As a result of some musings on this subject, I conducted a little survey of fellow twin mums and asked them how they refer to their babies. There were 19 respondents, many of whom were kind enough to elaborate on their choices. The survey had five options and here they are, along with the results:
The Twins 2
The babies 8
Their names 3
Their nicknames 0
Other 6
‘Other’ included the following: little ones, you two, ladies, little men, girls and boys.
The general perception is that parents of boy/girl twins are happier with them being referred to collectively, because they are different sexes and therefore shouldn’t get mixed up. However, a couple of mums of b/g twins demonstrated a strong dislike of the use of the term ‘twins’. Both of these mums had previously worked in nurseries so I wondered if they were unhappy with the collective because they were used to treating their charges as individuals and having to learn the foibles of different babies. Conversely, a couple of mums of twin girls liked their daughters being referred to as ‘the twins’ because their girls were so different – one blonde, one dark haired, different personalities, temperaments, etc.
There is a split between those who use the ‘twin’ term because it marks out their children as being different and special and those of us who are cynical enough to feel that the collective term gets people out of a hole – they don’t have to remember their names or which is which. Several people said they didn’t like the twins because it made them sound like a package rather than individual children.
Personally, I’m surprised when people ask me how ‘the twins’ are. Nearly a year after they were born, I still struggle to associate the term with my girls. To me, R and G are ‘the girls’, occasionally ‘the babies’ (if I’m asked about them at work), a whole variety of nicknames and sometimes I remember to actually call them by their names!
So, it appears that there is no uniform term for twins. Many of the respondents noted that they used what they felt ‘comfortable’ with, whether that was twins, babies, boys, girls or any variation thereof. I’ve never felt comfortable with referring to the girls as ‘the twins’ so that’s why I don’t use the term, even though it’s probably the most obvious one.
