Soozi Hadj Lazib has her hands full, and keeps getting asked the same thing…
With a week to go until her twins’ first birthday, Soozi Hadj Lazib has had almost a year of being stopped in the street and obliged to talk to strangers about her children. Here are the 5 things she is always getting asked. If you ever meet Soozi (or any other twin mum) and want to pass the time of day, try and think of something else to say!
1. “Double Trouble!”
You may think it’s original, but it gets really quite wearing to have people shout it at you as you’re walking past. It’s in the same vein as “Buy one get one free!”
If I had a pound for every time a man (yes, it’s always a man) had jokingly said that to me, I could probably finance the twins’ entire nappy stash for a month.
2. “Is it hard work?”
Of course it’s flippin’ hard work! I’m always tempted to say, ‘Nah, it’s dead easy – dunno why parents are always banging on about it being hard work’
3. “Did you have IVF?”
Seriously – people do ask this. As if it’s a perfectly acceptable thing to ask of a complete stranger in a public place. I think it’s a bit like asking ‘What’s your annual salary?’ or ‘Are you a folder or a scruncher?’ (yes, I do mean that).
If someone wants to discuss their fertility with a stranger, then they’re quite at liberty to do so, but no one should be intimately questioned on the subject whilst wandering round their local supermarket.
4. “Are they identical?”
I know, I know, they’re twins and they look alike, so it’s only natural to ask. But please bear a couple of things in mind.
Firstly, if one is a girl and one is a boy, they cannot be identical. Fullstop. They just can’t be. Because one is a GIRL, and one is a BOY, which makes them fundamentally not identical.
Secondly, try to hide your disappointment at them not being identical – twins are just two babies born at the same time. Just because my boys look and act like chalk and cheese doesn’t make them in some way, not quite twins.
5. “Do twins run in the family?”
Whatever I say it brings out the genetics expert in whoever I’m talking to.
“Yes,” I say, “my mum’s grandmother was a twin and she had twins”.
“Ah, it always skips a generation”.
Skips a generation? Always? OK, well you’re the expert…
5 Things 
TalesofaTwinMum
November 17, 2011 at 7:22 pm
Ha ha, this sounds very familiar. One more to add to this – “are they twins?” Despite the fact you have two very similar babies/toddlers, probably dressed the same, in a double buggy EVERYONE you meet asks this. Before launching into the “are they identical, hard work” blah blah blah… I admit I do love all the attention, until the stranger tells me that having twins is supposed to be easier than having one, at which point I want to slap them.