#97 Do Twins Need Two Cakes?

Parenting pearls part 2

 A few weeks ago, I published part 1 of my own parenting pearls.  As my twins turn 30, I reckon that thirty years of experience as a mother gives me some gravitas to drop a few pearls. I had twins on September 1, 1993 and then in a spectacular act of chutzpah, gave birth to my third child just two years later on December 3, 1995. Life’s beautiful sense of karma found me with three children under the age of three.

 At least, by the time number three was born, I had a crib. My twins came seven weeks early and my husband and I were woefully unprepared.  At 3:30 am, when my water broke, I picked up the stack of thankyou notes on my nightstand and furiously tried to finish the few cards I had left to write after my baby shower. As a physician at a nearby emergency department staffed with dozens of nurses and doctors, my twins were literally showered with beautiful gifts.

As we drove to the hospital, where I worked, my husband and I made the final decisions on what our daughter’s name should be. Our son’s name was already locked-down. We agreed right at the intersection of Fort Hunt Road and Collingwood Drive. I think of this nearly every time I drive through that intersection.

Unsplash Photo by Alexander Gray

The twins would spend about three weeks in the neonatal ICU with various issues, mainly inability to feed. At four pounds each, they were by far the largest children on the unit. The three weeks gave me time to catch up on my sleep and prepare for when the babies would come home. I can remember going to synagogue for High Holiday Services and having somebody ask me why I was still wearing the hospital ID bracelets for the kids. I had to fight back a few tears to tell her that the kids were still in the NICU.

My first two pearls were about getting as much help as possible and not taking too much for responsibility for your child’s personality traits. My next piece of advice regards how parents can maintain perspective when caring for the kids when things get rough. They will always get rough as all the rules and aspirations for parents become overwhelming.  Ther pressure on parents can be oppressive, particularly for those of us who suffer from persistent thoughts of perfectionism. Some very wise person told me: decide which hill you are willing to die on.

Unsplash Image by Yuri Shirota

It’s a reference to the military truism that you just can’t win every battle.  Sometimes the sink will be filled with dirty bottles and dishes. Many times, my shoulders would be stained with baby spit-ups. Their toys were everywhere and the floor was strewn with books. I allowed them to watch far too many videos to mesmerize them for thirty-minute snatches of peace. You just cannot win every small battle.  Some small matters are just not worth fighting over. Accepting this fact gives parents so much peace and perspective.

If both twins were asleep in their car seats when I got home, I would roll down the windows in the garage and leave them there while I ran to get something done or more likely, grab a nap on the couch right inside. I knew that this sort of behavior would be frowned upon by the parenting police. I had to decide for myself, that I was a good mother.  As an emergency physician, I had an extremely high bar for what I considered unhealthy or unsafe. If their vital signs were stable, we were good. I knew how to handle most of the basic and more troublesome childhood issues. I still sought medical care from professionals when needed, but I never panicked about it.

 As I struggled with their normal, but annoying, sibling rivalries and misbehaviors, I came across something in a book that I cannot properly attribute. It came to be my go-to method of incentivizing. My unofficial motto: never give away the ice cream. In a continual game of dangling the promise of a treat in front of my children, I gently used this bribe/reward to beseech the little monsters to behave. Of course, tying good behavior to a food reward sends me down some other rabbit hole of bad parenting hell.

Unsplash Photo by Hanmer Zh

  I spend a lot of time at a beach resort where I recently saw a toddler enjoying a billowy soft serve ice cream at 10:30 in the morning. Clearly, there was a parent who had given in far too early. I stood in absolute judgement but not without compassion.  Maternal and paternal guilt is strong indeed. The story I concocted in my mind was that the loving parent, who probably goes off to work five or six days a week, had so much guilt and love for her little boy, that when he asked for breakfast ice cream, she capitulated.  I have nothing but love for the lady trailing behind the toddler. I did think, wistfully, how will she get her child to behave for the rest of the day when she has already given away the ice cream?

 My last piece of advice relates back to the illusion of perfectionism in parenting and setting your own standards.  They will have birthday parties and, good Lord, those have gotten completely out of hand. With Pinterest parties and Instagram images galore, today’s parents feel undue and unfair pressure to go higher, spend more money, and overdo the occasion. These memories came flooding back to me as I relinquished the recent 30th birthday party planning to my daughter.

 After making friends with Alyssa, another twin, in her business school class, Leah declared this revelation to me, “Alyssa and her twin brother always got their own cake.”

Mind Blown.

Two birthday cakes? “Are you kidding me,” I told her, “You were lucky that you got one!”  

As a mother with three kids, basically the same age, the time and effort to bake or buy a birthday cake was only going to happen one time for the birthday celebration.  It NEVER occurred to me to bake or buy two cakes. I’m not sure that having one cake ever displeased my daughter, until she realized her friend’s family exposed me as the short-cutting, pragmatic, mean mother that I am.

Twin cakes 9/01/2023 photo by Joan Naidorf

 To give more context, I also have a twin brother. I understand what it means to be a twin and to share one’s birthday.  Now I am not working in the emergency department and I have the perspective of thirty years in the parenting game. The most recent party included craft cocktails and Sancerre by the glass.  We ordered two cakes from an outstanding Italian bakery (Veniero’s in the East Village) and I got the cute little 3-0 candles at the party store. Each twin got their own cake and a joint chorus of happy birthday. There was way too much cake and the leftovers were tossed later that week.

This will end my brief foray into parenting advice.  I have no studies to site or evidence-based statistics to present.  Our family has raised three outstanding children who are kind, considerate, and working adults.  One left a job to go back to graduate school so he is not working. Remember to get as much help as you can, celebrate the people they become, decide which hill you are willing to die on, and do not give away the ice cream. Be kind to yourself and remember, one cake is enough. No cake is just fine too.