How cute is it when you see two little girls standing together, holding hands and playing, matched in the same pair of adorable dungarees, with identical bows in their symmetrical hair?
As a mom of twins, I absolutely know how tempting it is to dress my daughters up in the exact same outfits to draw attention to just how special they are. After all, there’s something about having twins that makes you feel as though you’ve joined some kind of elite club. You want to tell the world about the amazing gift you’ve been given, and matching outfits can help to do just that.
However, it’s not always the best decision. In fact, as your kids get older, and discover their own identities, they might begin to resent the fact that you dress them like copies of their siblings.
The Problem with Dressing your Twins the Same
Twins represent a source of fascination for the outside world.
For me, my ten-month twins Ella and Rose are a wonderful part of my life, just like my daughter Ava. And while Ava still gets plenty of attention when we go out on the town with her adorable looks, it’s the twins that draw the most questions. Everyone we meet seems to treat them as a magical experience, like two halves of the same person, but the reality is that my girls – just like all twins, are two individual people.
Unfortunately, a failure to recognize twins as individuals can present a danger to the emotional health of your children. By getting wrapped up in those matching outfits, you can sometimes do your children a disservice. After all, the last thing you want is for your twins to feel like you don’t respect them as individual people.
But Why Do Clothes Matter?
You might wonder why clothes are such a big deal if you make sure that you call your twins by their own names and never mix them up. However, clothes, just like names help to represent your child’s identity. While they might not mind (or notice), that they’re dressed the same as babies, as they start to grow up they may start to lose their identity because they feel as though they’re being dressed to act as a mirror for their sibling.
Remember that twins are already naturally forced to share a lot of things that are beyond their control. They share the same looks – after all. While this can help to create a bond that will last between your children for a lifetime, it can also mean that twins crave individuality more than any other child. As sweet as matching outfits may appear to be, they can often blur the lines between your two unique, special children.
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