Twin play date, one twin left out…

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:OP Here, I didn't realize this thread got crazy after the first page lol. So here is the update:

After I posted here I re-read the mom message and realized that she had suggested I could join them as an option. So I offered to join them with the other twin so we can all get to know each other before I sent DD alone next time and it was well received.

Now everyone can calm down or call me names? DCUrbanmoms never disappoint lol

Wow OP, you are DENSE. The other mom suggested that YOU could join them. Not YOU AND YOUR SON. Be prepared for no more play dates offers. And I have twins!

NP you are a jerk. Who is supposed to watch the other kid? That's ridiculous.

ARE YOU FOR REAL?!?!?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Well OP you can see the attitude. BY GOD DONT BRING YOUR KID!!!! A bit over the top but there it is. Non twin moms never get that twins have a bond and so on. They lash out. And so strident about the need to separate them. Nice isn’t it? Signed twin mom.

+1 also twin mom. I agree on separating but the vitriol from non-twin moms is ridiculous. They just don't get it.

non-twin mom here. I don't agree with how the other people are presenting but, in my experience expecting twins to always do things together tends to limit friendships. My dd had twins sisters as friends and would have loved to done more things with the one twin because they had more in common. The other twin tended to dominate the shyer twin. But because of twin mom attitude ( you have to invite both or none) we didn't invite the one twin one so everyone missed out.

Just because they are twins, doesn't mean they are tied at the hips ( unless they are conjoined)

I am the PP. My point was that this is always an issue when you have twins. I agree with separation; I was not advocating that. But there are big feelings involved that non-twin moms do not understand. When I first starting separating my twins for activities, they both cried and were scared and didn't understand. One of my children asked why the kid didn't like her and genuinely thought she was being excluded on purpose. And I felt bad because I am their mother. Seeing your child in pain is difficult for both twin moms and singleton moms.

We worked through it and they are very independent now, but it doesn't help to hear harsh judgment from moms who have no idea what this is like. The bond is there and it is different and sometimes it is delicate to navigate. I don't think people need to accommodate this at all, I am just saying they could be a little nicer in the tone when giving advice about things they don't have any experience with.

+1 (fellow twin mom). Have a heart for OP who is just trying to protect her little boy’s feelings if there is a way to do so.

+2 and it’s really hard continuing to hear non twin parents insist it’s just like siblings. Realize that all the twin moms are universally saying it is NOT like different age siblings and that maybe you do not know or understand because it has not been your lived experience.

Honestly, we don’t care how close your twins are.

No one said you have to care (the point of above posts), but you don't have to be an a$$hole about it.

When a parent of twins mentiona to me, once again, how close their two are I smile politely. But I am actually thinking that it is more a red flag for their kids not having well developed social skills.
In other words, don't crow about how close your kids are. The thing to share is how well your child, twin or not, is able to initiate and maintain relationships with others. You know, a vital life skill.

NP. That's a super weird reaction. The fact that you would (a) care that much and (b) go that far in your assumptions about people you don't know is incredibly odd.

DP. What the -- are you even trying to say here? You both are incredibly odd!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP Here, I didn't realize this thread got crazy after the first page lol. So here is the update:

After I posted here I re-read the mom message and realized that she had suggested I could join them as an option. So I offered to join them with the other twin so we can all get to know each other before I sent DD alone next time and it was well received.

Now everyone can calm down or call me names? DCUrbanmoms never disappoint lol

Wow OP, you are DENSE. The other mom suggested that YOU could join them. Not YOU AND YOUR SON. Be prepared for no more play dates offers. And I have twins!

NP you are a jerk. Who is supposed to watch the other kid? That's ridiculous.

ARE YOU FOR REAL?!?!?

ARE YOU FOR REAL??

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The twin part is a red herring. This can be boiled down to "is it all right if I invite myself/my child to someone else's house/event?"

The answer will always be NO. The only very rare exception would be close friends and family who regularly have both children over at the same time. Definitely not acquaintances who know the second child exists and chose not to extend the invitation.

If you feel letting one child go to a playdate without the other child is too disruptive for your family, it is on YOU to say no thank you and decline altogether.

But, but, but, what about the BOND???"

I have never seen so many thirsty, jealous moms as when twins are brought up. Sorry you didn't win that lottery.

I assume IVF, let's be real. That wasn't a "lottery" many people wanted to win.

I didn't do IVF, I had spontaneous twins. So did four of my friends (not friends I met because we had twins, friends I knew from K-12 and college). I only know two twin moms who did IVF. I know A LOT of other people who did IVF, had two implanted, and only ended up with one. So while I don't think PP was being particularly nice, you were nasty, too. Maybe dial it back a notch. Its not a good look.

can we all just lay off using this phrase for awhile
so overused and by now, annoying

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well we were very lucky. First we lived in Bethesda where there are many twins. But second two best friends who had very different DDs arranged our play dates with our DDs who were a good match with their DDs. 4 and K are such tender ages. It worked out for us.
We had other friends who had twins so four at play dates. And still others with sibs a year apart so that worked. But the singleton princesses … we just didn’t have time for the drama. We had enough invites.
ES they grew apart but we still had many group activities. Twin moms are usually pretty resilient.

OP does not sound very resilient.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP Here, I didn't realize this thread got crazy after the first page lol. So here is the update:

After I posted here I re-read the mom message and realized that she had suggested I could join them as an option. So I offered to join them with the other twin so we can all get to know each other before I sent DD alone next time and it was well received.

Now everyone can calm down or call me names? DCUrbanmoms never disappoint lol

Wow OP, you are DENSE. The other mom suggested that YOU could join them. Not YOU AND YOUR SON. Be prepared for no more play dates offers. And I have twins!

You are the dense one because you can’t even imagine there are decent people out there. If no more date so be it, no big deal , DD will make other friends regardless. We are not that desperate for play dates, this is the greatest advantage about having twins, we don’t agonize about missing play dates as they have each other !

I'm PP. I have twins. And no, I'm not dense, but I can read a room. I wish we could ask the other mom to come on here and post her opinion of how things went down...

Lol it feels funny to be called dense? you are dense because you think everyone thinks like your dense self. Everyone can be a twin mom here but even if you are for real why would it make a difference? You are still pretty dense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The twin part is a red herring. This can be boiled down to "is it all right if I invite myself/my child to someone else's house/event?"

The answer will always be NO. The only very rare exception would be close friends and family who regularly have both children over at the same time. Definitely not acquaintances who know the second child exists and chose not to extend the invitation.

If you feel letting one child go to a playdate without the other child is too disruptive for your family, it is on YOU to say no thank you and decline altogether.

But, but, but, what about the BOND???"

I have never seen so many thirsty, jealous moms as when twins are brought up. Sorry you didn't win that lottery.

Most twins are the result of fertility treatments. That's a fact.
Maybe that journey is why the twin moms are so resilient.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:So nice to hear non-twin parents blocking friendships and penalizing kids based on a slightly awkward situation that is not at all within the kids’ control.

dp But is it really the non twin parent who is blocking friendships? It seems that twin parents are because you are not allowing individual friendships to blossom and you are elevating the twins' relationship. You are family and have tons of opportunity to bond with you twin when you are at home. Two hours away from your twin isn't going to kill anyone!

It isn’t about the difficulty being away from the other twin. I wouldn’t send both of my twins if only one was invited. It’s the idea that people don’t even want to bother inviting one twin because they feel guilty excluding the other one so they just exclude both. I agree it’s harder and there is no right answer, but it’s sad to see your kids get excluded literally just because they are twins and other parents don’t want to deal with that.

You are missing a critical step here. No one here is saying they would exclude Twin A just because Twin B exists.

They are saying they would move away from supporting a relationship with Twin A if moms like OP insist that Twin B come every time.

I actually think some people ARE saying they would exclude twin A just because twin B exists. See nanny above plus some others.

Nope. They have no problem with Twin B "existing." They have a problem with Twin B being foisted upon the nanny or other parent automatically every time their sibling has a playdate.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:You do what you want. It happened in my neighborhood and rubbed some people the wrong way, so some chose to invite neither twin. But you gotta do what you gotta do.

I think this happens a lot. Parents of twins who insist on togetherness view them as one entity whereas everyone else sees two kids. The parents who try to force the twins to do everything together are inadvertently shrinking their world. Play dates are just one example, but every child needs relationships that are independent of their siblings—especially twins! It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy that they have such a “strong bond” that they can’t be apart. (And the line between strong bond and codependency gets very blurry.)

Well yea, if you never give them the opportunity…

Seriously twin parents are perfectly capable of managing this without your help.

According to the raving defensiveness on this thread, many are clearly not.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Absolutely not. This girl is not friends with your son. She’s friends with your daughter. It’s time your kids start making their own separate friends. They can still do activities together but you can’t force kids to be friends with both of them.

This. Absolutely not. Don’t hoist your other child on them. It will ruin the purpose and dynamic of the girls play date.

This is a mean mom who will end up with a mean girl who excludes people. Good grief, they are a month into kindergarten, it’s not like the two girls are lifelong besties who need to exclude people to uphold the “purpose and dynamic” of their play date.

Huh?! Have you ever hosted a 3 kid play date? It’s infinitely more work than a 2 or 4 kid play date. This dynamic sets up the host kid as being the odd man out. It doesn’t make sense.

Yes, as a twin mom I have hosted many 3 kid play dates by default. More often than not there is no odd man out (truly!) but it’s nearly never the non twin.

You keep doubling down on this, but the point remains, this is no different than any other parent requiring a sibling to tag along on every play date. Sure, I can make it work if I’m doing you a favor, but do I want every play date to be about YOU on your terms? Probably not. Sometimes there are family dynamics that are important for the host family too—did you ever think about that? Someone gave the example of a parent who has a baby in addition to the elementary school kid. I’ll give another. I have two kids and I tell each one they can invite one friend over. This works well for my family. If one kid gets 2 friends then my other kid wants 2 friends too and that’s way too many kids to supervise easily. Then the fun and enjoyable play date becomes work and exhausting.

The end result is both your kids will receive fewer invitations.

Yes I have met moms like you. Don’t want you. Don’t need you. Did anyone let you know your kid is a brat? Now might be a good time.

Soooooo defensive. The Angry Twin Moms here lashing out at other parents telling them the truth are only telling on themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The twin part is a red herring. This can be boiled down to "is it all right if I invite myself/my child to someone else's house/event?"

The answer will always be NO. The only very rare exception would be close friends and family who regularly have both children over at the same time. Definitely not acquaintances who know the second child exists and chose not to extend the invitation.

If you feel letting one child go to a playdate without the other child is too disruptive for your family, it is on YOU to say no thank you and decline altogether.

But, but, but, what about the BOND???"

I have never seen so many thirsty, jealous moms as when twins are brought up. Sorry you didn't win that lottery.

Oh, sweetie, you just keep telling yourself how "jealous" everyone else is and how you "won the lottery."

ROFL. Delusional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP Here, I didn't realize this thread got crazy after the first page lol. So here is the update:

After I posted here I re-read the mom message and realized that she had suggested I could join them as an option. So I offered to join them with the other twin so we can all get to know each other before I sent DD alone next time and it was well received.

Now everyone can calm down or call me names? DCUrbanmoms never disappoint lol

Wow OP, you are DENSE. The other mom suggested that YOU could join them. Not YOU AND YOUR SON. Be prepared for no more play dates offers. And I have twins!

NP you are a jerk. Who is supposed to watch the other kid? That's ridiculous.

Umm, many people have a spouse/partner who is capable of childcare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The twin part is a red herring. This can be boiled down to "is it all right if I invite myself/my child to someone else's house/event?"

The answer will always be NO. The only very rare exception would be close friends and family who regularly have both children over at the same time. Definitely not acquaintances who know the second child exists and chose not to extend the invitation.

If you feel letting one child go to a playdate without the other child is too disruptive for your family, it is on YOU to say no thank you and decline altogether.

But, but, but, what about the BOND???"

I have never seen so many thirsty, jealous moms as when twins are brought up. Sorry you didn't win that lottery.

Oh, sweetie, you just keep telling yourself how "jealous" everyone else is and how you "won the lottery."



ROFL. Delusional.

Yeah sorry but I have two close friends with twins and seeing how miserable the early childhood years were for them I thank my lucky stars that I had singletons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP Here, I didn't realize this thread got crazy after the first page lol. So here is the update:

After I posted here I re-read the mom message and realized that she had suggested I could join them as an option. So I offered to join them with the other twin so we can all get to know each other before I sent DD alone next time and it was well received.

Now everyone can calm down or call me names? DCUrbanmoms never disappoint lol

Wow OP, you are DENSE. The other mom suggested that YOU could join them. Not YOU AND YOUR SON. Be prepared for no more play dates offers. And I have twins!

NP you are a jerk. Who is supposed to watch the other kid? That's ridiculous.

How about -- oh, I don't know --his father? His grandparents? A family friend? Or, you know, OP could just let her daughter go alone, as she was invited in the first place.

So many excuses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP Here, I didn't realize this thread got crazy after the first page lol. So here is the update:

After I posted here I re-read the mom message and realized that she had suggested I could join them as an option. So I offered to join them with the other twin so we can all get to know each other before I sent DD alone next time and it was well received.

Now everyone can calm down or call me names? DCUrbanmoms never disappoint lol

Wow OP, you are DENSE. The other mom suggested that YOU could join them. Not YOU AND YOUR SON. Be prepared for no more play dates offers. And I have twins!

NP you are a jerk. Who is supposed to watch the other kid? That's ridiculous.

How about -- oh, I don't know --his father? His grandparents? A family friend? Or, you know, OP could just let her daughter go alone, as she was invited in the first place.

So many excuses.

+100