Final Draft--Finding My Identity As A Twin

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I’ve always heard from others growing up, “I wish I was a twin”, and they are right. I love having a twin sister. My sister and I are best friends. For starters, we are fraternal twins, 21 years old, we go to the same University, and live together in an apartment. We have a super strong bond that no one can separate.  I can tell her everything and ask her anything with getting her honest opinion. Of course we are sisters and have conflict time to time, but what siblings don’t fight? We are total opposites, but somehow mesh well together. I am very neat, organized and, in her eyes, a “micro-manager”. She is messy and is very laid-back. We have never been separated for long periods of time, but we have grown to be different individuals, even with similar experiences though life.

There have been many studies on twins and their identity within the twin relationship. Macdonald (2002) discussed twin identity in three different ways. One, the two as one (one saw oneself as a social unit in the twin relationship). Two, one saw oneself as two separate individuals. Lastly, as a false separation where one continues to experience a shared identity but where the identity is polarized into opposing characteristics. Results showed that female identical twins having a dependent relationship with one another had more difficulties with their personal identities than fraternal twins.

 We found that in today’s society, we have to group people together and there is nothing I hated more than people comparing my sister and I.  All twins get the super annoying questions, “Which one of you is smarter”, and maybe “who is better at sports” etc. These kinds of questions growing up took a toll and would create competition between what amazing connection we have.

Last year, we were both taking a Calculus class at one of the branch campuses. It was a small class, so most of the students and professor knew we were twins (same last names make people ask). One day, the professor was handing back the exams. As he was giving mine back, he said “Well we know which twin is more creative”, saying that since my sister got a higher grade on this one exam, she gets the “smarter one” and I must be creative or something else. In his mind, only one twin can be smart and the other must be something else. My sister has always done better than me in school and I would let these kind of comments affect me. I had low self-esteem and thought that I was less intelligent than her. With that said, she has to deal with similar comparisons and questions. Not even our personal lives are immune to this twin phenomenon. I have been in a relationship with my boyfriend for over four years. People have no problem asking her why she isn't in a similar long term relationship or variations of related questions. Society appears to believe that since we are the same age, our lives need to be progressing in the same manner at the same rate.

Family studies have shown that parents of twins may emphasize the sameness of their twin children by dressing them in similar looking clothes (Bacon, 2005), or giving them like-sounding names (Bryan, 1992 and Pearlman, 1990) or expecting twins to act and behave in similar ways (Stewart, 2000). Growing up, my parents did not dress us the same. They let us choose what we wanted to wear and express our individuality. We shared a room until we were 12, and in school, always been in the same class rooms with one another, until high school. We found that the more we grew up, the more different we became from one another. But this was not a bad thing; we were growing and developing in our own way, to become our own person. We so have similar names (Karyn and Kaityln) both names come from the name Catherine and have the same biblical meaning, Pure. But in having twins be grouped together as one, causes identity issues and the strive to be different from one another. Growing up, My sister was a “tom-boy’, whereas I was “girly”. Also, as little kids, I was reserved as a child, very quiet and rarely got into trouble. However, Kate was a trouble maker. She was always getting into things, making a mess and constantly standing in the corner of the room as her punishment.  We were always the opposite and I think that is from our individual desires to be different from one another. Still to this day, my family calls us “the girls”. It’s hard not to be grouped together because that is what society instills in our minds.

Personally, dealing with these identity issues growing up really made me try to be different and become my own person. I like having my own looks and personality. A study done by Watzlawik (2009) found that fraternal twins did not talk much about physical appearance; they did not look the same and did not confuse the environment in the same way as identical twins do.  They also found that identical and fraternal twins use different means to express their individuality in regard to physical appearance. They want to clarify to the social environment, that the likeness that they have is only superficial and limited to their physical appearance, because according to the twins in the study they are not alike. I show a bias because I am a fraternal twin. I don’t focus on looks, because we do not look alike. I have blonde hair and am 5 10’. My sister had dark brown hair, and is shorter than me, around 5 7’. Our looks are so different, that some people cannot tell if we are even sisters. Being fraternal, makes me focus on personality differences and how we respond to the environment.

I have seen a movie that discusses the twin identity crisis, The Pretty One (trailer). This film is about a pair of twins and one twin was known as the “pretty one”. The “prettier” sister gets killed and the other twin goes thought an identity crisis after her twin passes. She pretends to be the other twin and so she can be the “pretty” one because she did not think she was beautiful. This movie shows how society shows that people have to group and one twin must be better looking than the other. It is annoying that since you’re a twin, people ultimately have to compare and rank each other, and this is just in the title of the movie. Throughout the movie, the twin finds herself and realizes her own identity and her unique differences from her sister.  This movie shows that there is a identity crises between twins and how society and even family play a role within causing these identity issues.

Now being a young adult, and reflecting on how I found my identity, I can see how society and family affected me to be different from my sister. I thought that getting compared to my sister was normal. I accepted that there are things that she was better at than I, and there is nothing wrong with that. Overtime, I learned to stop comparing and be my own person. Comparing to her, did not do any good. My self-esteem would be affected and I would get competitive and angry with her for just being better. It would affect our relationship. I admire my parents for allowing us to be different and raise us to be our own unique person. I know who I am today and am happy with my identity. I cannot say that society didn’t play role. Maybe I would be a different person if I wasn’t trying to express my individuality, but we both chose different ways to express ourselves, and I am happy with who I am today.

References

Bacon, 2005  K. Bacon

It's good to be different: Parent and child negotiations of ‘twin identity’

Twin Research and Human Genetics, 9 (2005), pp. 141–147

Bryan, 1992   E.M. Bryan

Twins and higher multiples

A guide to their nature and nurtureSevenoaks: Edward Arnold, United Kingdom (1992), pp. 109–110 (Chapter 7)

Macdonald, 2002  A.M. Macdonald

Bereavement in twin relationships: An exploration of themes from a study of twinship

Twin Research, 5 (2002), pp. 218–226

Stewart, 2000a  E.A. Stewart

The comparative constitution of twinship: Strategies and paradoxes

Twin Research, 3 (2000), pp. 142–147

Watzlawik, 2009  M. Watzlawik

The perception of similarities and differences among adolescent siblings: Identification and deidentification of twins and nontwins

Journal of Adolescent Research, 24 (2009), pp. 561–578