Parents stir controversy with ‘identical’ outfits for their twin sons: ‘They won’t remember how they were dressed’

A mother is rethinking the way she dresses her twin boys after a family member made a negative comment. 

She consulted Reddit’s “Am I the A******? (AITA)” forum for help. The mom has identical twin boys who are 18 months old. To tell the boys apart, she and her husband dress one in green and one in blue. However, when an in-law noticed the color-coding system, they accused the parents of robbing the twins of individuality. 

“I have a set of identical twin boys,” the mom said. “My husband and I are both forgetful, and having a new baby is tiring. I was scared of getting them mixed up. So we decided the older baby, Atticus, would be blue, and the younger one, Ezra, would be green.” 

“Most of both sides of the family know we do this, and quite a few even use it to still tell the boys apart, despite my husband and I being able to know which is which [with] no problem (such as after [a] bath when neither is dressed).”

The color-coding system was never an issue until one of her in-laws commented on it. 

“Since the boys are so young, we let them pick their shirts, but we have a dresser with the top painted blue for Atticus and one with the top green for Ezra,” the mom wrote. “The boys know which dresser belongs to them. They each have an average amount of shirts, just they are either a majority blue or a majority green.”

“We had a Christmas party over the weekend. The boys showed up in a blue sweater with a snowman on it, [and] the other had a green sweater with a Christmas tree on it. My husband’s cousin cornered me and told me that I was stifling the boys’ individuality since I am forcing them to dress how I want them to. When I told her I would probably diversify shirts when they turned 3, she went ballistic, saying that it isn’t fair to them. I tried pointing out that no 18-month-old knows what they are wearing [or] has a say in what gets bought, nor do they care.” 

Redditors sided with the mom on this issue. 

“They won’t remember how they were dressed as babies, and if it makes things easier for you while caring for twins, why not?” a user wrote

“They are your kids, not hers,” another said

“The cousin is wrong. My twins absolutely understand why we color-coded. They can’t even tell themselves apart in photos before age 3,” someone added

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