"Parents of Identical Twins, what was your "Honey, I switched the kids." moment?" –– This was today's burning question from Redditor flowerpeachtrees, and we have to say... we understand their curiosity.
Cases of mistaken identity are par for the course when you're dealing with identical twins. First the parents must struggle; then, it's the rest of the world. The stories are pretty hilarious, too. Parents and regular folks weighed in!
"When he came back..."
I had a classmate who has a twin sister. One day we - me, her twin, her and her boyfriend - went from school by train. Classmate sat with her boyfriend and I sat with her sister. Boyfriend had to use the toilet and when he was gone, they got an idea - apparently they never tried to switch to see if he would notice. So, they quickly switched some clothes (they were dressed similarly), changed their hair styles and switched the seats. When he came back, he looked at one, confused, then at the other, repeated the action several more times, then looked at his girlfriend and was like "Really?" while he started laughing.
"We were playing..."
We were playing capture the flag, but the teams got to hide their flag. Well each team in my game had a twin on each team, and the one on my team walked over to the other teams side and asked to be reminded where their flag was. He grabbed it and ran back before anyone noticed it was the wrong one.
"Good kids all of them..."
My cousin has 2 sets of twins. They are 21 months apart. She can tell them all apart. They are all teen boys now and damned if anybody else can. Not even their dad.The younger ones look like the older ones too, so that complicates things even more.
(It's like she and her spouse are running an illegal cloning operation out of their home.)
Good kids all of them, they take advantage of their situations to hilarious levels. They love cosplaying storm troopers at conventions. And pull pranks at school a lot.
I've asked my cousin how she knows, she says it's little details. A tiny freckle on one, shallower chin dimple on the other. Slight change in voices. Different clothing styles. Etc. I'm glad she can keep it all straight. I could never.
"They had no real differences..."
Mom of identicals here. Not really one moment --yet-- but I had them by c-section and for some reason it's always bothered me that I may have gotten them mixed up when we finally took the hospital bracelets off. They had no real differences as infants so I think about that at least 5 times a day. They're 4 now.
"I am the younger sister..."
GiphyI am the younger sister of identical twin brothers. My mom was so scared of switching them after removing their hospital bracelets that she painted one of their big toes just until she knew she'd be able to tell them apart.
"Once in my very large high school..."
Once in my very large high school, I had a teacher stop mid lecture, and stated "you're not Twin A, go switch back". When Twin A came back to classroom he was really embarrassed at getting caught and asked how she knew. She didn't have an answer, but apparently they had switched on at least two other occasions. Most people in the class didn't even know he was a twin!
"When I was 4..."
Identical twin here. When I was 4, we were at Disney World with all my cousins who are around the same age. I wandered off for just a minute, and my family took that time to move on to go somewhere else. When my mom was doing a head count, my brother moved and she counted him twice, so it took them a few minutes to realize I was lost.
Some nice strangers saw I was crying and noticed I was lost, and helped look for my family. My dad eventually spotted me, and hopped over a 7 foot fence to come get me. Security didn't like that very much and they almost kicked him out. But everything worked out in the end.
"About halfway through the wake..."
M brothers are twins.
Unfortunately, twin 1 passed away about a year ago. During the wake we had TONS of pictures of him, like way more than even I expected. And one thing my mom would do with them whenever we were somewhere or doing something photo-worthy is take three pictures - one of each twin and then both together.
About halfway through the wake my family realized my mom had accidentally chosen one picture of twin 2 (every other picture but that one was of twin 1). Nobody else at the wake noticed, even the extended family couldn't tell them apart.
Weirdly, it was actually a lighthearted moment. My whole family found it funny that just the one detail slipped through the cracks, we joked that even now both twins were still doing something together. I think we just needed something to laugh at during that time.
"I cringe to this day."
I was in algebra with a boy who's a twin. As a newer kid I didn't realize he had a twin and I never saw them together.
One day I borrowed a pencil from him during class. The next day, in class, I give it back. He was confused AF. I was confused as fuck as to why he was so damn confused, but he took the pencil anyways, then promptly walked over to his brother who was in the same goddamn class to return the stupid pencil. They sat next to one another! I was a dumb kid.
I cringe to this day.
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