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'It's Good to be Different': Parent and Child Negotiations of 'Twin' Identity
Open accessAbstract
Research on twins has tended to focus around the question of heredity/environment. As part of this, attention has been paid to how twins' family environments impact upon them. By examining twinship as a social identity, this article considers the social experience of twinship as it is framed by parent-child relations and also actively shaped by twins themselves. Sameness constitutes one central defining component of 'twin' identity within Western societies. In preparing their twins' bodies for public presentation, parents play a key role in communicating twin identity on their children's behalf. However, children also construct and convey their own identities through presenting their bodies in certain ways. Drawing on findings from a small-scale qualitative study of twinship, this article examines how twin identity is created, modified and reproduced by parents and child twins. It highlights the active role that twins take in constructing their own identities and in shaping the 'twin situation'.
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Having two children with identical genetic dispositions can make it difficult for parents to embrace individuality.
“Having two children with identical genetic dispositions can make it difficult for parents to embrace individuality (Bacon, 2006).”
From Seeing Double: A Case Study Examining Systemic Supervision and Therapy Conceptualization of Identical Twins (2026) · cites this paper as Bacon, 2006
In “The Enabling and Constraining Context of Parental Power” (page unavailable), Bacon says identical twins are especially at risk of appearing to lack individuality and describes parents using different-coloured outfits to express uniqueness. This supports a tension between twin sameness and individuality, but the paper does not attribute parents’ difficulty embracing individuality to identical genetic dispositions; the described parents actively make room for difference. (LLM, conf=0.82)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredParents of identical twins are expected to support two children who share developmental milestones simultaneously, unlike parents of siblings with age differences, who have greater flexibility to attune to developmental variability.
“Parents are expected to support two children who share developmental milestones simultaneously, unlike parents of siblings with age differences, who have greater flexibility to attune to developmental variability (Bacon, 2006;Emde, 1994;Harris, 2006;Pietilä et al., 2013).”
From Seeing Double: A Case Study Examining Systemic Supervision and Therapy Conceptualization of Identical Twins (2026) · cites this paper as Bacon, 2006
The opening section says twins may share their parents’ attention, and “Parents’ Decisions About Dress” discusses how parents present twins as alike or different. Neither passage addresses supporting simultaneous developmental milestones or compares parents of twins with parents of siblings of different ages. Searches for developmental milestones and that sibling comparison found no passage addressing them. (LLM, conf=0.72)
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Lowery, D. F., & Outler, C. (2026) · The Family Journal · doi:10.1177/10664807251384191
Metadata
- Authors
- Bacon, K.
- Affiliations
- University of Lancashire (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Bacon, Kate
- ORCID
- Bacon, Kate
- Venue
- Twin Research and Human Genetics
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 2006-02-01
- Volume
- 9
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 141-147
- ISSN
- 1832-4274 (ISSN-L)
- 0000-0000
- OpenAlex
- W2100306849
- Cited by
- 28
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 2 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 1 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 1 · 2014: 2 · 2013: 3 · 2012: 2
- FWCI
- 1.30
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Twin Research and Human Genetics (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Economic and Social Research Council
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health › Assisted Reproductive Technology and Twin Pregnancy
- Social Sciences › Demography › Family Dynamics and Relationships
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism › Sexual Differentiation and Disorders
- Keywords
- twin identity, twinship, parent-child relationship, social identity, sameness, body presentation, identity construction, twins, nature versus nurture
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Child, Choice Behavior, Female, Humans, Identification, Psychological, Male, Parent-Child Relations, Sampling Studies, Social Identification, Twins, Negotiating
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