Growing up as an identical twin is fun because you have another person who looks exactly like you.
But many parents make the mistake of thinking it's "cute" to dress them the same, and treat them like a pair all the time.
This was one of the things my mom was very careful about when she was raising us... she wanted us to develop our own identities.
And I am very glad she did.
What do I mean by this?
Well, what she would do when we were younger was tell people that although we looked the same we were two different people.
She insisted that we be allowed to develop as two different individuals, and not one person.
So mom always made sure she dressed us differently. If the clothes were similar, she made sure the colors were different.
She would introduce us as "Kim and Peta", not "my twin girls".
Quite often, what happens when people have twins is that they dress them the same, introduce them together etc.
This can lead to an identity crisis for the twins.
In one case of twins I have read about, it got to the stage where the twin brothers didn't know who was who!
This happened because they were always dressed exactly the same, did everything together, and were in the same classes at
school.
Our mother requested that we be in different classes at school. This wasn't just to help us- it helped the teachers a lot
as well!
This is not always possible, and we often did end up in the same classes.
So the teachers would sit us apart from each other.
I am sure that my mom doing that has helped a lot with my sister and I being able to live our own separate lives.
We like different things, different colors, different foods, have different friends etc.
Today we don't even look the same anymore, with different hair styles, different clothes, and even different body shapes(due
to having different weights).
We still talk on the phone quite a bit, but we don't live on each others doorsteps.
Don't get me wrong... Being a twin is fun.
But you still have to live in this world as an individual person and be able to cope without that other person being around
all the time.
Something my sister and I realized early in our lives is that you can't always be with each other, and that life goes on even
when the twin is not around.
She moved out of home at about 19, and I stayed with my parents and my younger brothers and sisters until I got married.
I worked, while Kim went on to do more schooling.
She also eventually got married as well.
When we were growing up, we thought we would live together and marry twin brothers.
But that was not how it worked out in the end.
We still try to see each other often, and go out together sometimes.
One thing we always do together is have our birthday together.
I don't think we would be coping with our separate lives anywhere near as well if my mom hadn't taken those steps to ensure
we developed separate lives.
So please... if you are having twins remember that they are not one person, but 2 separate people and they need to be treated
as such.