Growing up as an identical twin

The inner experiences of growing up as identical twins

I sat with Dr. Joan A. Friedman, a psychotherapist, author and twin expert, to discuss her experience growing up as an identical twin, raising fraternal twin boys, and supporting adult twins dealing with twin issues.

It was fascinating!

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Transcript:

Smadar Zmirin: Okay, so welcome everybody. Today. I have the privilege of talking with Dr. John A. Friedman. A twin psychotherapist, a twin herself, and a twin mum who also authored 3 different books about twins. And I'm sitting with Joan today to discuss some of those early issues that may arise for twins, for twin parents, and also for the twin themselves, and hear her experience and her thoughts of how it feels, being a twin, how it feels to raise twins and some of the things she sees with her clients later on.

So, Joan, thank you so much for being with us today.

Joan Friedman: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so appreciative and hopefully, I can add some value to the value that you already provide. So.

Smadar Zmirin: I have no doubt.

Joan Friedman: Okay.

Smadar Zmirin: Right. So I did want to start like just talking with you. And then we move on to your experience as a twin mum and the clients that you see coming through your practice. So I would suggest, let's start with like, how would you describe your childhood as a twin?

Joan Friedman: That's a very good place to start, because I unknowingly this certainly has informed so much of what I've been passionate about learning and writing about. So when I grew up in my sister, my Jane and I grew up in the late forties. Of course there was no IVF and not many twins, and not very many people talking about what twins need. And we were really raised as a couple.

And problems didn't kind of manifest themselves for me until we went to separate colleges, and my sister did fine. I think she found a best friend who's still her best friend today, and for me again. This is a lot of things I learned in hindsight. I just knew that I was having a hard time. Being on my own. I hadn't studied on my own, made friends on my own socially, been on my own, and I was really lost. And I didn't really understand at that point why, so that it caused a lot of issues for me in terms of my identity, and I was the caretaking twin. So my way of making connections was to kind of forge that function of being a caretaker, and I didn't know back then that a function of a caretaker is not the same as having a sense of self.

You know I had to learn and struggle with that the hard way. So fast forward to my education, getting married, having family. I had 3 kids, and I wanted one more, and I was 40, and I found out I was pregnant with twins. I was terrified, except I found out that they were fraternal. I'm an identical. They were fraternal, and they were also boys. So it really was sort of far away enough from my own experience to make it less terrifying and less upsetting.

And that was sort of the genesis of my 1st book, because I found there was such a different way of connecting with Singletons, and not having that same facility connecting with my twin boys, and it just started to. Lots of things started to dawn on me about how raising twins is so very different from raising Singletons. And that's sort of the origin

of my work. And then it's, you know, it's blossomed into working with a lot of adult twins. So that's a sort of in a nutshell. How I got to be where I am.

Smadar Zmirin: Okay, so I know that today we're going to focus on the hardships of twinships when they are not very healthy. But what were your best memories of being a twin as a child?

Joan Friedman: I think the best memories are. Is that you kind of had instantaneous special status. Every we know everyone came to see you and know you, and you were very special. Nobody sort of knew your name, but you were like kind of a star. And it made it very easy to have people connect with you. We weren't making the connection, but people were coming to connect with us, and that made, you know, some social things very important and interesting, but as an adolescent. When my sister and I, you know, were approaching that developmental period, it became very difficult, because that's the time when you want to have your own identity, you want people to know you. You want to feel unique. You want to feel, you know, that you have your own kind of special way of being in the world, and that was a troublesome time for both of us, I think. And again none of this was talked about none. Nobody was really aware of it, but I think it impacted both me and my sister in a way that others wouldn't have known or understood, because we didn't get to have a normal adolescence where you're kind of out there and trying to establish yourself. You're still, you know, Jane and Joan, and you're still the twins, and you still struggle with feeling that you want someone to really get to know you, and they don't. They can't. Because there's just 2 of you.

Smadar Zmirin: Yeah, I remember I read in your 1st book that you said that some family members used to refer to you as “Jaon”.

Joan Friedman: Oh, yeah.

Smadar Zmirin: And although it sounds adorable, I mean I was reading it like, Oh, boy, I mean, what a way to literally label it. So how do you feel? How did that affect your relationship with Jane hearing that like do you feel? Do you remember having any conversations with her during childhood, about those terminologies?

Joan Friedman: Nothing. And we there was no discussion about any of these internal dynamics, because we really weren't aware of them. There was no discussion. It's I always talk about sort of growing up in a twin bubble. It was just a bubble. And it was not bursting outwardly, and no, there was no discussion about any of this, and also back then, you know, parents were much less involved with children, that they are now so. Our parents were not involved where we're going to go to college or this or that, and we did that on our own. And organically, you know, we decided that we needed to be in separate colleges. It had nothing to do with any kind of parental input.

It was something we both, you know, internally recognised that we were like sick of each other, and we needed, you know, we grew up in the same room for like 18 years. And it's a lot being with someone like that, even though we were in different classes, and we had some sort of separate separateness from one another. It was very, very tense. A lot of our interaction with my sister, so.

Smadar Zmirin: And when do you remember like? It might be hard to pinpoint, but in my head I would. I would love to like pinpoint like when was the 1st moment or the 1st time that you realised that something is off in your twinship?

Joan Friedman: I think when I finally got into my own analysis and started to think about why I was struggling so much with certain issues, and it was then that I sort of started to link those struggles with growing up as a twin, you know. And this is most therapists.

Now, of course, things are a little bit better, but most therapists never even brought up the issue of having a twin where it's the most salient part of your attachment history. But no one's paying attention, because nobody really realise the extent of the impact of it, especially when you get to the point where you recognise that your parents were not really emotionally involved, and that your sister was the most important emotional attachment for you that I didn't realise any of that until well, into my I think my thirties. Maybe early forties. When I started to really dig into this in in a therapeutic setting.

I didn't really have any idea that it was all sort of connected or interconnected. It wasn't all of it, but it was a big chunk of things.

Smadar Zmirin: Yeah, it's all kind of very intrinsic, even in, you know, very invisible lines, as far as what I always share with my families invisible lines that are being blurred around where you end, and the other person begins, and it is on the parents, especially in the early days, to really cultivate those individuations.

So you feel, that it was just you and Jane in a bubble, and I imagine your parents really enjoyed how similar you are and how identical you are. But do you feel like there was a moment where you felt that, like, I don't know, you said that you were in separate classes, so you did have some of those experiences of being on your own, were those experiences pleasant, foreign, intimidating?

Joan Friedman: I think they were pleasant. Actually, I think they were pleasant. Is, this is hard for me to remember, but it was a long time ago, but we sort of had different, we took some different paths in high school, but it really didn't matter. I mean, at the end of the day, it was sort of so small. It was a small sort of a gain in a in a larger situation, where there are so much damage already had been done. It wasn't enough. You know those small little things, because, as you know, that I say in this book that this idea of helping twins become more individuated and more comfortable, being away from their twin when there's developmental readiness and the importance of the parent being the most salient attachment figure, if all of that's working.

And that's what I tried to do with my sons. It was like I tried to redo my entire twin upbringing by raising my twins in a very different way, and learning a lot along the way, but in all, and raising them, and in all the people that I've worked with. I feel like if parents have a hard time understanding, and I'm sure you go through this with some families about how important it is that the parents try to make an attachment that's separate to each child, and it's if you have that in your mindset. And it's not a big deal. You kind of just do it organically, because you recognise how special and how nice it is for both you and that particular child to know that you are attaching to one. You're not just always attaching to a dyad, and you start out with that initial mindset, and then it becomes easy rather than when you wait too long. You have toddlers screaming. I don't want to leave my sister, you can't take her, you know, and then parents start to feel guilty, and then they get all caught up with oh, my God! I got to make life the fair for both of them, and I can't take one here. I can't take one there, and it just becomes, you know, like it, snowballs.

This whole idea and concept and the importance of recognizing the separate connections get completely lost, unfortunately, and all this other stuff that just happens, I mean, toddlers protest they don't like when someone else goes away in their home or whatever. But if rules and expectations and consistency in terms of establishing the alone, time which is really a metaphor for separate attachments, then I'm sure. You see that if this is not introduced and not explained, it just it really kind of falls on deaf ears for many, many families, because they get caught up in what feels like it's wrong. It's wrong to separate them. They're upset, they don't want it. They love being with each other. They love playing. This is so much better. And they kind of just, you know, give up which I get, because it takes a lot of effort, you know, even though I'm when my separate time is like, Okay, can you separately read for 15 min? Can you take a walk? Can you go do an errand? I'm not advocating anything big other than carving out small amounts of time where you can just not worry that there's another baby needing you or screaming for you where you just can concentrate and have sustained attention for one baby. And this is what Singletons need. Consistent sustained attention.

And twins get so understandably shortchanged in that arena for obvious reasons, but it doesn't have to be if you can kind of do what I'm saying and not see it as such a big deal. But unfortunately, when poor parents of twins are so overwhelmed that everything that you sometimes introduce feels like one more burden they can't handle.

It's a very long, winded answer. I'm sorry.

Smadar Zmirin: No, but that's exactly it. A 100%. That's something that I see right from the get go and what I feel like. It's kind of an oxymoron for some of them. Is that a lot of the parents when they're just expecting you know, they nowadays they read online, and they'll try to get all of the information they can to prepare themselves, which is great. It's something we didn't have a few years ago, and one of the best advice everybody is telling them, get them on a routine which makes sense, and obviously it helps them feel there's a sense of control, and reality is not so chaotic. And then when you step in and say like, it's great, you're doing a routine. I understand it. I do the same, because logistically, it makes so much sense. And they have similar needs, especially when they're this tiny. Now let's try and do one on one. And they're like that would throw the routine out of the window, like, yeah, in a way, but not exactly so. It can be, as you say, as short as 15 min. Just sit by one baby while the other is not expected to join in. And I feel like it's just a change of mentality that can really help them see that it is possible.

And whenever you go down the street with just the one child, and all of a sudden you're not a celebrity anymore. No one is.

Joan Friedman: No, you are not.

Smadar Zmirin: When the chip really falls like, “Oh, okay, this is so relaxing”. “I'm invisible almost”. And I imagine you felt that even more so than fraternal twins or twins that don't look very similar, because some fraternal twins can look very similar. And that's 1 of the messages I'm trying to give my families that imagine every time you go out of the house you get all this attention because there's someone next to you.

But then, when that person is gone, that tension is gone. So what does the child internalise with that? Nobody cares about your existence unless that other one is here. So what is so special about this. So did you have, do you have any memories of those feelings of that attention that you got because Jane was there?

Joan Friedman: Yeah, I did. I did it, you know. It was like, after a while it was like so empty feeling. You know, it's like, it's like you feel empty. You feel you feel like nobody cares about you. No one knows your name, no one knows how you're different. Oh, you have a dimple. Oh, she's taller, you know, all this superficial stuff that doesn't make somebody feel seen and known and appreciated. It's a very empty feeling, and I know so many twin parents don't understand this. And you're so right about, you know a lot of twin parents who want to dress their kids the same, and who are like opposed to separation. It's a huge narcissistic enhancement for them to get all this attention, and it must be hard to give up, which I understand, because taking care of them is so hard, so wanting to have some sort of offset to the hard work is going out there, and everyone going. Oh. you know. And so I get it. And most people don't understand the, as you say, the internalised, repetitive experience of not being seen or known. You know it to them. They're in another wavelength with it. It's very hard to explain, you know, that there might be a better way or, like you said, introduce a new routine 15 min alone reading, and anything that kind of takes them away from what's working.

They don't want to do it, which I get also because, you know, they're already stretched so thin in terms of what they're trying to do. When I 1st introduced this idea, you know they all. And I was running a group for mums of twins then a long time ago, and they all started to scream at me, and they go.

we, when we don't want to take each one out alone when we're but we want to be by ourselves. We don't want either one of them there. We want alone time for us, which made sense. And then they came back, and they said “All of the grandparents are aghast at what you're saying we should do”, you know. So there was no, you know, kind of familial support, either because it felt wrong to this other generation. “How can you possibly do this?”. So it was. It's been hard. It's a hard sell to kind of make people understand, especially it's like when it's all kind of an internalised psychological explanation that they may not be able to make sense of. Yeah.

Smadar Zmirin: And I feel a lot of it definitely comes from a good place. I don't think anybody, the parents or the grandparents, all of the extended families and the teachers. None of them is doing it from, you know, malicious intent.

Joan Friedman: And not at all.

Smadar Zmirin: I find it well again when I step into a family, the last thing I want to come across is judgmental, or tell them off in any way. So I find it just changing my language with them helps. So whenever those comparison statements coming up, instead of telling them off about it, I'm trying to kind of feed them back a different way to say it, you know. Like, “Oh, yeah, X is way faster than Y” Like, “Yeah, X is very fast. Yeah, y likes to take her time”. Like just trying to change the way we approach it. And I can feel something is moving when they're listening to me like, “Why are you saying it like that?” And when there is a small space I am trying to elaborate, but I find that it's a lot of advocacy that has to come from the parents because nobody else is going to do it, and the twins are definitely not going to do it for themselves if they've never heard that.

And I was actually, I wanted to ask you, and then obviously, it came up anyway, because you said about the dimple and the height, so how do you remember how you faced those comparisons? Whether just something that you brushed off? Was it hurtful every time? Is it something that you looked at Jane and thought “Oh, yeah, we are not exactly the same”, or “Oh, yes, we are the same, this is better”. Like, was there any kind of aspiration to be more alike, or actually to be apart?

Joan Friedman: I don't think you giving Jane and me way too much credit here we weren't we? We did not have any access to our internal life back then, and I just think we just didn't pay attention.

We didn't pay attention. I mean, we got pissed off when someone, you know wouldn't like your grandmother wouldn't know who's who. But we just. You kind of just grow up. You have a very cavalier attitude about it, because it's just so much a part of your experience. After a while you just you don't even pay attention. You just assume that they're not going to know who you are. And then when they look at you and they don't know. And you just say, Oh, my! I'm Joan, and that's Jane, because people are uncomfortable when they don't know, especially with young ones who's who. So they look at you and stare, and they're waiting for you to tell them who you are, because they feel embarrassed if they can't tell the difference. And that's why I'm always telling parents. Please don't dress them the same. Jane and I were dressed the same until we were 10. Give them different haircuts, help, help. Other people know that they have identifying characteristics.

So when people approach the twins, they can sort of know who's who. But again, that takes planning and forethought, and the idea that that's important, and the idea that in some way this is going to impact your twins later on. Now, some twins I don't think it ever impacts. I mean, we can't generalise some twins that never care about this kind of stuff and other twins are definitely impacted, I mean, and I can't say who, why or what that is. But we have to also say that for some twin pairs. This is totally fine part of their experience. They didn't mind at all, and it didn't affect how they've grown up. So I have a very skewed perspective, of course, because I only really address twins who find me or having difficulties. But there's a ton of twins who grow up with that kind of dynamic. And they're fine. So I think we have to remember that it's not okay to just pathologise all of it because it's not true for everyone.

And you know there's going to be so many other factors in people's lives other than the twinship that's going to make something like not knowing their name difficult, whereas for someone else, it's like, Okay, no, no big deal, you know.

Smadar Zmirin: Yeah, I say, yeah. And I think that's a really good point. And I think, obviously, you see, the more acute cases.

Joan Friedman: Okay.

Smadar Zmirin: And for me, obviously coming into those families, my main objective is to inform them and empower their decisions because there is merit to what you say in the sense like, it doesn't have to impact them. But it could.

So let's just set them up for success and enhancing their similarities and differences in the same level will help them decide what they want, whether they want to lean into being the same, or lean into being different. But the choice is theirs, and if we never present that opportunity they can't choose. And yeah, they might actually grow up and feel absolutely fine.

And for some of them they think they'll find. But then, if you actually double clicking on it, you can see a few things that are coming across that. Okay, maybe there's no full awareness of what's happening there. But if it works for you, that's okay. But the idea of just never giving them the opportunity is something I'm really passionate about. And again, you can't tell parents what to do. The best you can do is inform them, and I think with the comparisons, I mean not being a twin, but being the youngest of 5, I've been constantly compared. Like every child, every child is always compared the moment they either have siblings, or they're in a class with peers of the same age like, there are these expectations of “This is doing this, and this is really that, so where am I on the scale?”. And you always measure yourself against someone else It's natural. And I can imagine, for the twins growing up either with other siblings, or just in their bubble, not being seen, and measuring your success and failure against someone else.

I don't know. I want to say it can be exhausting, but I can feel like it will never make you feel good, because if you succeed, it's on someone else's expense, and if you fail, it's because someone else succeeded. And that's not fair, either.

Joan Friedman: And if you add in absolutely, because you're right, comparison, competition is part of all of our lives. But just think about being competitive and comparing yourself with someone that you love more than anybody in the world. You know it makes that dynamic so much more complex to deal with that level of I hate you. I love you, you know which, of course.

As adults, we have relationships with intimate others. We hate parts of them. We love parts of them, I mean, that's normal. But these little ones growing up and having such, you know, competitive comparison experiences. One of them has to kind of back down or give up, or, as one of my patients said, you know, take a take a seat in the back row, like, if you need to keep that your most important emotional relationship intact. You have to find a way to make that happen. And usually that's the expense of the twin who decides to just kind of let the other one shine. And I see this all the time with adult twins is that that was the sacrifice that they had to make in order to keep the connection, and it's so sad because they missed out on so much, and not being able to be themselves fully, but they had to do that because the relationship with their twin was so very important. So it's very tricky, you know, for a lot of for a lot of twin pairs. I have a question for you, and I never really know how to answer this.

When parents of younger twins ask, oh, they're always fighting. I don't know what to do this and that, and then then they bring in a dynamic where the twins are completely like magnetised toward each other that they cannot stop engaging, and I've read a little bit about it. Somebody I don't know who coined it like “the power of 2” or something, but they are so heavily integrated into each other, and they can't stop, they can't self-regulate, they bit, they drag each other on, and this can take place, it can go on in school, or it can happen at home. And parents just they don't know what to do.

Because the twins are so locked into this intimate kind of dance with one another. They don't listen to the parents, they don't need any other friends. They're kind of again in their own little twin world. And it's disturbing. Do you ever find that?

Smadar Zmirin: Not in my immediate work, because when I walk with twins I facilitate it differently, but definitely, I can see it in the more acute cases where your parents come and ask questions about that. Or they say, Yeah, they go to preschool, but they have no friends like they're just together all day, and for those pairs it might be okay, because they are a bit more civilized with each other. But yes, you say sometimes it's just they cannot last more than a few seconds together without things heating up. I found that it usually stems from, I would say, 2 or 3 main things. One is boundaries, because if there are no boundaries in place about what's acceptable behaviour and what's not, then obviously, they are not going to listen to the parents, and also they have no skills or strategies to mediate this in any other way. The only way this will ever stop is if a parent intervenes so in a way that kind of perpetuating it. And also again, we're going back to the one on one time.

They have no idea of how to be apart. So whatever they're doing means that someone else has to be there. So if my twin is playing someone over there in the corner, I must join them. It doesn't matter if I want to play with that track. He has that one. We are going together, so I feel like they just don't have space from each other. So the tolerance threshold is so low. So that's when we look at putting boundaries in pest of what's appropriate and what's not, and redirect the action, because sometimes, especially the toddlers, they have so much energy. And they have this sense of authority over life. So okay, I can't let you hit X. You can hit so far like, give them something they can do right now and proactively facilitate one on one time so they can miss each other. And then they, I find that those interactions become nicer. They also kind of feel. Yeah, they would feel weird. And the parents will have to kind of almost force it, because they don't want to be a part.

But I found that very clear boundaries of what's acceptable and what's not, and an awareness that they need space like a lot of times. If this play space is really small, it escalates really, really quickly, because someone's touching them. Someone is crossing the field of vision, or someone, just, you know, looked at them funny, you know. They thought of cry because their sister looked at them right now, and it can be a lot. And at preschool. I think it's a matter of talking with the teachers to foster those independent activities.

And you see it twins that have a strong sense of identity walk into preschool, and they spend most of the day on their own. They love it, or the twins that do get those one on one times. I see it now like they can't stop talking about how it was “just me and you”, or, that they were alone. It's like, “I know, it was special, wasn't it?”. Because, “wow, that's amazing. I didn't realise life can look like that”.

Joan Friedman: I know it's so funny, my mums would say to me, “God, I'm so glad I started to do this because you can go to better restaurants, you know, if you only have one kid, and there's not acting up, you can have a much better time having a dinner together”. It's just very cute. It's true they don't know how great it is to sort of be alone with one of them. It's so pleasant.

Smadar Zmirin: Yeah, and it's different. And it can be scary. Because if they've never had that experience, and being apart can probably feel like you're abandoned.

Joan Friedman: And a part of you is missing. How on earth I'm going to deal with life. I'm only ever co-regulating with my twin. I have no skills to do it on my own, and it's.

Smadar Zmirin: It can feel terrifying for any child who is codependent, whether it's with a sibling or with a parent, if they have to deal with donor. And they have no skills. They're going to panic a hundred percent.

Joan Friedman: Yeah. And that is what you said earlier by so many twins do not have any friends, and it's so sad, especially because when they reach latency. That's when friends become most important. You know 6, 7, 8, and they don't have any friends. They just have each other.

Smadar Zmirin: Was expected to share the friends.

Joan Friedman: Well, even that's hard, too, because then they start to fight over sharing a friend. But at least they would have one friend. Yeah, lots of times they do share friends. But it's a really skewed socialization process that they go through, you know, and it's difficult. And I think so many parents. I've talked to say my twins are very shy, and I can see why they're shy, because they've just grown up with each other, and they haven't been able to, you know, work through. I mean, if a Singleton is shy, they have to kind of go to school. They have to get it together. They have to figure it out. They're still shy, but they cultivate some skills, both of you If you're shy and you have your twin right there…

Smadar Zmirin: Don't have to bother.

Joan Friedman: No, until you do.

Smadar Zmirin: And you said that you only kind of branched out fully when you went to separate colleges. Was that something you were really looking forward to? Or was that something that was scary?

Joan Friedman: We were both really looking forward to it, and I don't. I really wasn't. I think I was too defended to feel scared. I was more excited about the prospect of what that was going to be, because I didn't really realise I was walking into a lion stand there because I had no idea, but I was very excited, very excited, to be on my own, and then it became really challenging to be on my own.

So.

Smadar Zmirin: For the 1st time I can't imagine. I mean that's all you knew, and you chose it, which I think makes it easier than if it was forced upon you. But do you remember how your parents, or your family reacted to that act of branching out? Of embarking on this world of independence? Were they supportive?

Joan Friedman: They were completely absent. They were very absent, I mean. I don't even think it registered that we were doing this. They just were not on. That's a long story. They were not. They weren't like regular parents today. I mean because a lot of parents that I speak to, who are embarking on that with their kids. They are very aware of how the children might be feeling what might be going on. I mean, I'm just in a different generation. But parents today are often, you know, should they go to different schools, and then parents send them to the same schools, and then they have such terrible problems, and they go. Oh, I wish I talked to you sooner. I shouldn't have sent them to different. I should have sent them to different schools. It gets all so muddy and confusing like. I raised my boys and I said, I'm raising you to be independent enough because you both are going to separate colleges. And that's the react. So I made the decision for them and a lot of the things that. And again, I was a crazy woman doing a lot of the things that I did. But it was again something I needed to do. And so they had a lot of separate experiences from, you know the time they were born. So they went to college, and again I had 3 other kids that had already been in college. So I know that the college adjustments is difficult for most people if they're honest about it.

So I knew my boys were going to have difficulty, even though they did have, you know, a lot of time away. So one of them, who had always been very homesick when he went to college, you know he was anxious, and you know we had to help him kind of get on some meds initially, just for a few months, to help him adjust. And then our my other son, who's very shy ,always shy. Always had a hard time ends up having a roommate who was Chinese speaking, I mean, for some for a shy child to have a a Chinese speaking roommate was really hard, and he called me one day and he goes, “Mum, I can't. I don't think I could do this. I'm so miserable I haven't come out of my room”. I mean, I know I knew exactly how he felt, and I said, Johnny, I said “You've got to remember you've been away. You went to Guatemala alone. You went to Drum Camp. You went to Sports camp every time you went alone. You were miserable, but you found a way to handle yourself, and that's what you need to do now. You have to dig in deep to your resilience and your past experiences, and I know you're going to find a way to make yourself be comfortable”.

Of course I got off the phone and I burst into tears, of course, but he did. He joined a fraternity which is what he needed. He needed to find a social group, and you know there's something about having giving children resilience, and you they suffer you. You can't make the world great for them all the time both boys hated. We sent them to these places, hated them for different reasons, but it was all in the guise of you know what, when you really need to be in a situation where you are, you know, freshman in college, and you are expected to function. You need to be able to function. And they did. I mean. Both of them found ways. They stayed in school. They did. Great. They're both married. They all have kids now. I mean it was. But I go back there because parents these days they feel like they can't have their children suffer in any way I suffer, I mean, in the way of being challenged where they have to be challenged. And there's no parental input where the parent feels that they have to save them from challenges and difficulties. I mean, how? How can they learn to sort of trust themselves in difficult situations? So that's my story. And I'm a big believer in, you know. Kids can't be happy all the time, and there's something amazing about facing difficulties, and let them flounder for a little bit. Of course you're there, and you're watching, and you're looking. But this is, you're doing them a service actually in terms of their adult life. You know this is a very hard message. I think parents these days feel very guilty. I feel really sorry for them. They have such pressure to. I don't know, do and be and make everything okay for their kids. And it's in the long run. I don't know what's going to happen to this generation.

Smadar Zmirin: Yeah, I feel like a lot of it stems these days from the whole notion of secure attachment and attachment parenthood, which I feel like for some parents, I feel, are misunderstanding the message in secure attachment.

Joan Friedman: Yes, I do, too.

Smadar Zmirin: Your attachment does not mean your children can have a cry, and it doesn't mean no challenges. And again, especially for the 1st time. Parents. It might be really hard for them to understand what might happen if they will cry, or if they are crying, and I'm not there. What will happen like there is no reassurance, and what I do find for the parents of twins who dreamt of being attachment parents, and they are feeling that's not an option, so the guilt is just unbearable, or if they already had a singleton, then the twins come along. “How can I possibly be an attachment parent?”, and you can build secure attachment, even if your children cry, and what I fear sometimes, and that's when you can only see it down the road where your clients come in because I don't walk with those ages.

Is that sometimes that the pressure on the twinship becomes this very unhealthy, secure attachment. It's not, it's so secure that that's the only way of ever being and branching out of it can be like branching out of a very strong attached mother, and there are no skills for life, and then that is scary. And if for God forbid, something happens to one of the twins, or life happens, and all of a sudden they can't be there because some school policies don't allow for twins to be in the same class, unfortunately. and then you just set them up forever. So yeah.

Joan Friedman: And you know, and they don't realise, you know, they don't know. They don't mean it. They just don't understand. Yeah, it's that's a very good description you just gave. Yeah. So no, go ahead. It's something you said made me think of something, but I forgot. Go ahead.

Smadar Zmirin: Oh, okay, it might come back. I wanted to ask you also, what scared you? And what surprised you in your twin parenthood? What scared you before, what you were expecting, and what also surprised you as a twin parent?

Joan Friedman: I was scared because thankfully, I was not a 1st time mum. I found, that the adjustment to motherhood with my first singleton incredibly difficult, and I was so thankful that I wasn't a mum of twins the 1st time around, because I found it all very not what I expected. So I was. I wasn't so. I was not thankfully not scared, and not pressured with a lot of things that a 1st time mother is. But I was. I was.

I don't love infants. It's never been my forte. I love like toddlers and kids that have a mind and ask you questions. No, babies were never my thing, so I wasn't. I wasn't I was scared, I think not before, but all of a sudden. I they were. They were sitting in their little chairs, and you know David was crying, and Johnny was sitting there staring into space, and I felt disconnected, and I never felt that disconnected with the other 3 Singletons. I always felt like, Okay, I'm on it. I'm in control, not with the 1st one, but a sense of mastery. I know what I'm doing. This is. This is all really wonderful and fulfilling. And then with the 2 of them, I thought, I'm really at a loss here. I do not feel connected to them the way I felt with the other ones. And that was really scary. And then I said, Okay, what do I need to do? And I just organically thought, Well, this is what you do. You spend alone time with each one of them, because that's the only way I'm going to get a connection. And that's what I did. It was like, not an issue, not a conflict, not a problem. It was a solution for me that felt so good. It gave me the sense of mastery and control that I had had with the other ones, and that's why I was so surprised when people didn't think my idea was so fantastic.

I didn't think there's going to be like resistance, because for me. It was. It was such a gift, you know, and I got to know them as individuals, and I also think to my therapist always told me, she goes. You know you've done such a good job of raising 5 individual children, and I think that again was kind of this unconscious need, wish, hope that I could, you know, get to know each one of them as individuals. You know I had never had an experience like that growing up so it was so important for me to find a way into each getting to know each one of them, which is only you can do with sustained attention and time, and you know, carving that out for yourself. So I was struck by not feeling connected.

But what I also loved was again. They're fraternal, and they're very different. And they're boys, but they always they always, and they still do really love each other. And it's, you know, and I think, part of the way my husband and I raised them helped that. But there's not.

There's just not this feeling of animosity or competitiveness, or you know they feel competitive. Their lives aren't completely the same, but nonetheless they have a bond that is so beautiful that I do not have with my twin, and I know why, I don't have it with my twin, and it makes sense given all these extraneous factors that went on.

But I do see that bond with my boys, and I'm telling you it makes me so happy to know that a lot of the work that we put in really did pay off in terms of their connection now as very competent separate adults who really like each other and love spending time together. But it's not. But they have families and wives and kids. And it's not like it's an enmeshment. It's a pure, loving connection of they like each other a lot. And they like being together. And that's the nicest thing.

Smadar Zmirin: Yeah. And I feel like, possibly I mean, you sound like you facilitated, so different to what you had. And obviously every family is different, and every person is different, and you can't always know what will happen. But one of the things that I see a lot coming out on the social media platform is born together, friends forever.

What a pressure to put on a child! Not everybody loves their siblings as it is.

Joan Friedman: Most people don't. If you're honest, you love parts of them, and you hate parts of them, and that's why I've had a lot of parents coming to me. They feel like failures if their twins are not best friends.

And I say I try to help them understand. You know what this doesn't mean you're a failure, you know. That's not the idea that you want, you know. It's not raising them to be best friends. It's actually the healthiest mindset, but exactly to your point. It's like their society or culture, or the Internet. I don't know what, but that's what you're supposed to be best friends forever. And so everyone asked me, Are you best friends with my twin? No, she has her best friend. I have my best friends. Do we feel bad about that. No, but I think everybody else does. Too bad.

Smadar Zmirin: I know it's like it's sad if they are not friends and like I don't know why you think it's sad. I mean, it's nice if they like each other, but it's not a given.

Joan Friedman: Well, yes, it is, I mean when we tell we sometimes we go for a walk, because we live close to each other and so they'll be, and we still look a lot alike. We sound exactly the same. “Are you twins?”, “Are you best friends?” No, we both say no, and they're like, Oh, they're crestfall, and people are crest ball. They don't know what to say after that, you know, it's funny. So.

Smadar Zmirin: What does. Actually, that's 1 of the things I want to ask you, what does being a twin mean to you today? As an adult?

Joan Friedman: Today I feel great about it. I feel so much gratitude and happiness and passion about having learned so many things in my own process that were problematic, that caused me conflict and depression and anxiety and angst, and being able to learn from all of that, and to be able to help others understand. You know some of the more difficult, you know not talked about aspects of being a twin and growing up as a twin and raising twins. I it's I feel like I've been able to take so much of my own problems and turn them into something positive for other people, which I think, is what most therapists need or love to do. They go into the profession because they want to help people with things that they themselves struggled with and possibly overcame. So I feel fortunate. I had no idea my life work was going to take me in this direction at all. Not until I got pregnant with my boys. I never thought that my life would be turning out the way that it has. So I feel so lucky, really.

Smadar Zmirin: Yeah, it's the pain that makes us help others a bit more, I think. No. And so I think for our last question, because I'm mindful of the time, for those parents who are expecting twins, or those parents who already have twins, and they love how similar and alike the twins are, what is one thing you would like to share with them that you feel is important to pay attention to, or to know?

Joan Friedman: Well, I guess it would depend on the ages, but in general I guess I would say, you know, it is really wonderful that your twins are so alike and so close, and it feels like such a gift. But I want to let you know, because I work with a lot of adult twins who find me, who come in, who have some difficulties that focusing too much on their likeness and their similarity and their closeness, you know, makes you unaware of some of their very important individual needs that get overlooked by focusing so much on the twin stuff. You know they don't have the opportunity or the chance to really kind of come into their own, which they will have much more desire to do as they get older. So it's important to start to, you know again, it's that old adage, celebrate the twinship. But try to emphasise the individuality, you know. And again, what does that mean? It's a big order, and nobody knows what it means. And it's different for everybody.

But that kind of is the overarching kind of wish is like, Yeah, it's great that they're twins, and they have a special bond, and this and that and the other. But they're also 2 unique children, and they need to be treated like that, and it's not going to break the twinship. It's going to enhance their twin connection, because as they get older and they want more of their separateness and their own sense of self. They don't have to fight their twin in order to feel like they can get what they want or grow into who they are. That's you know, and I think people just feel that focusing on individuality will sever the twinship tie. I'm so sad because it's a very abstract concept. And if, without the psychology, background or without, you know the all the understanding and expertise that you have, or that I have, it's a very hard message to get across, and of course the message gets across when they call you and say “My twins hate each other. I don't understand it”, or “My twins have no friends”, or “One twin is floundering”, or you know, that's what happens is that you get this call out of the blue, because there's been no real understanding. Again, as you say, through no fault of anyone's, that they didn't realise that this might be a part of what they're encountering.

Smadar Zmirin: Yeah, and that, fair and equal is shooting you in the foot at the end of the day.

Joan Friedman: Oh, my God, that yeah. And as you mentioned, and the guilt about not making things fair and equal it really, I mean, really does twin parents heading, yeah. And it's hard with your 1st kids really even harder not to do the fair and equal thing. That's what they feel like they have to do because they've had no experience feeling guilty. It feels, I mean feeling guilty is part of being a parent, you know. I'm afraid it is, you know.

Smadar Zmirin: Can't get away from it. Yeah. And if you can fix one thing that you don't have to be guilty about is at least giving them exactly the same. So you can feel good about it. And why would that be a problem? How could that possibly be a problem? Well, yeah, you just need to go and really listen to everything we talked about.

Joan Friedman: Anyway, it's been a pleasure talking to you really, really hasn't thank you for contacting me and for valuing my work and letting me go on and on and on about my thoughts and philosophy. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

Smadar Zmirin: Thank you for being here today, John. It's been wonderful for me personally, but also there is so much here that parents can hopefully think about, take away, and possibly start thinking about how they do things at home that might benefit themselves and their kids in the years to come. So they don't have to have all these issues later on.

Joan Friedman: And they don't have to call me yay.

Smadar Zmirin: I know, I know. Okay, thank you so much, Joan.

Joan Friedman: You're so welcome. It's lovely talking to you and meeting you. Thank you. Okay, bye, bye.