Twin play date, one twin left out…

[Anonymous]

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!

[Anonymous]

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…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Ugh. Don’t ask. I know it’s hard to think outside your bubble but adding an extra kid does make a big difference to some people. I have a baby in addition to my 5 year old.

Play dates with one other child are manageable, but add in two unknown children and it’s chaotic. I simply do not have a enough hands to manage it at this point. Plus it completely changes the dynamic. It’s much harder to keep 3 kids quiet during nap time. It’s harder to keep track of where they are. Everything is harder. Don’t ask. It’s rude.

Twin mom. I totally get this and I think this is legit and I appreciate the honesty. I do get it. It’s just a bummer - parenting baby/toddler twins is SO incredibly difficult and isolating. And if I want to host a play date, I have to manage a minimum of three kids. It gets much easier as they all get older. As a twin parent, I would have been happy to stay to help or would have welcomed a meet up at a playground where the burden wasn’t all on you but where my kids weren’t just universally excluded.

[Anonymous]

No - don’t ask. K is time for your kids to start having their own identities separate from being a twin. I wouldn’t bring a sibling along on a play date - twins are no different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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!

If my kid had a friend and every time I hosted a play date that friend showed up with a sibling, I would stop inviting that friend too. Twins are just siblings - they are not a packaged unit. Additionally I have two kids close in age and I know how they play together and how they play with others. When it is my 2 kids and a 3rd friend, my kids can get more rambunctious and rougher with each other than they do with kids not in our family. I don’t want another parent to have to police my kids’ sibling squabbles and that is what I would be worried about by creating a 3 person play date with 2 kids who are not mine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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!

If twin parent don’t allow their kids to have individual friends then they are definitely blocking their children from having friends and that’s very sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Well, if the expectation is I have to invite both it is on you for making the situation, not the host. My kid wanted to have a playdate with the one twin but, I knew it would cause problems because they did everything together. So maybe twin parents should think about this and not blame the non twin parent. It has nothing to do with extra work but, the fact that my kid is the odd person out and it would be a totally different ( not necessarily better) experience for my dd and the one twin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I don't know that it's that they feel guilty. I think it's that some moms of twins insist that twins are a package deal and their twins have to do everything together, and people see that and think that they don't want to deal with two kids (or their kid is really only friends with one of the twins, or the dynamics of a three-person playdate are different) so they just don't invite the twins. Making clear that you're okay with your twins having separate playdates and activities is one way to ensure that they aren't excluded on that basis. I'd invite one twin, but if the mom wanted the other twin included, too, I'd probably not invite either one anymore. We're talking about elementary-school-aged kids -- most twins I know are not doing absolutely everything together by then. They have separate playdates, and even play different sports. Certainly, they are always placed in different classes in school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Ugh. Don’t ask. I know it’s hard to think outside your bubble but adding an extra kid does make a big difference to some people. I have a baby in addition to my 5 year old.

Play dates with one other child are manageable, but add in two unknown children and it’s chaotic. I simply do not have a enough hands to manage it at this point. Plus it completely changes the dynamic. It’s much harder to keep 3 kids quiet during nap time. It’s harder to keep track of where they are. Everything is harder. Don’t ask. It’s rude.

Twin mom. I totally get this and I think this is legit and I appreciate the honesty. I do get it. It’s just a bummer - parenting baby/toddler twins is SO incredibly difficult and isolating. And if I want to host a play date, I have to manage a minimum of three kids. It gets much easier as they all get older. As a twin parent, I would have been happy to stay to help or would have welcomed a meet up at a playground where the burden wasn’t all on you but where my kids weren’t just universally excluded.

By insisting that your children must do everything together YOU are making the choice to exclude your children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I'm an older twin mom and I understand your feelings but really this doesn't last. My kids just entered middle school this year and no on know they are twins. But long before middle school, twins (especially if they are b/g) usually stop wanting to do things with all their friends. My son about 2nd no longer cared to go to all girl parties where he was the only boy after the host mom so nicely invited him since he was good friends with the birthday girl. We stopped by a day earlier and wished her a happy brithday and dropped off a present. I know its probably tougher with same sex twins.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No - don’t ask. K is time for your kids to start having their own identities separate from being a twin. I wouldn’t bring a sibling along on a play date - twins are no different.

If you cared to get to know them you would know they have identities already. What a bizarre thing to say.