Yea, you guessed it, I’m a twin. The following questions have followed me around my whole life, and on behalf of twins everywhere, I present the following commonly, sometimes annoyingly, asked questions:
“Yall twins?”
We are obviously twins. But I must say I’m guilty of this myself. Though being a twin, when I see other twins I ask the same questions other people ask me. Hmmm, wonder if that breaks some kind of twin rule.
“Who the oldest?”
Is this a trick question? But since you asked, I came out first.
“By how many minutes?”
Five whole minutes and I’m the big sister, yay me
“Yall fraternal or identical?”
This is a good question actually. A lot of people get confused between the two. Identical twins look well, identical, but this doesn’t determine whether or not they’re identical. A general stereotype about identical twins is that they are clones. They act alike, look alike, and are expected to be “identical.” However, the term identical twins actually describe how we form in the womb, not what we look like. Also known as monozygotic, identical twins are twins who developed from one egg that splits and forms two embryos. Fraternal, or dizygotic, twins develop from two eggs, each fertilized by separate sperm cells. (This is why fraternal twins sometimes look nothing alike) Dizygotic twins share about 50% of their genetic traits, the same as any other siblings born at different times. With that said, my sister and I are identical twins.
“Who’s the mean one?”
You know, being a twin doesn’t mean that we share personalities. In some ways we do, but we’re not half of one thing and another half of another thing. There’s not one who’s wholly mean and another who’s wholly nice. We both still have our own individual character traits.
“If I hit you, will she feel it?”
I don’t know, if I hit you, will you feel it?
Some interesting facts about identical twins:
• The causes of monozygotic twinning are generally unknown and unidentified. No one really knows why an egg splits; according to the “professionals” it’s a malfunction of the normal development process. I beg to differ, there is nothing abnormal about us. We’re awesome. 🙂
• There’s no hereditary trait that influences a predisposition to having identical twins. Contrary to popular belief identical twins do not run in families, although there are families with a high incidence of identical twins.
• Identical twins represent about a third of all twins. fraternal twins are twice as common as identical.
• Birth rate statistics for identical twinning have remained stable over the years, despite the overall increase in twins and multiples since the late 1980’s. The odds of having identical twins are about 3 in 1,000, whereas the birthrate for all twins is about 32.2 in 1,000.
• Identical twinning is not generally influenced by fertility-enhancing treatments like drugs or in vitro, although identical twins have been produced in pregnancies that were the result of such treatments.
• Birth rates for identical twins are consistent across populations; it is the same regardless of race, geography or mate
“What’s the most fun thing about being a twin?”
People are fascinated by us.
The PBS Blog 