As a parent of twins, you’ve probably felt grateful that your kids have a built-in playmate. Once your kids reached toddlerhood, it became clear that you didn’t have to spend every second entertaining them or scrambling to find play dates for them because they had each other. Having a built-in playmate was ideal, right?

Not necessarily.

From my interviews with adult twins, I was surprised to hear that they had mixed feelings about constantly having the same companion.

First, the positive.

Waking up with a friend, ending the day with a friend, and simply always having a friend by one’s side are among the most beautiful aspects of being a twin. And this seemed to be the case for most twins, across all backgrounds.

For twins who lived in provincial areas, for instance, “where your neighbor’s house was miles away,” they tended to feel grateful that they had had a playmate their own age at home. As one interviewee put it, “My twin sister helped distract me from the monotony of rural living.”

For a twin interviewee who grew up in a “rough neighborhood” in the city, he was grateful he had his twin brother with whom to walk to and from school every day.

Each interviewee commented that she appreciated that at nearly every hour of the day, she had a buddy with whom to play, talk, and bond. Someone who was experiencing life at the same pace – someone to “teach me how to braid my Barbie’s hair” or “ride bikes with me after school.”

They never felt alone.

They never were alone.

Which leads me to the negative.

Humans tend to desire variety, and companionship is no exception. It’s natural for twins to want to hang out with someone outside the twinship once in a while.

As twins aged and entered adolescence, the ‘perk’ of always having a peer felt instead more like a burden.

Some twins felt obligated to always bring their twin sibling to social outings, even where the twin sibling didn’t necessarily mesh well with the particular group.

I was intrigued to hear how frustrated twins felt during the high school years, when they were trying to figure out who they were. One twin complained, for instance, that she could not mold herself to a particular social group because her twin sibling would ‘call her out’ for acting inconsistently from how she did at home.

As a different twin reported:

“I just couldn’t go through what other kids went through in order to discover my identity because my twin sister was always around.”

In this poignant article written by twins who have different sexual orientations, the author writes that it wasn’t until he and his brother attended different colleges that they found the individuality that they “craved.”

And while twins may “crave” separateness, their bond can stay strong. Many twins reported that once they allowed themselves to branch out socially, they ended up growing closer to one another because the time apart helped them grow a deeper appreciation for one another.

So while having a built-in playmate is not necessarily a bad thing, spending time apart most definitely is a good thing. Parents should thus try to find a comfortable balance between celebrating the special relationship between their twin children and supporting them as they develop their social skills with other kids.

In my next post, I’ll discuss ways you can encourage your children to develop healthy friendships outside of the twinship.