Freaks, wierdos, slapstick duos: identical twins on television

After a long, hard swimming lesson today, Matthew and Jonathan kicked back on the sofa with a couple sippies of milk (white for Jonathan; chocolate for Matthew) and tuned into an episode of Olivia, the animated series about an imaginative girl pig who is obsessed with red.
I didn't catch all of it, but I found myself pulled in when Olivia introduced a set of identical twin pigs, who were boys. She mixed up their names, of course, and they pointed out her error. Olivia's response? She laughed and referred to them instead as, simply, "twins."
The identical boys then performed the equivalent of a circus act.
This from Nick Jr., the network that proclaims to defy stereotypes and introduce children to a diversity of peoples and cultures with such shows as Dora the Explorer and Ni Hao Kia-Lan.
I have always been annoyed by the portrayal of identical twins in film and in television. When they are the main characters, they sometimes fare well. But when they are secondary characters, they are most often the slapstick duos, the wierdos, the freaks.
They are not hard to find, particulary in the popular animated televisions series targeted at children-- the Egg twins (Eggbert and Leo) in Oswald; Timmy and Tommy Tibble in Arthur; Susan and Mary Test from Johnny Test-- just to name a few.
Now that we are raising identical twins of our own, I am more than annoyed. I am concerned for my youngest sons and the message that these portrayals relay to them. These shows treat identical twins as hillarious units, as misfits, as circus acts.
And as I look at our boys sitting there on the sofa-- one in shorts, the other in pants; one in a red shirt, the other in yellow; both with their heads cocked in precisely the same position with precisely the same expression on their handsome faces-- I can't help thinking that this is hard enough.
Already, their strikingly similar looks and mannerisms require that they announce their indivual identities daily, something other children never have to worry about. But now they have to fight Noggin too, and PBS and Disney and all the authors out there who use identical twins as devices.
The worst part?
(Maybe I'm overreacting. Maybe they'll never put two and two together. They are smart boys, smart enough to avoid identifying with cartoon characters. Smart enough to differentiate fiction from reality even at three years old. Maybe, I've just had too long a day and this rant is just the result of stress.)
When the identical boys on Olivia performed their clownish act, Matthew and Jonathan laughed.

This your chance: ask an identical twin

I don't know what I'm doing.
And, with a few exceptions, neither do most parents of identical twins.
Most of us have never shared an egg, our DNA and a uterus with another human being.
We don't know how our babies feel about dressing alike, sharing bedrooms or sharing cakes on their first birthdays. We are forced to go with our guts, the advice of others and the few, unproven theories that some folks present as fact.
By the time our twins are old enough to express their preferences, it's too late.
The damage, if there is any, is done.
We've had to wing it.
Until now.
In her new book, One and the Same: My Life as an Identical Twin and What I've Learned About Everyone's Struggle to Be Singular, journalist Abigail Pogrebin makes an offering. She rips open her own relationship with her identical sister, Robin, and lays it out on these pages for anyone to exam.
To help us and to help her better understand their complex dynamics, Abigail interviews an endless stream of identical twins along with parents, spouses, friends and siblings of identical twins. She talks to psychologists, geneticists, obstetricians, fertility doctors, all of them.
She attends the largest twin gathering of them all: Twins Days in Twinsburg, Ohio.
I bought the book Wednesday and started it Thursday.
Today, I am already halfway through.
I can't put it down.
It's funny. It's honest. It's intriguing.
But here's the best part:
I chatted via email with Abigail, a former 60 Minutes producer and a married mother of two children, and she has agreed to answer our questions through this blog. So, for the next two weeks, I will collect questions in the comments section or, if you're too shy, you can email your questions to me at lori@loriduffyfoster.com.
I will then forward them to Abigail and post the answers soon after.
This is our chance.
Should we separate our twins in school, give them their own bedrooms, sing them separate birthday songs? Do they mind sharing first initials, being referred to as a unit, taking baths together as kids?
You won't find a better source than Abigail Pogrebin.
So ask away!