Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Who's older?

Is a common question people ask with twins, and up until this point I never thought anything about it. As it's one of the less obnoxious questions. However, today I came across a discussion from a mom of twins who isn't going to disclose to her twins, or anyone for that matter, who is older.

The thought has honestly never crossed my mind and I think it's too late at this point since everyone knows that Eli is baby A and Emerson is Baby B, but I was curious about the perspective of my 20 year old twin sisters. So I texted both of them. Their answers were fascinating to me.

I asked, "Did it ever bother you to know which of you was older."

Libby the older twin by 11 minutes answered, "No I loved knowing. Maybe that's because I am the older one."

While Lindy the younger twin answered, "Yes it did bother me actually. It wasn't fun on birthday's when Lib would blow out the candles and stuff first.  And she always rubbed it in my face."

(Which Libby currently denies doing haha).

Not the answers I was expecting as it had never occurred to me that it might bother one or both of them. They both did go on to say that the first question they are always asked by people is about who is older, (which is true even with the babies, followed up by the identical questions) but Lindy would have preferred not to know until she was older (it doesn't bother her anymore) and Libby is confused as to why it's an issue at all. Which seems to correspond to birth order. The older twin liking her 11 extra minutes.

So there's my very small research which obviously isn't conclusive of much of anything since it's such a small sampling. I think now every adult twin I encounter I might ask them this question since I'm now curious. Maybe we'll keep the issues on the down low with the babies, not keep it a secret per say but maybe not really bring any attention to it either. Who knows I guess we'll just see how it all plays out.

1 comment:

Jessica White said...

Interesting...I would think though it would make a difference, at least between the kids saying "I'm older you have to listen to me".