Like having ‘a premade friend’
Twinkles, twinadoes, tricklets or trebles — twins and triplets have unique relationships with rewards and challenges that mere singletons can find hard to grasp. John Gibb talks to one set of southern siblings about growing up as a pair.
HOW can you tell if twins are getting on well together?
A good clue is when you ask them separately about their relationship and both reply with almost the same positive words.
One twin — in this case Dunedin resident Kimberley Ashton (nee Tipler) — answers ‘‘we’ve always been very close’’.
And Kimberley’s twin sister,
Melissa Connell (31), says ‘‘we’ve always been really, really close’’.
Kimberley and Melissa were born in Hamilton, and grew up there before moving to Dunedin when they were 11.
They attended Balmacewen Intermediate, and later, at Queen’s High School, both included art and graphics in their studies.
Many similarities have continued as their lives have grown.
Both now live in the same Dunedin suburb, Caversham, and both have included aspects of the arts in their professional careers.
Nothing much had changed in their underlying relationship over the years, but Kimberley says that, of the pair, she feels slightly more ‘‘laid back’’.
Nevertheless, she was still very busy, working 30 hours a week doing architectural drafting — ‘‘I love my job’’— and helping raise children Max (2) and Paige (5).
And Melissa is a professional photographer who runs two photographic businesses, and has three children: Charlotte (2), Peyton (5) and Isabella (7).
The twins do not like being away from each other for more than a fortnight, Kimberley says, whereas some other twins feel comfortable about being apart for much longer.
Both are aware of other twins who still enjoy each other’s company but have not been as close.
‘‘A couple of them were at each other’s throats all the time,’’ Melissa adds.
Kimberley says ‘‘we were just one of the lucky ones.’’
‘‘I love being a twin and we are still super close,’’ Kimberley says.
‘‘She’s my best friend and we have always been there for each other. ’’ ‘‘It’s a premade friend.’’ ‘‘We were very shy growing up so it made it easy having my twin sister by my side, especially when we started a new school or made the big move down to Dunedin from Hamilton.
‘‘It’s always having someone else to lean on.’’
‘‘Also having our weddings within the same year, in 2012, made planning extra special.
‘‘We have had two of our babies very close together timewise. It was nice having her go through the same experiences as myself.
‘‘Our girls Paige (5) and Peyton (5) were born exactly one week apart.
‘‘That, along with having high blood pressure throughout our pregnancies made the nurses and midwives very confused.
‘‘Your life gets busy but we are still very close.’’
‘‘It’s even closer than a best friend,’’ Kimberley says.
Melissa says that having a twin ‘‘means there is always someone there when you need them’’.
‘‘The unconditional love is like no other.
‘‘Each one, we had each other’s backs.
‘‘She is always in my corner, even in situations where I have been in the wrong.
‘‘We have had a very close bond and still, as adults with our own families, we are also best friends,’’ Melissa says.
Even when they were growing up the twins had few differences of opinion and few fights.
‘‘Even as little children we barely fought.’’
This was also partly because ‘‘we were so shy as well’’.
‘‘A lot of people we meet find it weird how close we are.’’
These twins have not tried the impersonation tricks that some other adult twins have ventured, to deliberately mislead friends and boyfriends.
Their mother, Sharon Tipler, recalls they did go through a somewhat impish phase, between about 3 and 7, when they would both sometimes dive under the family dinner table and emerge at the other end, swapping places with the previously seated twin to confuse visitors, but never their mother.
Having twins meant ‘‘a bit more work’’, for her and husband Barry, but had been a positive experience.
‘‘In some ways it’s a bit easier because they’ve always got a friend,’’ Mrs Tipler added.
Parental support group Multiples Otago treasurer Liz Campbell, who has fraternal twins Eva and Isobel (4), emphasises that twins have differences as well as similarities.
‘‘They may be born at the same time [but] they’re each an individual person.’’
Sometimes the difficulty that many other people had in telling identical twins apart could accidentally lead to some negative stereotyping, with one twin being regarded as ‘‘sporty’’ and the other as ‘‘artsy’’.
This could make life difficult for twins who each wanted to try different things and did not want to conform to a stereotype about their future behaviour and thinking.
‘‘Take the time and get to know them individually,’’ she suggests.
Parental support organisation Multiples NZ points out that twins comprise about 2% of all pregnancies in New Zealand, 75% of these fraternal and 25% identical. There were two main types of twins.
Fraternal twins (dichorionic) occurred when two eggs were released by the mother, about the same time, and were fertilised by two different sperm.
Identical twins (monochorionic) arose from a single fertilised egg dividing in two, and the resulting two babies shared about 90% of their genes, Multiples NZ said.
Multiples Otago provides support for parents expecting or having had multiple births. More information is available at www.multiplesotago.org. nz via internet.