft since she needs to separate from two babies at the same time. However, she can minimize her loss with the knowledge that the twins have one another and therefore they will not feel alone. Of course, the twins’ close attachment needs to be approached with sensitivity and good sense .

Nevertheless, mom’s difficulty around separations should not be managed by the twinship. While twins might need to be with one another initially, there also needs to be opportunities for them to have some experiences away from one another via separate playdates, alone time with mom and dad, and eventually separate preschool classes if that is an option.

Parents must find out in advance if their twins’ public school mandates that twins be separated in kindergarten; if this is so, it is the parents’ responsibility to prepare their twins so that a smooth separation occurs.

Yes, it does take more time and effort, to be sure.

Yet, just remember that a healthy separateness beginning as early as possible helps to ensure healthy individuation throughout their lives.

Next page »

XHTML | CSS | RSS | Wordpress | Design by Infektia.net