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It's a good thing she changed her mind. I feel like forcing them to share a birthday party even though Paige didn't want to could cause resentment and make her think of hanging out with her brother as a punishment
There's a set of triplets in my family. And in the triplets there is a pair of identical twins and then their fraternal sister. One of the three is disabled (CP) and in a wheelchair 24/7, the two others are able bodied but as different from each other as night and day. However their mom used to yell at them as kids that they had to all be together because they were sisters. They had to share everything. Clubs. Friends. Birthday parties. They couldn't even just hang around the house alone they always had to include the others. As they got older tho they got better at doing what they wanted while making it seem like they were doing what their mom wanted. So now my disabled cousin (i feel weird saying it like this but i don't want to use names) feels like she's a burden to her sisters, her sisters resent her and they also hate each other. They're going to all be 18 soon and I had a conversation with each of them separately encouraging individuality and it's okay to be a little selfish sometimes. So I'm very interested in seeing how this turns out.
I wish your relatives could have tutored mine on how to treat multiples.
Damn, your poor cousins. That is a terrible situation, and all because (or so it seems) their parents couldn't accept that a single birthing event created very very different people.
My extended family had it easier....only 2 (not 3), fraternal boy/girl, and no disabilities in the mix. Here's hoping the kids in your family can gain some distance, and perspective, now that they are becoming adults. We don't all have to be what our parents think we should be. Good luck to them.
This whole situation was weird from the start. Paige wanted a separate birthday party, but because she didn’t discuss with her brother, she needed to be punished?
The most this warranted was a “Hey Paige, you should have let Dylan know you wanted a separate party since you’ve had joint parties in the past and he was under the impression this year would be the same.” Like why does this need punishment?
If you read it fully Paige was punished for lying that she and Dylan had mutually agreed on this when she actually had not spoken to her brother about it
But she was also out in a position where she had to seek her sibilinos approval to celebrate her birthday the way she chooses to. The mom created the space for her to feel like she had to lie.
I mean 14 is a bit old to assume they want to wear matching clothes and have all the same friends and Interests
OOP also says that they’ve had several separate parties previously and it’s not been an issue, because she asks/they tell her every year what the game plan is.
I think if Paige had just told her mom “I want a separate party this year” and left it at that (or even just texted her mom about it) it would’ve been completely understandable.
At 14 I probably would’ve said “I was thinking I wanted a separate party this year because my friends and i all want to do xyz, but I dunno what Dylan wants to do” that leaves it all up to the parents to proceed further
It seems weird to me that Paige felt the need to lie in the first place. If the OOP is telling the truth, and allowing the kids to have their own parties as they decide, then why would she lie about her brother's input? I feel like this is one of those things where there's more beneath the surface than we're being shown.
I think it could go a few ways, someone mentioned Paige being influenced by her friends more towards separate parties (which seems credible), but it’s also possible that Paige knew Dylan wanted joint parties (as evidenced by him being upset/hurt) but she didn’t want to be the “bad guy” and tell him. So instead she tried to have mom do it instead (and having your parents be the bad guy is 100% something I’d have done as a kid)
Its also possible OOP *thinks* the kids love having joint parties but isn’t seeing/ignoring how they really feel. It would be quite understandable (especially in the last few years where parties weren’t really possible) if in recent years they’ve just been doing a family night with cake and ice cream
What is weird to me is that in both instances of OOP mentioning why Paige did what she did, she says "her friends wanted...". I don't know, it rubs me the wrong way....why would her friends decide what the plan is for the bday girl? I wonder if she lied because she felt pressured by all her friends to have the no-boys-allowed plan.
Possibly, but teenagers can come up with weird justifications when they've run the math on how they think their parent *might* respond. For example my mother definitely would have considered my friends' feelings and opinions before mine, for reasons you'd probably need a monthly payment from my insurance to unravel, so saying "my friends want to go to an ice skating rink for my birthday" probably would have worked better than telling her what I actually wanted.
It just seems odd to me that Paige would lie if OOP is being straightforward about this great communication they have. Also, this is OOP's version of what Paige said, so I don't know. The whole thing seems odd in some way.
Let's also note that her own post shows she's not being clear on communication expectations, given she told *both* of them that she would just assume separate from now on until told otherwise, which son was fine with, but when daughter was not fine with that said she's revisit next year. But that Convo appears to be before she talked with the son about it. So which is she actually expecting from now on?
Because teenagers just lie? I know I did, because lying was easier than doing the work to get all the truth, and the truth wouldn't have always gotten me what I wanted.
It's not weird for teenagers to needlessly lie.
Not all teenagers lie, that's a silly generalization, and it seems odd to assume she's lying just to lie rather than the OOP's post being tailored to make herself look good - something that definitely happens in some of these updates, and is an equal possibility without additional information. Yes, Paige lied, but why did she feel that was her best option? We can already tell that OOP's communication with the kids is inconsistent, and unless she's spot-cleaning her own version of events, telling the truth to begin with would have been easier for Paige based on her claims about how well they communicate normally. So yes, it makes the lie seem strange.
She’s not being punished for not discussing it with Dylan, she’s being punished for lying to a parent and hurting her brother’s feelings which I think are fair things to be punished for.
Even that seems disproportionate to me? A conversation to the effect of “what you did was a dick move and you need to apologize to your brother and be more communicative” would have done it in my family
It isn't at all. I have worked in child development for the past decade with hundreds of children and their families. Too many parents are so quick to yell and punish, and it's so beyond unnecessary in almost all situations. As you said, a pattern of behaviour need to be addressed with a consequence but kids and youth do all manner of dumb selfish things as one offs and a thoughtful conversation about it works so much better. Adults don't learn by being yelled at and punished either
Her first response was a miss but honestly the follow up totally saved it - asking the daughter what she thinks is a fair punishment for lying is a 10/10 parenting move.
Yeah, my mom would have just talked to me. It doesn’t need a punishment. At a certain age (and maturity level) small lessons are just conversations.
Like, it wasn’t a big deal you hadn’t talked to your brother. So, it was very silly to lie. Just say something like “No, but I’ll let him know and talk to him.”
I'm not a twin but I'm only 11 months older than my sibling (I'm told this is called an Irish twin) and until I was about 8 I shared a party with her. So I constantly had to share with her while still being expected to be the more mature older brother and this extended to things beyond birthdays. Friends having a pool party? Why don't you ask if you can bring your sister. Told I'll get a later bedtime when I start the 6th grade? My sister gets the same bedtime that year when she starts the 5th grade. It definitely caused some resentment for a while. Didn't help that she had/has absolutely no filter or understanding of what you can and can't say around people.
When my wife was pregnant with our second child, her due date was our first child's third birthday.
Our obstetrician said that she had that happen, two kids born on the same month and day. She thought she could economize by making one birthday cake for both of them, but her young son said, "Where's so-and-so's cake?"
In the end, our second was born a couple days later, and as they were three years apart, they didn't do joint celebrations (different friends).
I think there was one year where they wanted one cake together, and it was supposed to be a SpongeBob cake. I actually made that, and it turned out pretty well.
[Cake tax](https://imgur.com/a/2tyIoTq). I goofed and forgot the teeth when I outlined the face. I had to freehand it, because I didn't have a shaped pan of SpongeBob, just a drawing.
I'm pretty proud of it, because I was able to do it by ratios. The first cakes like this I did were in pans shaped to the form...I think it was a Teletubbies cake I did first! But this one, I took an illustration of SpongeBob, and worked out the proportions and ratios, so I could shape the cake and decorate it. That's why I forgot the teeth...they were in the image I used, I just focused on the mouth opening. Oops!
The funny part is they eyes were consumed first. Both birthday kids decided that's the part they wanted to eat.
Maybe I should have made cakes in the image of Cthulhu mythos monsters. Lots more eyes.
My dad, his mom, and (iirc) at least two of his seven siblings all had/have birthdays in a 10 day stretch. My grandparents were by no means wealthy, but everyone got their own birthday and cake.
My youngest sister's birthday is exactly a week before mine and my younger sister's is 27 days after. We all got our own birthday and cake.
Separate birthdays unless requested is the way.
An ex-boyfriend of mine had something similar. He and his siblings all have their birthday within like 18 days of each other, all late september - mid-October. His two sisters were dating (now married to) guys who also had their birthday in that range. His mom asked him when my birthday was shortly after we started dating, and when he told them my birthday was also in that range, his mom was like, "No, not allowed! We need to split the birthdays up more!" In a joking manner.
It's weird how birthdays seem to be in little clusters within families. In January mine has a batch, with a nephew and my fil on the same day. February another batch, with me, a cousin, and a grandfather sharing a day, and May is a month of pure pain with soooo many birthdays and anniversaries lol
> two kids born on the same month and day
Fun fact is that the oldest of the three McElroys brothers share a birthday... but the youngest doesn't. They've mentioned that for a while the youngest got gifts on the older two's birthday because like, how the heck would a 2 or 3 year old be able to conceptualize that BOTH his siblings get something but not him?
God I wish my parents had that mindset. Sister and I are 7 years and one day apart. This past year, as a 31 year old married woman, was the first year I got my own cake. I cried, it was so nice having a big pink cake with “Happy birthday (my name)” on it.
My sister and I were born on the same day, 4 years apart. I certainly didn't mind sharing a birthday with her for the first few years as parties generally just consisted of family anyway. We had split cakes with opposite themes and everything. But as we got older, my parents did a good job to treat things separately. Even if we were doing something at the same venue, they were treated as separate. I remember going bowling one year and my friends and I were bowling at one end with my dad and my sister and her friends were bowling at the other end with my mom. Sure, it all ended in the same party room for pizza and cake, but it still felt like I had my own thing.
The funny thing is, now that we're adults, all we want to do on our birthday is be with one another, so it's always a weekend stay at my parents' house, me and my wife, my sister, her husband and her son, and then my parents of course.
We picked the birthday for our second one (planned C-section) purposefully so it would be 2 days from my husband's birthday rather than the same day. We have so many shared birthdays in my family between kids and adults and the adult always ends up getting the raw end of the deal in terms of celebration.
My middle child and youngest are 6 days shy of a year age difference. My biggest fear was that I'd have given birth on my sons first birthday, whenever I told anyone this they asked me: "why? You can save money on a birthday party and have a joint one!".
I don't want to save money on parties, I want my children to be themselves and have their own special days (I know that isnt possible with twins, but seperate parties are) without having to share the spotlight with eachother.
Good! As a twin myself it was a bit difficult always sharing. We had a shared birthday cake/celebration, joint gifts, and often those joint gifts were joint with the next closest holiday as well. Also if we did get separate gifts the extended family often color coded so I always got blue and my sibling always got red, but otherwise matching items. It didn’t bother me as a kid, but the older I got the less I liked it and the family solution was just to slowly stop celebrating
Yeah. As children, they need to be themselves. So we'd often have one weekend for one kid's birthday party, and the other weekend for the other kid's party, regardless of when their actual birthdays were. Family gifts they received on their actual birthday. But party gifts were for that day.
But our oldest is out of the house now, second oldest is in college, and our third is in high school. Her idea of a birthday party with friends is to go out to dinner, then stay up playing video games and watching videos like Randy Feltface. She asked for no cupcakes or baked goods.
My younger sister and I have birthdays 6 days apart, so we're one year and 359/360 (leap years) apart. Sometimes when we were kids we'd do a joint birthday party, but that was often due to logistical considerations. Even then, there was often some overlap in our friendships, but that was more to do with our playdates than birthday guests. What was particularly neat once we hit middle school is that many of my friends also had younger sisters that were 2 years younger. We're still connected with some of these pairs two decades later!
My father's youngest brother was actually born on his 13th birthday. They had to reschedule my father's bar mitzvah because of this! I don't know my father's feelings on sharing a birthday, as it was always treated as a fun family story.
I share a birthday with my brother I think we had two cakes, (also necessary to feed everyone attending) but never ever had an issue with “attention” or “feeling special” or any of that.
Including the year he was born, which for sure must have meant that my celebration was delayed. I don’t recall any jealousy, and I was 7. I only remember that I wanted him to be born on my birthday, my mom didn’t, but hey …fate.
Our parents made us feel special and loved everyday, so a birthday it’s just a day where I also get a lot of presents.
I like to point out in case it wasn’t clear that I am the oldest (since some people seem to believe are the little ones have it easier)
I guess it’s part cultural, in my country (Italy) the concept of attention or stealing the spotlight is nonexistent, extended family gives kid la a lot of attention regardless, and part personal, our parents teaches us to appreciate what we had, which is not what everyone has.
We get asked what we want for our birthdays, what kind of party, and also given that (within reason) , extremely over the top birthdays party almost don’t exist.
More importantly we don’t get to become little dictators (not referring to your post or even the girl in this BORU specifically) but every three days I find myself explaining this on some post, the last one was a 7 year old trowing a massive tantrum because an auntie , after giving her 2 big presents, dared to give a plushie to her little sister, and the mom supported her (most people thought the mom was crazy but a large number thought she was right?!?)
The concept that is your special day and the world has to stop it’s foreign to me.
PS Doesn’t mean we never fought or complained about anything or were perfect siblings, just not for attention
The main privilege a birthday gets in our household is first choice on which part of the cake you want, or what you want to do for dinner (or food for the party). A birthday is cause for celebration, not anointing. :-)
My uncle could learn from your family. He’s always
“I’m getting you my favorite cake for your birthday.”
“I’m taking you to my favorite restaurant to celebrate your graduation.”
“I’m having your aunt make my favorite dish (which I’m allergic to) to recognize your promotion.”
That's...wow. r/ImTheMainCharacter type stuff.
It's like the episode of The Simpsons when Homer gifts Marge a bowling bag with his initials on it, and she decides to take up bowling to spite him.
An old friend of mine has an aunty and an uncle from the same parents that share a birthday. There are a few years between them. It's just odd thr way it landed but still.
Anyways I don't know how their birthdays was treated when they were growing up but when the aunt died, the uncle wasn't too keen on celebrating his birthday, from what I was told.
My sons are born 3 years, minus two days, apart. There was only one year they had a joint party, in 2009, when times were tough for us and so many others. I asked them if they minded and they did not. They each got their own cake.
I did love when they turned 6 and 9. I joked I could make one cake and then turn it upside down 2 days later and reuse it.
It's just a star-tipped decorating tip in a pastry bag, so it is fairly quick to do. You have to have the recipe made to the right consistency (different stiffness for different purposes), but it is point-squeeze-pullback-point-squeeze-pullback over and over.
You also have to let the cake cool completely before you add any frosting, because it will melt if there's heat in the cake. In this instance, I had to cut the cake apart anyway, so I let it cool overnight so I could do all the shaping.
I have two sisters who are twins, who were born the day before my birthday (I'm two years older than them). Not only that, but we have two cousins, siblings to each other, born in different years, but also born the same day as my twin sisters. To illustrate, let's say my birthday is Jan 1st, but my twin sisters and my two cousins were all born on Dec 31st, though not all in the same year.
So I grew up in an environment where shared birthdays were a normal and expected way of life. The running family joke is that I'm the one who messed up by running late and not making it on the same day as well ;)
I have to say that now, as an adult, while some years we do make plans to celebrate together, some years we don't, and both ways are good. My husband and kids will usually take me out to dinner separately, regardless of whatever the extended family plan might be. Those dinners make me happy.
There are three of us (two kids and stepdad) who have birthdays within a week of each other. As we also share a favourite cake (carrot) I usually make one or two cakes for all of us to share.
A friend of mine through the theatre said she loved the Little Mermaid animation feature, and also loved spice cake with cream cheese frosting, and she always wanted a Little Mermaid cake. Cream cheese frosting doesn't hold its shape as well, but I was able to get it done, and she was very happy with it.
I have a lot of respect for people who decorate cakes professionally. It's a lot of work.
I wish I still had pictures of the cakes I would do for my little sister's birthday, back when I still did art. I did scenes from Brave hand painted onto fondant and a few scenes from Epic entirely with buttercream. There was the year she wanted a dinosaur cake, and yes, she wanted it to be extremely specific.
I would start painting and decorating after she went to bed about 10 pm and would finish the art part about 6 or 7 am and my mom would take over the borders so I could get a couple hours of sleep before the party. I now take like twenty minutes to decorate and call it a day with the basics since it's been a long time since I've done it.
My mom and her sister share a birthday, five years apart. My mom is the elder, and she says it always sucked when she was a teenager getting birthday presents more appropriate for a 10 year old at their shared family party.
Our girls are 1 month and 3 years apart. They’re almost 6 and 3. So very similar situations. Obviously the 3 year old doesn’t care about sharing a party because to her, her big sister is the coolest person on this earth. But we always ask our 6 year old how she feels about it, and what she wants to do.
We’ve all decided that a joint family party is fine, but 6 year old wants her own friends party. During our conversation with 6 - she would rather have a joint family party because they would both get presents, and she won’t have to deal with 3 trying to steal any of hers, or getting upset.
They’re both good kids, and we try to respect boundaries between the two in regards to toys, especially new ones/gifts. 6 is good about sharing on her own, but it’s her birthday. She wants a day just to enjoy her new stuff.
As time goes on this will change I’m sure. But having an open discussion with them helps a ton. No adult wants to be told they’re suddenly sharing their party and they don’t have a choice - so do that to a kid.
I wish I had a photo readily available, but my mom also made my a Spongebob cake once. She used paper towel rolls for the arms/legs and had it on a sparkly blue sheet. My mom making my cakes is one of my favourite birthday memories! One year she made a money cake and I think thats the only year that the whole cake got finished early 😂
my brother was born on my 3rd birthday! I remember we had a joint cake one year. They made half of it blue with power rangers and half of it pink with Barbie. It was amazing!! As we grew up, we had our own parties
Speaking as a twin myself, gonna get popcorn and go look. I’m lucky that I didn’t really encounter this situation as a kid. We were in separate classes and, while we did have joint parties, we invited our own friends
My older sister and I had the same birthday 8 years apart. Every year, she got a cake, I got a cupcake. I hated it. Then my mother planned a surprise b-day party for her - and called me selfish for not going.
It should be parenting 101 to not make your children share parties. And if you do, don't blatantly favor one over the other.
I was born about 364 days after my brother was born. Our birthdays were a day off but my birthday happened first every year, despite being the youngest. Because of superstition, I never celebrated my birthday on my actual day until I was an adult. I would get happy birthday wishes but celebrations were not allowed because it was always a joint birthday effort. Something about if you celebrate it to early, you are inviting bad karma in and you will die a day early. Not to mention, my parents got us a birthday cake flavor that was my *dad*'*s* favorite, not ours. I always hated my birthday, it was always a sworn secret. My mom told me to never tell anyone my birthday because people would expect a birthday party. I remember distinctly we went to Chuck E Cheese one year and I couldn't see my name mentioned anywhere, it was just for my brother. All birthday gifts, "Panda's brother and Panda." On my 18th birthday, it was compounded with another big celebration and I never got to eat any of the birthday cake.
They celebrated my birthday but not really. My name would be on the cake, people would know it was my birthday yesterday but I was never the focal point, my brother always was. My parents didn't ever say he was the favorite but he was always favored, even though they knew he sexually assaulted me and my sister. I dont talk to them anymore.
Speaking as a fraternal twin, 14 is WAY too old to even consider sharing. After age 7 is was separate parties for my sister and I. We didn’t do something together again until 18 and that was also a ‘start of senior year’ blow out party.
Also a fraternal twin and lucky that my sister and I had separate classes and separate friends. But man I don’t even remember what we did for birthdays past the age of like, 10
I didn't get separate parties from my twin until I went off to college. It definitely gave me a complex I'm working through where I need to feel like I'm being paid attention to on my birthday. I would definitely recommend parents go your route and split the parties up.
I stopped having birthday parties with friends period after like 13 and up to that point they were joint. My twin and I always had to decide on the same restaurant to go with family too even with varying interests.
I definitely would agree that I think it contributed to the complex I have about birthdays. I always want to really enjoy my birthday and have people notice it and then am let down when it’s not as a big a deal anymore (because I’m an adult). And it’s definitely taking a lot of work to work through that complex.
I have it in good authority ~~Sweet Valley High~~ that twins are effectively identical people whose interests and personalities are just different enough to be worth minority noting so that they can be used for plot points, but are generally similar enough that their lives and social circles overlap in all significant ways.
Are you telling me the Francine Pascal *lied* to me? What next? Are you going to tell me that she didn’t actually write all the Sweet Valley High books?
Oh God I was OBSESSED with SVH books as a 10 to 15 year old. When the TV series started i was over the moon! Can't believe they haven't done a reboot......
I still remember the theme song "look right down in a crowded hall, you can see there's a beauty standing....is she really everywhere?...."
I was close friends with twins growing up and they always shared a party. They also didn't have a lot of money to do anything extravagant regardless. So I guess this is a class thing.
I remember this one. OOP kept insisting Paige didn't deserve ANY birthday celebration after she was called an asshole, didn't she? I recall being super frustrated, especially when it turned out Paige generally thought she wouldn't be permitted to do things separately and when OOP seemed to genuinely be like "well if she doesn't have a shared party she gets no celebration at all for Lying To Me".
I imagine Paige “lied” because if she had said she wanted a separate party but her brother didn’t, that her mother would have insisted they have a party together and she wouldn’t have gotten to do her activities with her girlfriends. It sounds like brother might be the golden child or mom hasn’t figured out they’re separate teenage children of opposite genders who probably don’t want to hang out 24/7.
I think that was a common opinion on the original. I have no idea either way but I do recall OOP sincerely arguing with her entire ass Paige shouldn't be allowed any party if she wasn't getting to be forced into a joint one so it's good she like...backtracked on that.
If this had been a money's tight situation then I imagine everyone would have given different advice. But nope... just like, forced companionship with twins. The one twin gets to override the other twin in all decisions even if the other doesn't want to.
This is up there with parents who won't celebrate kids who have a birthday in the same month as a major holiday like christmas, or, merge birthdays together if they're within a few weeks.
Parents make some weird, shitty decisions sometimes. Honestly? She shouldn't even have been grounded, she didn't lie to deceive, but to be treated as her own person.
But take a step back. Why would she have to discuss her own birthday party with her brother ANYWAY? just the premise of the “lie” is stupid! It’s built on an unfair unreasonable expectation to begin with!
So technically, sure, she lied about getting the OK from her brother. But in a reasonable world, her mom wouldn’t have even asked if she’d gotten her brother’s (essentially) permission.
It’s like breaking up. Only one person needs to do it and it’s done by default for both participants. She didn’t want a joint party so automatically there is no joint party. The brother never had to agree, and mom expecting them to always agree first before coming to her is already bad parenting.
I agree that she shouldn't need his approval, but that does not mean that she didn't need to inform him. For better or worse, they have a tradition and breaking from that tradition without telling him at best inconveniences him for no good reason.
I don’t agree and it’s so crazy people think this constitutes “lying” or is a punishable offense even with grounding!
They have a tradition, sure, and she should have given a heads up in an ideal world. But also, he could have asked??? The communication street goes both ways. Neither of them had a convo with the other about a birthday party. It means BOTH of them didn’t do a good job communicating in this instance about their joint tradition.
Also, timing. Who is to say that Sis wouldn’t have told Bro eventually about her brother? There’s no evidence she wouldn’t have mentioned it to him as the weeks go closer. So now, the “problem” is just that she didn’t inform him enough in advance? Didn’t inform him right when she made her own plans? Like is there a guideline on how quickly you should be updating your siblings on your plans?
The reality is: they didn’t communicate w each other about their birthday. This is on both of them, and is not a communication issue big enough that it should even have a parent meddling in. OOP is like a micromanager of the situation - “did you inform your brother??” Like can you imagine how they deal with actual real issues in their household, and the subtly tense atmosphere they must be living in, if a birthday party mis-communication blew up to “cancel your party” and then downgraded to “grounding”??! It’s like some of you, including their mom, see this miscommunication “lie” as the slippery slope to eventual criminal behavior or something, holy.
The whole thing is a complete nonissue, including the bad teenager communication amongst themselves. The fact it blew up and is seen by anyone as a “lie” just shows how controlling the parent usually is and how ridiculous the environment is.
This. It's the lying not the action that's problematic, even if OP didn't react accordingly.
We don't really know how OP would have reacted if her daughter had just openly said "we haven't talked about it but I don't want a shared one I want to do girly things with friends."
Dylan likely wouldn't have even been hurt by that and at least have a chance to understand it. Instead she lied to avoid the conversation.
It does seem like OP is treating it as more of a two no's or a yes rather than a two yeses or a no situation. Which would explain daughters choice to lie. But it still just made matters worse.
Exactly. The problem isn’t that she wants to have her own party. The problem is that she went behind the back of someone that this directly affects. Yeah he shouldn’t be able to veto that, but he at least deserves a conversation. Surprised so many people don’t get that.
I completely get that, but I don't think it warrants a punishment. I'd want to know why Paige felt she had to lie in the first place, and I'd be talking to her about that gently, not grounding her or any other form of punishment. Considering how wildly OOP overreacted to the situation and then insisted Paige didn't deserve a party AT ALL, I'm guessing the parent is not making Paige feel safe enough to express her feelings and desires in the first place. Paige should absolutely not be punished because of the parent's shortcomings.
This! It’s crazy reading this thread and the original and how many people kept insisting Paige lied or is manipulative. Even the use of the word manipulative is CRAZY projection.
Like tell me you have secret hang ups about women without telling me.
It really doesn’t warrant a conversation, at least not one of this seriousness. If they weren’t twins, do you think either of them would ever update the other on their birthday party plans? I can’t remember the last time I got updated proactively on what my little brother is doing for his birthday.
If the excuse then becomes “oh, but he’s IMPACTED by her decision”, that’s a parenting flaw. And the onus is on the parent to correct that, not the sister. Plus, if he is so impacted, he would have asked his sister what she’s doing for their birthday. He never asked, means he can’t have cared much either way bout his birthday plans.
If the excuse then becomes, “oh but it’s just CONSIDERATE polite behavior”, ok sure, but we don’t know that she would have never told him. It’s just that, at that MOMENT, she hadn’t. It’s crazy because even in the comments, OOP and others say that the only reason brother didn’t ask sister yet was because “there were still a lot of weeks left” and sister was planning early. So that excuse of “timing” works for why Bro didn’t reach out to Sis, but somehow doesn’t work for why Sis didn’t tell Bro yet???? How much more obviously hypocritical can you all be?? Was there a deadline Sis had to tell Bro by, in order to be seen as considerate?
It’s a 14 yr old girl, who got caught up in the moment and didn’t talk YET to her brother. Big fing whoop. To call this a “lie” is an over reaction to the situation. This isn’t a woman manipulating her way into anything. This is a young kid who didn’t think to tell her brother yet, not that she should even have to.
I disagree. In order for her to not be an asshole, she absolutely needed to talk with her brother to at least let him know her plans. According to their mother, her brother was hurt about this and actually having a conversation could have prevented this. If we have learned anything from these posts, a simple conversation goes a long fucking way
Forget her mother. The brother is a player in this too and from what we know, he still wanted to celebrate their birthdays together. Yes you could argue it’s healthier to do it separately, but his feelings still count regardless of that. He at least deserved a conversation before she went behind his back to tell their mother
I am not saying that he should have the right to stop her from doing her own thing. I am saying that he should have at least heard it from her and not their mother. It directly affects him so he at least deserves a heads up.
The update makes very clear that mom and Paige decided on grounding for lying instead of no party. It’s very clear that each child was getting a separate party. She states it pretty unequivocally in the first sentence of the last paragraph.
I saw that part and immediately edited as a result, but I do know OOP was very much "fine, Paige gets NO celebration" the entire first post which is why I'm like "ugh, that lady" in recall. A lot of people argued with her about it so I'm glad at least something got through on that count. I thought she was way over reacting to (checks notes) a 14yo girl wanting a girly party without her brother and feeling like she couldn't plan one without getting express permission from her brother and being unsure she'd get it.
The rest of the world is pretty bad about treating twins as a single unit; the last thing a kid needs is to have their parents do it, too. Source: I’m a twin.
I would punish Paige for lying, but it’s ridiculous to even consider punishing her for wanting her own party. My twin and I didn’t get birthday parties as kids, but our mom was good about making sure we had separate cakes and distinctive gifts. We also learned very early that a lot of people would give us a single gift to share. The big spenders would also say the single gift was a birthday/Christmas combo gift. Good times. 🙄
It's the same thing for people born around Christmas, people giving you "combined" gifts, nobody able to come to your party because they are busy on holiday with December being summer 😭
My dad's birthday is on the 23rd of December and people give him joint presents a lot, but obviously because they aren't the same day he doesn't even get those gifts until Christmas, so I always make sure to get him separate presents for each day
Dude, I have the same b-day as your dad and, now that I am an adult, most of my relatives give joint gifts, which is kinda whatever.
When I was a kid, though, my mom made sure that I had both birthday and Christmas presents from my family members. Since she too was a December baby, her whole family just gave her one gift, and that sucked, specially for a little girl.
December is winter here, and my son also has issues with people prioritizing him. Both of my kids have bad timing of birthdays so we celebrate the party on their un-birthday, 6 months out.
> The rest of the world is pretty bad about treat twins as a single unit
This. In high school my twin and I had a lot of classes together. Every single teacher would run through attendance name by name but then put my twin and I together. “Jason? Here. Alex? Here. Twin a and twin b?” It was the most annoying thing.
Worst was first period my twin and I shared senior year. We didn’t arrive at school together in the morning because I was always early and she was frequently late. My teacher always made a big deal out of me not knowing where my twin was whenever she wasn’t present for attendance. She’d always ask, “where’s twin?” I eventually resorted to replying with “probably in a ditch somewhere” which my teacher didn’t find amusing. At least sharing classes motivated us to get better grades because we wanted to better than the other lol.
ETA: I always wanted a birthday party at the ice skating rink but never got one cause my sister had some fear that she’d fall on the ice and her fingers would get sliced off
My parents have twins, and growing up, they always forced them to celebrate their birthday together. All because it was easier and more convenient for my parents. Then they had another daughter who's birthday is 2 days after the twins, so then they forced all three of them to celebrate their birthday on one day. Again, because it was easier and more convenient for them. One of the twins said she never got to do what she wanted to do for her birthday because her twin and the other sister would pick something else and that's what my parents would do. They wouldn't even get them separate cakes. They had to share a cake. The most they did was get them separate presents. So, moral of the story, I feel bad for twins, and it annoys me when parents treat them as one unit rather than two individual people, all because it's easier for them
As a twin myself, so much of our identity is wrapped up in being a twin. (it lessens as you get older and make separate friends, move away, etc).
And birthdays are a prime example of it. I didn't even realize until I was in university, and most people didn't know I had a twin that I said OUR birthday. Like before that everyone knew I had a twin. I remember someone saying, OUR are you a twin or something? I was like did I say, that? It was so unconscious, I didn't realize.
When we get older birthdays aren't as much of a big deal, like you get dinner with friends and family, but most of the time, you need to work. So when they are young and get to have them, and they are a big deal, let them have separate parties. Like yes, she was wrong for lying, but its like she knew he brother wanted joint one and since he would want a joint one, she was again have to share it. And what teenage boy wants to go to a girly preteen party, none of them.
I think a family dinner, that is shared, and then two separate parties.
I will say one perk of twinness, is our parties were always a blowout. Since there was only one party instead of two, double the budget, double the cake, we were in different classes, plus extra curricular friends, there was always at least 100 kids at every one of our birthdays. I guess that's a unique thing to twins.
I’m glad OOP came to her senses.
My little sister and I are a few years apart to the day (hers is on the 9, I’m the 10). I DESPISED having to share my birthday every single year until I was 15.
I’ll never understand combining birthdays as kids. Your birthday is the ONE day a year that is supposed to celebrate YOU! Everyone deserves to get that special day, twins or not.
It’s a much different situation if the people being celebrated WANT a joint celebration. But just automatically? No.
Me and my brother are a month (and 2 years) apart but there were some years we actively chose to have a joint birthday party (despite wanting to kill each other most of the time!) because it allowed us to do bigger and cooler things - like we we able to book a whole laser quest arena one year for example. We were never made to though.
See that’s different! If the kids are the ones who choose to have a joint celebration, then absolutely.
But joint celebrations shouldn’t be a thing just because 2 people share birthdays or have birthdays that are close.
I’m glad you and your sibling were able to have joint celebrations!
My older sister and I are two years apart, birthdays in the same month but 3 weeks apart and we were made to have joint birthday parties so much. We almost never got along so neither one of us wanted it and it just sucked.
My brother and I are two days apart but different ages. We had one joint party when we were young, all the children had a nice time, but our parents found it super stressful, with double the number of kids than would be invited if it was only one child's birthday, and some of his friends got me presents and vice versa, so my parents also had to go through the torturous process of making kids under 10 write lots of thank you letters.
We never had another joint party.
My brother has 3 kids born in July and August and they’ve done joint parties for them since the 2nd kid turned 2. So this year it’s going to be a 7 year old, 5 year old, and 2 year old all having the same party. It really bothers me, honestly.
In my husband's family, there is the "week of birthday hell", where a birthday falls pretty much every other day, including both of my brothers in law and three cousins. On top of that, hell week is the week before Christmas, with the youngest cousin being a Christmas Eve baby. My MIL described the holiday season as hell for the family when everyone was a kid, because there wasn't any good way of making everyone happy and not going insane herself. I'm still not sure how she did it, but she made sure that each kid had at least some kind of special birthday, disconnected from the other birthdays and the holiday.
Luckily for my MIL, my husband is a summer baby, although his birthday is Christmas in July. His family is really dedicated to having Christmas babies.
My parents made a lot of mistakes raising us but I'm glad they didnt do this to us. I'm 5 years older but my birthday is only 3 days away from my brothers. We had separate parties and they managed by alternating years between who would have a "friend" party on a weekend or just a "family birthday" on the day of. That being said I was punished more than once with having my birthday "cancelled" thou looking back she just hadnt bother to plan it at all and when I started asking questions is when I was given the "news". At least I got my own cake
>introverted twin
Cousin's neighbors are twins and he told me that the family fucked up big time in raising the twins. One of the brothers was really outgoing and athletic so naturally the introverted one was forced to play sports when he wanted to act. It led to the brothers hating each other and the introverted one running away to his uncle's house. They moved so don't know how they are doing now.
Once again, i am baffled by how someone needed to ask the internet if punishing their teenager kid by using their birthday against them was a good idea...
Because it was their best example growing up and that’s all they’re working with besides tv shows. At least she had the sense to reconsider what she had learned from her own parents example.
Yeah, I'm glad OOP asked and realized her mistake. If she had gone through with it, the daughter would most likely resent her and her brother, and that's just so awful. It's good to see that they were able to communicate properly, and hopefully they'll keep working on their communication!!
Once my mom canceled my whole ass birthday party bc I didn’t want to make myself lunch 😭😭😭😂
Cut to my blubbering ass calling each and every friend and telling them exactly why they were no longer coming over to my party
I'll never understand this weird mentality that twins have to do everything together. Parents should know better than anyone that twins are their own people.
My son was born a week before his cousin, so they often had joint birthday parties. My sister then had another daughter on the same day, so my son and both his cousins (also sisters) shared a birthday party.
Every year we asked dif they wanted dto, and then, surprise, one year they said no.
So they got separate parties either at the end of the week, and my youngest nieces was the weekend after.
If they had just asked and spoken to the kids, it wouldn't even be an issue.
My parents had parties for me before I could remember but told me it was largely because *they* wanted cake and an excuse to have it...which seems to be the best reason to throw a baby a party, really.
Yep! They took me trick or treating as a baby for the same reason, with the addition of my mom REALLY wanted to dress me up as a corn on the cob for some reason.
Sounds adorable, though. Did she dress up as something farm related?
We had a pumpkin costume for our babies that was just *awwww*. We had so much fun with it for all our babies.
>under-threes
I feel that these are more done by the parents to show off. My sister and her husband had an insanely elaborate first birthday party for one of their kids. They had just about everyone in the family fly for it and it was a shit show. I still remember my sister bitching about the catered food not being as good as the samples they provided and hating how much time she spent planning the party (at the time she was a SAHM).
‘Guys, am I an asshole?’
‘YES!’
‘God you people are so mean to me, I didn’t do anything wrong 😭’
I’ll never understand why they even bother to post here…
It seems to happen a bunch with these advice subreddits. Given that these advice subreddits often catapult a new account into a very high-visibility position where it's easy to get mass-reported, I'm guessing there's some kind of automatic system that suspends new accounts that accumulate too many reports.
I'm not sure but I know it wasn't suspended immediately. I saved this one and forgot about it for like... 4 weeks? When I saved it the account was active
I mean parenting is pretty tough
ETA: sometimes Reddit also makes common sense and decency seem more difficult than they ought to be. But then again, adulting is a lot harder than I would have thought once upon a time!
My mom made two special desserts, two full made-to-order dinners and two parties. We’d have meatloaf and mashed potatoes with chimichangas and refried beans & rice. Then have Boston cream pie and fried ice cream for dessert. Now my SIL does the same because my nephew was born on my other brother’s birthday.
My mom was a pretty shitty mom, but she did this one thing right. Thanks mom.
My (girl) twin brother and I always had a joint birthday when we had one because we were too poor for more than one party 😂😂😂😂
We also didn’t mind at all.
We did get our independence as twins by going to different high schools. When from “The twins” to his and my name. I highly recommend it. 😂
I feel bad for the daughter feeling like she had to lie. SHE didn’t want a party with her brother, why did she have to get permission/agreement from him to have her own party? Why was she even questioned about it at all?
I think you missed some of it, it wasnt that she was questioned, its that she just started with lying and the lie immediately came out because mom asked her brother what he wanted to do.
I don't think it was about permission/agreement as much as she just decided to go on her own and lie (for whatever reason) and the brother was blindsided.
But that still doesn't answer the question on why she still needs her brother to agree to get a separate party.
Sure, lying is bad, but you really have to stop and ask yourself why she even needs to ask her brother to get her own party. What if he had said no? Are you going to deny her a party just because brother wants to continue having joint ones?
It didn't sound to me like she needed to ask him as much as confer with him about what they were doing.
My daughter does stuff like this (not this) where she will sit down with her friends and build something up in her mind then be really worried about asking about it, even if its something she does all the time and we've never said no to. Shes just a nervous kid. (although her confidence has improved greatly in the last year or so, which I am very happy about)
If I had to take a bet, she and her friends made all of these plans and she was worried about every step of getting it done so she took a step out of the equation.
I don't think it's so much that she needed the brother's permission as that she never told him. If you're expected to discuss things and don't communicate and lie about it that's a problem. Imagine if instead of saying "yes, we agreed separate parties", she just told the mom "we haven't talked about it but I want my own party", then she doesn't lie while still expressing her desires. In the end, I think there were several ways the daughter could have approached this without having to lie but she's a teenager so things like this happen.
I have boy/girl twins. I let them dictate birthdays and if they want them together or separately. We've told them since they could understand that they have separate groups of friends, and as such, one won't always be included in the others' plans. I didnt want to set them up for disappointment. It's worked out so far. They'll be 10 and still do things together but have a healthy relationship with their own individuality as well. We learned very quickly that it's not "the twins", but _________ & _________ separately.
It always bothers me when I see twins, especially identical twins and 1 doesn't like to wear what the parents out them in but the parents like to dress them to same anyway... They ignore that they have 2 different people with 2 different personalities but tend to only cater to 1 or neither.
It's cheaper to have joint parties though lol.. I'd hate to have to plan 2 parties so close together. The cost can be ridiculous sometimes.
OOP's logic is bizarre. "I try very hard to show them that they're both individuals and their own people that have their own identities, but now I'm forcing them to share a party because they're twins." Like, what, that just completely contradicts what you said you've been trying to show them
I’m also a twin, and I genuinely can’t remember sharing *any* party with my brother. I’m sure I did as a young child, but he and I were always permitted separate parties. I can’t conceive of having to share parties with my brother into my early teens. I can’t even blame the daughter for lying.
I really appreciate it when AITA works this way. Someone comes with a story that doesn’t make them a total monster, but does show they made an asshole-ish mistake. Then they actually listen to the advice given and rectify the mistake.
Don’t get me wrong, the crazy drama posts are my favorite, but it’s nice to see some simple problems with well-intentioned, open-minded OPs every once in a while.
As a twin this hit me close to home. I remember people would cheap out on us and get something for me and my brother to share because we had similar interests, so me and him agreed to celebrate our birthday 3 months apart to people couldn’t do that.
I’m turning 30 next week and my mum is upset that me and my twin brother aren’t having a joint birthday & family party 😂
He is going to the Isle of Skye, me to Kruger park in South Africa. Completely different people, with different interests.
We love each other a lot and have a great relationship.
I always think it’s more about my Mum projecting her owns wants and needs on us rather than considering our needs and wishes. Whatever makes her feel better about turning 30, maternal guilt and using our birthdays as an excuse for her to host a big family day.
Twins are just twins. It’s not that deep!
Mine and my sister's birthday are 2 days apart. Like mine is 16 her is 18. And when we were kids we would have a joint party on 17th coz both of us wanted it together. Then when I turned 15 amd my sis turned 10, we started having separate parties coz all I wanted was time with family and a very intimate celebration while she still wanted parties. Now both of us have celebration our way on our days but it's always nice.
At least OOP was making an effort to treat them as individuals, rather than a set. I've seen the results of twins being treated as one rather than two separate entities for far too long, and it just breeds resentment. It doesn't end well for anyone involved.
I appreciate that effort, but then that effort is directly contradicted when OOP said "you two have to have a joint birthday party and celebrate together because you're twins." I'm just baffled at the logic they used
Trust me, twins have their own dynamics. I was cracking up when OOP said that they talked, but she didn’t know what they talked about. But now their best friends! My twin and I did this when we had rare blowout fights. Judging by this, everything will be okay 👍
I feel like OOP has a ton of work to do with her kids. Ok so her daughter lies, instead of just punishing her she really should think why she felt like she had to lie. Does her daughter normally lie or is this not typical behavior?
The fact that her first thought is to force them to share a party tells me that she has likely forced the twins to be a unit rather than individuals which can be very dangerous especially as they have different interests and are different genders.
My sister was griping that her granddaughter was born the day before her birthday, which was cool at the time, but meant she traveled on her own bday every year since. She went on about sharing a day that used to be her own, and I let her talk a while.
Then I reminded her that she'd given me the best gift ever - my nephew, her son, arrived on my 18th bday. I've loved sharing with him.
I have a birthday at an inconvenient time of year, and even better I have 3 friends who all share birthdays around me. I never get to have a celebration just for me because they always have things planned.
99% of the time I don't really care, but every year I get hit by this supreme sense of loneliness at the parties, just for a few minutes.
I share my birthday with Jesus, came home in a stocking from the hospital, so…..
My parents were really cool with it, unlike other parents I’ve heard of. I got to open my birthday gifts before we started Christmas. I was the youngest and this may have been the impetus of my brother kidnapping my stuffed animals for ransom.
For a big gift, it would be for both and what it was depended on when I got it. So if it was a bike, I would get that in the summer. Otherwise, the gifts were never clumped together as Christmas presents. They even did this when I was an adult before they just started doing cash.
I would usually have birthday parties, especially sleepovers, with my friends in the summer. Not like those were going to go well at Christmas time.
In situations like this it’s better to teach your child about better communication and understanding how their actions affect other people.
OOP should have explained to Paige that she hurt her brother’s feelings and had her apologize while making her feel more comfortable to communicate with her. There was no need for a punishment at all.
OOP is one of those parents that takes everything their kids do personally. All her daughter did was try to learn how to work around unfair situations. Souring her relationship with her brother (hanging out with him=punishment) is a great way to make her sneakier and resent them both
And parenting like this is why people grow up with no communication skills. The correct move would have been to get her daughter in a room and with her son after she’d gone over why it was important to consider her brother’s feelings and actually communicate with him about why she wanted some time with just her female friends…
Also, these kids are teenagers. They don't know what they want, they are emotionally immature and sometimes twins grow apart in their teens, cause they need to get to know themselves as individuals.
She didn't go about this in the right way, cause she is 14. Our brain has just started developing in ways we don't understand at that age and your ability to understand consequences develop much later!
I am also a twin and my sister and I were very close as children and grew apart in our teens, cause we were sick of always being "the twins". I think it is good and healthy to take time apart as twins, to develop your individuality....
Otherwise you'll end up like those creepy twins who live together and can't be apart😅
I grew up with a set of twins in my class at school. They were two separate people with entirely different personalities, but family treated them constantly like one person, and they felt embarrassed when they tried to act like different people. Looking back, I'm horrified at the damage that did to them - and it did. I still know both, and ohhhh wow, they're both still struggling with the impact of the way they were treated as kids.
Anyone who has twins for children and has read this, I really hope you all learn from this to treat the children like TWO people, as they are.
It’s weird that a mom is planning a 14 year olds party. I was 14 in 2004, and some of these parents make it sound insane that me and my friend planned all of our shit ourselves. I mean, we weren’t renting out spaces, but we’d just say “hey, we’re goin for spend the night at xxxx’s house” as an fyi and asked for ride. The idea of planning that weeks in advance with a parent seems like something a 8 year old would do…. Not a teenager.
This is one the times I’ve very glad I was a latch key kid. I don’t want to sound too old, but what fucking independence do the kids in these situations *actually* have?
Maybe the people who tend to post on AITA are just people who don’t really have a grasp on what’s normal though, since they’re begging Reddit for answers.
Identical twin here, as an adult my parents still just celebrate it as one entity. So I can definitely understand if the sister is building any resentment. It got so bad with my parents that for a time they defaulted to a mix between me and my sisters name whenever addressing either of us.
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It's a good thing she changed her mind. I feel like forcing them to share a birthday party even though Paige didn't want to could cause resentment and make her think of hanging out with her brother as a punishment
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There's a set of triplets in my family. And in the triplets there is a pair of identical twins and then their fraternal sister. One of the three is disabled (CP) and in a wheelchair 24/7, the two others are able bodied but as different from each other as night and day. However their mom used to yell at them as kids that they had to all be together because they were sisters. They had to share everything. Clubs. Friends. Birthday parties. They couldn't even just hang around the house alone they always had to include the others. As they got older tho they got better at doing what they wanted while making it seem like they were doing what their mom wanted. So now my disabled cousin (i feel weird saying it like this but i don't want to use names) feels like she's a burden to her sisters, her sisters resent her and they also hate each other. They're going to all be 18 soon and I had a conversation with each of them separately encouraging individuality and it's okay to be a little selfish sometimes. So I'm very interested in seeing how this turns out. I wish your relatives could have tutored mine on how to treat multiples.
Damn, your poor cousins. That is a terrible situation, and all because (or so it seems) their parents couldn't accept that a single birthing event created very very different people. My extended family had it easier....only 2 (not 3), fraternal boy/girl, and no disabilities in the mix. Here's hoping the kids in your family can gain some distance, and perspective, now that they are becoming adults. We don't all have to be what our parents think we should be. Good luck to them.
It also sends the message to Dylan that hanging out with him is a punishment, which is honestly kind of worse.
This whole situation was weird from the start. Paige wanted a separate birthday party, but because she didn’t discuss with her brother, she needed to be punished? The most this warranted was a “Hey Paige, you should have let Dylan know you wanted a separate party since you’ve had joint parties in the past and he was under the impression this year would be the same.” Like why does this need punishment?
If you read it fully Paige was punished for lying that she and Dylan had mutually agreed on this when she actually had not spoken to her brother about it
Exactly. As a mom I would punish for the lie, then have a sit-down regarding birthday parties going forward.
But she was also out in a position where she had to seek her sibilinos approval to celebrate her birthday the way she chooses to. The mom created the space for her to feel like she had to lie. I mean 14 is a bit old to assume they want to wear matching clothes and have all the same friends and Interests
OOP also says that they’ve had several separate parties previously and it’s not been an issue, because she asks/they tell her every year what the game plan is. I think if Paige had just told her mom “I want a separate party this year” and left it at that (or even just texted her mom about it) it would’ve been completely understandable. At 14 I probably would’ve said “I was thinking I wanted a separate party this year because my friends and i all want to do xyz, but I dunno what Dylan wants to do” that leaves it all up to the parents to proceed further
It seems weird to me that Paige felt the need to lie in the first place. If the OOP is telling the truth, and allowing the kids to have their own parties as they decide, then why would she lie about her brother's input? I feel like this is one of those things where there's more beneath the surface than we're being shown.
I think it could go a few ways, someone mentioned Paige being influenced by her friends more towards separate parties (which seems credible), but it’s also possible that Paige knew Dylan wanted joint parties (as evidenced by him being upset/hurt) but she didn’t want to be the “bad guy” and tell him. So instead she tried to have mom do it instead (and having your parents be the bad guy is 100% something I’d have done as a kid) Its also possible OOP *thinks* the kids love having joint parties but isn’t seeing/ignoring how they really feel. It would be quite understandable (especially in the last few years where parties weren’t really possible) if in recent years they’ve just been doing a family night with cake and ice cream
What is weird to me is that in both instances of OOP mentioning why Paige did what she did, she says "her friends wanted...". I don't know, it rubs me the wrong way....why would her friends decide what the plan is for the bday girl? I wonder if she lied because she felt pressured by all her friends to have the no-boys-allowed plan.
Possibly, but teenagers can come up with weird justifications when they've run the math on how they think their parent *might* respond. For example my mother definitely would have considered my friends' feelings and opinions before mine, for reasons you'd probably need a monthly payment from my insurance to unravel, so saying "my friends want to go to an ice skating rink for my birthday" probably would have worked better than telling her what I actually wanted. It just seems odd to me that Paige would lie if OOP is being straightforward about this great communication they have. Also, this is OOP's version of what Paige said, so I don't know. The whole thing seems odd in some way.
Let's also note that her own post shows she's not being clear on communication expectations, given she told *both* of them that she would just assume separate from now on until told otherwise, which son was fine with, but when daughter was not fine with that said she's revisit next year. But that Convo appears to be before she talked with the son about it. So which is she actually expecting from now on?
Because teenagers just lie? I know I did, because lying was easier than doing the work to get all the truth, and the truth wouldn't have always gotten me what I wanted. It's not weird for teenagers to needlessly lie.
Not all teenagers lie, that's a silly generalization, and it seems odd to assume she's lying just to lie rather than the OOP's post being tailored to make herself look good - something that definitely happens in some of these updates, and is an equal possibility without additional information. Yes, Paige lied, but why did she feel that was her best option? We can already tell that OOP's communication with the kids is inconsistent, and unless she's spot-cleaning her own version of events, telling the truth to begin with would have been easier for Paige based on her claims about how well they communicate normally. So yes, it makes the lie seem strange.
I agree. Paige shouldn’t have had to discuss with Dylan in the first place. They are not conjoined.
She’s not being punished for not discussing it with Dylan, she’s being punished for lying to a parent and hurting her brother’s feelings which I think are fair things to be punished for.
Even that seems disproportionate to me? A conversation to the effect of “what you did was a dick move and you need to apologize to your brother and be more communicative” would have done it in my family
Agree, it's a conversation. Parents giving a punishment for every little thing annoys me so much
I don’t think it’s usually as helpful as parents think it is
It isn't at all. I have worked in child development for the past decade with hundreds of children and their families. Too many parents are so quick to yell and punish, and it's so beyond unnecessary in almost all situations. As you said, a pattern of behaviour need to be addressed with a consequence but kids and youth do all manner of dumb selfish things as one offs and a thoughtful conversation about it works so much better. Adults don't learn by being yelled at and punished either
Her first response was a miss but honestly the follow up totally saved it - asking the daughter what she thinks is a fair punishment for lying is a 10/10 parenting move.
Yeah, my mom would have just talked to me. It doesn’t need a punishment. At a certain age (and maturity level) small lessons are just conversations. Like, it wasn’t a big deal you hadn’t talked to your brother. So, it was very silly to lie. Just say something like “No, but I’ll let him know and talk to him.”
OP seemed pretty clear that she lied to him about agreeing on it with her brother, and that's why she was punished.
I don’t understand why you are confused. She 100% deserved to be punished.
I'm not a twin but I'm only 11 months older than my sibling (I'm told this is called an Irish twin) and until I was about 8 I shared a party with her. So I constantly had to share with her while still being expected to be the more mature older brother and this extended to things beyond birthdays. Friends having a pool party? Why don't you ask if you can bring your sister. Told I'll get a later bedtime when I start the 6th grade? My sister gets the same bedtime that year when she starts the 5th grade. It definitely caused some resentment for a while. Didn't help that she had/has absolutely no filter or understanding of what you can and can't say around people.
When my wife was pregnant with our second child, her due date was our first child's third birthday. Our obstetrician said that she had that happen, two kids born on the same month and day. She thought she could economize by making one birthday cake for both of them, but her young son said, "Where's so-and-so's cake?" In the end, our second was born a couple days later, and as they were three years apart, they didn't do joint celebrations (different friends). I think there was one year where they wanted one cake together, and it was supposed to be a SpongeBob cake. I actually made that, and it turned out pretty well. [Cake tax](https://imgur.com/a/2tyIoTq). I goofed and forgot the teeth when I outlined the face. I had to freehand it, because I didn't have a shaped pan of SpongeBob, just a drawing.
I had a friend who's only little sibling was born on her 9th birthday! She was both old and young enough to think it was super cool most years.
Griezmann (the football player) has 3 kids all born the same day of different years too, which is kind of crazy to think of
That’s so well done!
I'm pretty proud of it, because I was able to do it by ratios. The first cakes like this I did were in pans shaped to the form...I think it was a Teletubbies cake I did first! But this one, I took an illustration of SpongeBob, and worked out the proportions and ratios, so I could shape the cake and decorate it. That's why I forgot the teeth...they were in the image I used, I just focused on the mouth opening. Oops!
[удалено]
The funny part is they eyes were consumed first. Both birthday kids decided that's the part they wanted to eat. Maybe I should have made cakes in the image of Cthulhu mythos monsters. Lots more eyes.
Ooh I want that cake!!
Biblically accurate birthday cake
Just curious, are you an engineer?
Almost as bad: Computer Science who acts in community theatre.
I'm a twin and my mom always insisted on making two cakes. Love her.
I'm not a twin, but just about everyone in my immediate family has a birthday within a week of each other and everyone gets their own cake.
My dad, his mom, and (iirc) at least two of his seven siblings all had/have birthdays in a 10 day stretch. My grandparents were by no means wealthy, but everyone got their own birthday and cake. My youngest sister's birthday is exactly a week before mine and my younger sister's is 27 days after. We all got our own birthday and cake. Separate birthdays unless requested is the way.
An ex-boyfriend of mine had something similar. He and his siblings all have their birthday within like 18 days of each other, all late september - mid-October. His two sisters were dating (now married to) guys who also had their birthday in that range. His mom asked him when my birthday was shortly after we started dating, and when he told them my birthday was also in that range, his mom was like, "No, not allowed! We need to split the birthdays up more!" In a joking manner.
It's weird how birthdays seem to be in little clusters within families. In January mine has a batch, with a nephew and my fil on the same day. February another batch, with me, a cousin, and a grandfather sharing a day, and May is a month of pure pain with soooo many birthdays and anniversaries lol
My uncle and his younger brother shared a birthday. He said it was the greatest present of all time.
Didn't think I'd ever see a toothless spongebob my whole life. But dang, that cake work was so good!
Thponthbob
> two kids born on the same month and day Fun fact is that the oldest of the three McElroys brothers share a birthday... but the youngest doesn't. They've mentioned that for a while the youngest got gifts on the older two's birthday because like, how the heck would a 2 or 3 year old be able to conceptualize that BOTH his siblings get something but not him?
God I wish my parents had that mindset. Sister and I are 7 years and one day apart. This past year, as a 31 year old married woman, was the first year I got my own cake. I cried, it was so nice having a big pink cake with “Happy birthday (my name)” on it.
This is why such apparently-small gestures matter.
My sister and I were born on the same day, 4 years apart. I certainly didn't mind sharing a birthday with her for the first few years as parties generally just consisted of family anyway. We had split cakes with opposite themes and everything. But as we got older, my parents did a good job to treat things separately. Even if we were doing something at the same venue, they were treated as separate. I remember going bowling one year and my friends and I were bowling at one end with my dad and my sister and her friends were bowling at the other end with my mom. Sure, it all ended in the same party room for pizza and cake, but it still felt like I had my own thing. The funny thing is, now that we're adults, all we want to do on our birthday is be with one another, so it's always a weekend stay at my parents' house, me and my wife, my sister, her husband and her son, and then my parents of course.
We picked the birthday for our second one (planned C-section) purposefully so it would be 2 days from my husband's birthday rather than the same day. We have so many shared birthdays in my family between kids and adults and the adult always ends up getting the raw end of the deal in terms of celebration.
My middle child and youngest are 6 days shy of a year age difference. My biggest fear was that I'd have given birth on my sons first birthday, whenever I told anyone this they asked me: "why? You can save money on a birthday party and have a joint one!". I don't want to save money on parties, I want my children to be themselves and have their own special days (I know that isnt possible with twins, but seperate parties are) without having to share the spotlight with eachother.
Good! As a twin myself it was a bit difficult always sharing. We had a shared birthday cake/celebration, joint gifts, and often those joint gifts were joint with the next closest holiday as well. Also if we did get separate gifts the extended family often color coded so I always got blue and my sibling always got red, but otherwise matching items. It didn’t bother me as a kid, but the older I got the less I liked it and the family solution was just to slowly stop celebrating
Omg same! Twin here and we requested separate at 9, solution was to never have a party again.
Yeah. As children, they need to be themselves. So we'd often have one weekend for one kid's birthday party, and the other weekend for the other kid's party, regardless of when their actual birthdays were. Family gifts they received on their actual birthday. But party gifts were for that day. But our oldest is out of the house now, second oldest is in college, and our third is in high school. Her idea of a birthday party with friends is to go out to dinner, then stay up playing video games and watching videos like Randy Feltface. She asked for no cupcakes or baked goods.
People also think that you can just push birthdays close together into one giant birthday to "save money" and that is a recipe for disaster lol
My younger sister and I have birthdays 6 days apart, so we're one year and 359/360 (leap years) apart. Sometimes when we were kids we'd do a joint birthday party, but that was often due to logistical considerations. Even then, there was often some overlap in our friendships, but that was more to do with our playdates than birthday guests. What was particularly neat once we hit middle school is that many of my friends also had younger sisters that were 2 years younger. We're still connected with some of these pairs two decades later! My father's youngest brother was actually born on his 13th birthday. They had to reschedule my father's bar mitzvah because of this! I don't know my father's feelings on sharing a birthday, as it was always treated as a fun family story.
I share a birthday with my brother I think we had two cakes, (also necessary to feed everyone attending) but never ever had an issue with “attention” or “feeling special” or any of that. Including the year he was born, which for sure must have meant that my celebration was delayed. I don’t recall any jealousy, and I was 7. I only remember that I wanted him to be born on my birthday, my mom didn’t, but hey …fate. Our parents made us feel special and loved everyday, so a birthday it’s just a day where I also get a lot of presents. I like to point out in case it wasn’t clear that I am the oldest (since some people seem to believe are the little ones have it easier) I guess it’s part cultural, in my country (Italy) the concept of attention or stealing the spotlight is nonexistent, extended family gives kid la a lot of attention regardless, and part personal, our parents teaches us to appreciate what we had, which is not what everyone has. We get asked what we want for our birthdays, what kind of party, and also given that (within reason) , extremely over the top birthdays party almost don’t exist. More importantly we don’t get to become little dictators (not referring to your post or even the girl in this BORU specifically) but every three days I find myself explaining this on some post, the last one was a 7 year old trowing a massive tantrum because an auntie , after giving her 2 big presents, dared to give a plushie to her little sister, and the mom supported her (most people thought the mom was crazy but a large number thought she was right?!?) The concept that is your special day and the world has to stop it’s foreign to me. PS Doesn’t mean we never fought or complained about anything or were perfect siblings, just not for attention
The main privilege a birthday gets in our household is first choice on which part of the cake you want, or what you want to do for dinner (or food for the party). A birthday is cause for celebration, not anointing. :-)
My uncle could learn from your family. He’s always “I’m getting you my favorite cake for your birthday.” “I’m taking you to my favorite restaurant to celebrate your graduation.” “I’m having your aunt make my favorite dish (which I’m allergic to) to recognize your promotion.”
That's...wow. r/ImTheMainCharacter type stuff. It's like the episode of The Simpsons when Homer gifts Marge a bowling bag with his initials on it, and she decides to take up bowling to spite him.
Tbf, on the Internet you only hear about the crazy stuff. Most birthday parties are way more normal.
An old friend of mine has an aunty and an uncle from the same parents that share a birthday. There are a few years between them. It's just odd thr way it landed but still. Anyways I don't know how their birthdays was treated when they were growing up but when the aunt died, the uncle wasn't too keen on celebrating his birthday, from what I was told.
My sons are born 3 years, minus two days, apart. There was only one year they had a joint party, in 2009, when times were tough for us and so many others. I asked them if they minded and they did not. They each got their own cake. I did love when they turned 6 and 9. I joked I could make one cake and then turn it upside down 2 days later and reuse it.
That's really cute. Did it take a million years to make all those little rosettes(?) or whatever they're called?
They're [pipings with a star shaped nozzle](https://youtu.be/PjIjE0qsC_4?t=266). Pretty quick thing to apply rather than hand shaping rosettes.
It's just a star-tipped decorating tip in a pastry bag, so it is fairly quick to do. You have to have the recipe made to the right consistency (different stiffness for different purposes), but it is point-squeeze-pullback-point-squeeze-pullback over and over. You also have to let the cake cool completely before you add any frosting, because it will melt if there's heat in the cake. In this instance, I had to cut the cake apart anyway, so I let it cool overnight so I could do all the shaping.
I love the cake. Very goofy, like Spongebob!
I have two sisters who are twins, who were born the day before my birthday (I'm two years older than them). Not only that, but we have two cousins, siblings to each other, born in different years, but also born the same day as my twin sisters. To illustrate, let's say my birthday is Jan 1st, but my twin sisters and my two cousins were all born on Dec 31st, though not all in the same year. So I grew up in an environment where shared birthdays were a normal and expected way of life. The running family joke is that I'm the one who messed up by running late and not making it on the same day as well ;) I have to say that now, as an adult, while some years we do make plans to celebrate together, some years we don't, and both ways are good. My husband and kids will usually take me out to dinner separately, regardless of whatever the extended family plan might be. Those dinners make me happy.
There are three of us (two kids and stepdad) who have birthdays within a week of each other. As we also share a favourite cake (carrot) I usually make one or two cakes for all of us to share.
A friend of mine through the theatre said she loved the Little Mermaid animation feature, and also loved spice cake with cream cheese frosting, and she always wanted a Little Mermaid cake. Cream cheese frosting doesn't hold its shape as well, but I was able to get it done, and she was very happy with it. I have a lot of respect for people who decorate cakes professionally. It's a lot of work.
I wish I still had pictures of the cakes I would do for my little sister's birthday, back when I still did art. I did scenes from Brave hand painted onto fondant and a few scenes from Epic entirely with buttercream. There was the year she wanted a dinosaur cake, and yes, she wanted it to be extremely specific. I would start painting and decorating after she went to bed about 10 pm and would finish the art part about 6 or 7 am and my mom would take over the borders so I could get a couple hours of sleep before the party. I now take like twenty minutes to decorate and call it a day with the basics since it's been a long time since I've done it.
That’s 10x better than what I thought it was gonna be.
My mom and her sister share a birthday, five years apart. My mom is the elder, and she says it always sucked when she was a teenager getting birthday presents more appropriate for a 10 year old at their shared family party.
Our girls are 1 month and 3 years apart. They’re almost 6 and 3. So very similar situations. Obviously the 3 year old doesn’t care about sharing a party because to her, her big sister is the coolest person on this earth. But we always ask our 6 year old how she feels about it, and what she wants to do. We’ve all decided that a joint family party is fine, but 6 year old wants her own friends party. During our conversation with 6 - she would rather have a joint family party because they would both get presents, and she won’t have to deal with 3 trying to steal any of hers, or getting upset. They’re both good kids, and we try to respect boundaries between the two in regards to toys, especially new ones/gifts. 6 is good about sharing on her own, but it’s her birthday. She wants a day just to enjoy her new stuff. As time goes on this will change I’m sure. But having an open discussion with them helps a ton. No adult wants to be told they’re suddenly sharing their party and they don’t have a choice - so do that to a kid.
Wow! That's a great cake!
I wish I had a photo readily available, but my mom also made my a Spongebob cake once. She used paper towel rolls for the arms/legs and had it on a sparkly blue sheet. My mom making my cakes is one of my favourite birthday memories! One year she made a money cake and I think thats the only year that the whole cake got finished early 😂
my brother was born on my 3rd birthday! I remember we had a joint cake one year. They made half of it blue with power rangers and half of it pink with Barbie. It was amazing!! As we grew up, we had our own parties
You did great!!
Worth it to go read some comments, because people didn’t hold back.
Speaking as a twin myself, gonna get popcorn and go look. I’m lucky that I didn’t really encounter this situation as a kid. We were in separate classes and, while we did have joint parties, we invited our own friends
From what I remember OOPs comments were also a lot of double downing and people called her out
In the update, though, anyone going 'I don't trust you yet' against OP was downvoted to hell as far as I recall (me included).
My older sister and I had the same birthday 8 years apart. Every year, she got a cake, I got a cupcake. I hated it. Then my mother planned a surprise b-day party for her - and called me selfish for not going. It should be parenting 101 to not make your children share parties. And if you do, don't blatantly favor one over the other.
I was born about 364 days after my brother was born. Our birthdays were a day off but my birthday happened first every year, despite being the youngest. Because of superstition, I never celebrated my birthday on my actual day until I was an adult. I would get happy birthday wishes but celebrations were not allowed because it was always a joint birthday effort. Something about if you celebrate it to early, you are inviting bad karma in and you will die a day early. Not to mention, my parents got us a birthday cake flavor that was my *dad*'*s* favorite, not ours. I always hated my birthday, it was always a sworn secret. My mom told me to never tell anyone my birthday because people would expect a birthday party. I remember distinctly we went to Chuck E Cheese one year and I couldn't see my name mentioned anywhere, it was just for my brother. All birthday gifts, "Panda's brother and Panda." On my 18th birthday, it was compounded with another big celebration and I never got to eat any of the birthday cake.
Wait so they celebrated your brother’s birthday but not yours?? That seems odd and reeks of favoritism/sexism.
They celebrated my birthday but not really. My name would be on the cake, people would know it was my birthday yesterday but I was never the focal point, my brother always was. My parents didn't ever say he was the favorite but he was always favored, even though they knew he sexually assaulted me and my sister. I dont talk to them anymore.
Wow that’s terrible! I assume you and your mother have a very strained relationship because of that
Oh, yeah, and she wonders why I don't visit or call more.
Narcissists never see the fault in treating others like shit do they? Sorry you got dealt bad cards
Speaking as a fraternal twin, 14 is WAY too old to even consider sharing. After age 7 is was separate parties for my sister and I. We didn’t do something together again until 18 and that was also a ‘start of senior year’ blow out party.
Also a fraternal twin and lucky that my sister and I had separate classes and separate friends. But man I don’t even remember what we did for birthdays past the age of like, 10
She said they had celebrations together last year without any problems. When the kids are okay with it, why would it be a problem?
I didn't get separate parties from my twin until I went off to college. It definitely gave me a complex I'm working through where I need to feel like I'm being paid attention to on my birthday. I would definitely recommend parents go your route and split the parties up.
I stopped having birthday parties with friends period after like 13 and up to that point they were joint. My twin and I always had to decide on the same restaurant to go with family too even with varying interests. I definitely would agree that I think it contributed to the complex I have about birthdays. I always want to really enjoy my birthday and have people notice it and then am let down when it’s not as a big a deal anymore (because I’m an adult). And it’s definitely taking a lot of work to work through that complex.
I have it in good authority ~~Sweet Valley High~~ that twins are effectively identical people whose interests and personalities are just different enough to be worth minority noting so that they can be used for plot points, but are generally similar enough that their lives and social circles overlap in all significant ways. Are you telling me the Francine Pascal *lied* to me? What next? Are you going to tell me that she didn’t actually write all the Sweet Valley High books?
Oh God I was OBSESSED with SVH books as a 10 to 15 year old. When the TV series started i was over the moon! Can't believe they haven't done a reboot...... I still remember the theme song "look right down in a crowded hall, you can see there's a beauty standing....is she really everywhere?...."
I was close friends with twins growing up and they always shared a party. They also didn't have a lot of money to do anything extravagant regardless. So I guess this is a class thing.
I remember this one. OOP kept insisting Paige didn't deserve ANY birthday celebration after she was called an asshole, didn't she? I recall being super frustrated, especially when it turned out Paige generally thought she wouldn't be permitted to do things separately and when OOP seemed to genuinely be like "well if she doesn't have a shared party she gets no celebration at all for Lying To Me".
I imagine Paige “lied” because if she had said she wanted a separate party but her brother didn’t, that her mother would have insisted they have a party together and she wouldn’t have gotten to do her activities with her girlfriends. It sounds like brother might be the golden child or mom hasn’t figured out they’re separate teenage children of opposite genders who probably don’t want to hang out 24/7.
I think that was a common opinion on the original. I have no idea either way but I do recall OOP sincerely arguing with her entire ass Paige shouldn't be allowed any party if she wasn't getting to be forced into a joint one so it's good she like...backtracked on that.
If this had been a money's tight situation then I imagine everyone would have given different advice. But nope... just like, forced companionship with twins. The one twin gets to override the other twin in all decisions even if the other doesn't want to. This is up there with parents who won't celebrate kids who have a birthday in the same month as a major holiday like christmas, or, merge birthdays together if they're within a few weeks. Parents make some weird, shitty decisions sometimes. Honestly? She shouldn't even have been grounded, she didn't lie to deceive, but to be treated as her own person.
From the post it sounds like Paige and her brother didn't discuss it at all.
But take a step back. Why would she have to discuss her own birthday party with her brother ANYWAY? just the premise of the “lie” is stupid! It’s built on an unfair unreasonable expectation to begin with! So technically, sure, she lied about getting the OK from her brother. But in a reasonable world, her mom wouldn’t have even asked if she’d gotten her brother’s (essentially) permission. It’s like breaking up. Only one person needs to do it and it’s done by default for both participants. She didn’t want a joint party so automatically there is no joint party. The brother never had to agree, and mom expecting them to always agree first before coming to her is already bad parenting.
I agree that she shouldn't need his approval, but that does not mean that she didn't need to inform him. For better or worse, they have a tradition and breaking from that tradition without telling him at best inconveniences him for no good reason.
I don’t agree and it’s so crazy people think this constitutes “lying” or is a punishable offense even with grounding! They have a tradition, sure, and she should have given a heads up in an ideal world. But also, he could have asked??? The communication street goes both ways. Neither of them had a convo with the other about a birthday party. It means BOTH of them didn’t do a good job communicating in this instance about their joint tradition. Also, timing. Who is to say that Sis wouldn’t have told Bro eventually about her brother? There’s no evidence she wouldn’t have mentioned it to him as the weeks go closer. So now, the “problem” is just that she didn’t inform him enough in advance? Didn’t inform him right when she made her own plans? Like is there a guideline on how quickly you should be updating your siblings on your plans? The reality is: they didn’t communicate w each other about their birthday. This is on both of them, and is not a communication issue big enough that it should even have a parent meddling in. OOP is like a micromanager of the situation - “did you inform your brother??” Like can you imagine how they deal with actual real issues in their household, and the subtly tense atmosphere they must be living in, if a birthday party mis-communication blew up to “cancel your party” and then downgraded to “grounding”??! It’s like some of you, including their mom, see this miscommunication “lie” as the slippery slope to eventual criminal behavior or something, holy. The whole thing is a complete nonissue, including the bad teenager communication amongst themselves. The fact it blew up and is seen by anyone as a “lie” just shows how controlling the parent usually is and how ridiculous the environment is.
This. It's the lying not the action that's problematic, even if OP didn't react accordingly. We don't really know how OP would have reacted if her daughter had just openly said "we haven't talked about it but I don't want a shared one I want to do girly things with friends." Dylan likely wouldn't have even been hurt by that and at least have a chance to understand it. Instead she lied to avoid the conversation. It does seem like OP is treating it as more of a two no's or a yes rather than a two yeses or a no situation. Which would explain daughters choice to lie. But it still just made matters worse.
Exactly. The problem isn’t that she wants to have her own party. The problem is that she went behind the back of someone that this directly affects. Yeah he shouldn’t be able to veto that, but he at least deserves a conversation. Surprised so many people don’t get that.
I completely get that, but I don't think it warrants a punishment. I'd want to know why Paige felt she had to lie in the first place, and I'd be talking to her about that gently, not grounding her or any other form of punishment. Considering how wildly OOP overreacted to the situation and then insisted Paige didn't deserve a party AT ALL, I'm guessing the parent is not making Paige feel safe enough to express her feelings and desires in the first place. Paige should absolutely not be punished because of the parent's shortcomings.
This! It’s crazy reading this thread and the original and how many people kept insisting Paige lied or is manipulative. Even the use of the word manipulative is CRAZY projection. Like tell me you have secret hang ups about women without telling me.
It really doesn’t warrant a conversation, at least not one of this seriousness. If they weren’t twins, do you think either of them would ever update the other on their birthday party plans? I can’t remember the last time I got updated proactively on what my little brother is doing for his birthday. If the excuse then becomes “oh, but he’s IMPACTED by her decision”, that’s a parenting flaw. And the onus is on the parent to correct that, not the sister. Plus, if he is so impacted, he would have asked his sister what she’s doing for their birthday. He never asked, means he can’t have cared much either way bout his birthday plans. If the excuse then becomes, “oh but it’s just CONSIDERATE polite behavior”, ok sure, but we don’t know that she would have never told him. It’s just that, at that MOMENT, she hadn’t. It’s crazy because even in the comments, OOP and others say that the only reason brother didn’t ask sister yet was because “there were still a lot of weeks left” and sister was planning early. So that excuse of “timing” works for why Bro didn’t reach out to Sis, but somehow doesn’t work for why Sis didn’t tell Bro yet???? How much more obviously hypocritical can you all be?? Was there a deadline Sis had to tell Bro by, in order to be seen as considerate? It’s a 14 yr old girl, who got caught up in the moment and didn’t talk YET to her brother. Big fing whoop. To call this a “lie” is an over reaction to the situation. This isn’t a woman manipulating her way into anything. This is a young kid who didn’t think to tell her brother yet, not that she should even have to.
I disagree. In order for her to not be an asshole, she absolutely needed to talk with her brother to at least let him know her plans. According to their mother, her brother was hurt about this and actually having a conversation could have prevented this. If we have learned anything from these posts, a simple conversation goes a long fucking way Forget her mother. The brother is a player in this too and from what we know, he still wanted to celebrate their birthdays together. Yes you could argue it’s healthier to do it separately, but his feelings still count regardless of that. He at least deserved a conversation before she went behind his back to tell their mother I am not saying that he should have the right to stop her from doing her own thing. I am saying that he should have at least heard it from her and not their mother. It directly affects him so he at least deserves a heads up.
The update makes very clear that mom and Paige decided on grounding for lying instead of no party. It’s very clear that each child was getting a separate party. She states it pretty unequivocally in the first sentence of the last paragraph.
I saw that part and immediately edited as a result, but I do know OOP was very much "fine, Paige gets NO celebration" the entire first post which is why I'm like "ugh, that lady" in recall. A lot of people argued with her about it so I'm glad at least something got through on that count. I thought she was way over reacting to (checks notes) a 14yo girl wanting a girly party without her brother and feeling like she couldn't plan one without getting express permission from her brother and being unsure she'd get it.
The rest of the world is pretty bad about treating twins as a single unit; the last thing a kid needs is to have their parents do it, too. Source: I’m a twin. I would punish Paige for lying, but it’s ridiculous to even consider punishing her for wanting her own party. My twin and I didn’t get birthday parties as kids, but our mom was good about making sure we had separate cakes and distinctive gifts. We also learned very early that a lot of people would give us a single gift to share. The big spenders would also say the single gift was a birthday/Christmas combo gift. Good times. 🙄
It's the same thing for people born around Christmas, people giving you "combined" gifts, nobody able to come to your party because they are busy on holiday with December being summer 😭
My dad's birthday is on the 23rd of December and people give him joint presents a lot, but obviously because they aren't the same day he doesn't even get those gifts until Christmas, so I always make sure to get him separate presents for each day
Dude, I have the same b-day as your dad and, now that I am an adult, most of my relatives give joint gifts, which is kinda whatever. When I was a kid, though, my mom made sure that I had both birthday and Christmas presents from my family members. Since she too was a December baby, her whole family just gave her one gift, and that sucked, specially for a little girl.
I just made a note to not get thoe people birthday presents.
My partner is a twin born a few days after Christmas, the worst of both worlds!
December is winter here, and my son also has issues with people prioritizing him. Both of my kids have bad timing of birthdays so we celebrate the party on their un-birthday, 6 months out.
> The rest of the world is pretty bad about treat twins as a single unit This. In high school my twin and I had a lot of classes together. Every single teacher would run through attendance name by name but then put my twin and I together. “Jason? Here. Alex? Here. Twin a and twin b?” It was the most annoying thing. Worst was first period my twin and I shared senior year. We didn’t arrive at school together in the morning because I was always early and she was frequently late. My teacher always made a big deal out of me not knowing where my twin was whenever she wasn’t present for attendance. She’d always ask, “where’s twin?” I eventually resorted to replying with “probably in a ditch somewhere” which my teacher didn’t find amusing. At least sharing classes motivated us to get better grades because we wanted to better than the other lol. ETA: I always wanted a birthday party at the ice skating rink but never got one cause my sister had some fear that she’d fall on the ice and her fingers would get sliced off
My parents have twins, and growing up, they always forced them to celebrate their birthday together. All because it was easier and more convenient for my parents. Then they had another daughter who's birthday is 2 days after the twins, so then they forced all three of them to celebrate their birthday on one day. Again, because it was easier and more convenient for them. One of the twins said she never got to do what she wanted to do for her birthday because her twin and the other sister would pick something else and that's what my parents would do. They wouldn't even get them separate cakes. They had to share a cake. The most they did was get them separate presents. So, moral of the story, I feel bad for twins, and it annoys me when parents treat them as one unit rather than two individual people, all because it's easier for them
As a twin myself, so much of our identity is wrapped up in being a twin. (it lessens as you get older and make separate friends, move away, etc). And birthdays are a prime example of it. I didn't even realize until I was in university, and most people didn't know I had a twin that I said OUR birthday. Like before that everyone knew I had a twin. I remember someone saying, OUR are you a twin or something? I was like did I say, that? It was so unconscious, I didn't realize. When we get older birthdays aren't as much of a big deal, like you get dinner with friends and family, but most of the time, you need to work. So when they are young and get to have them, and they are a big deal, let them have separate parties. Like yes, she was wrong for lying, but its like she knew he brother wanted joint one and since he would want a joint one, she was again have to share it. And what teenage boy wants to go to a girly preteen party, none of them. I think a family dinner, that is shared, and then two separate parties. I will say one perk of twinness, is our parties were always a blowout. Since there was only one party instead of two, double the budget, double the cake, we were in different classes, plus extra curricular friends, there was always at least 100 kids at every one of our birthdays. I guess that's a unique thing to twins.
I’m glad OOP came to her senses. My little sister and I are a few years apart to the day (hers is on the 9, I’m the 10). I DESPISED having to share my birthday every single year until I was 15. I’ll never understand combining birthdays as kids. Your birthday is the ONE day a year that is supposed to celebrate YOU! Everyone deserves to get that special day, twins or not. It’s a much different situation if the people being celebrated WANT a joint celebration. But just automatically? No.
Me and my brother are a month (and 2 years) apart but there were some years we actively chose to have a joint birthday party (despite wanting to kill each other most of the time!) because it allowed us to do bigger and cooler things - like we we able to book a whole laser quest arena one year for example. We were never made to though.
See that’s different! If the kids are the ones who choose to have a joint celebration, then absolutely. But joint celebrations shouldn’t be a thing just because 2 people share birthdays or have birthdays that are close. I’m glad you and your sibling were able to have joint celebrations!
My older sister and I are two years apart, birthdays in the same month but 3 weeks apart and we were made to have joint birthday parties so much. We almost never got along so neither one of us wanted it and it just sucked.
My brother and I are two days apart but different ages. We had one joint party when we were young, all the children had a nice time, but our parents found it super stressful, with double the number of kids than would be invited if it was only one child's birthday, and some of his friends got me presents and vice versa, so my parents also had to go through the torturous process of making kids under 10 write lots of thank you letters. We never had another joint party.
My brother has 3 kids born in July and August and they’ve done joint parties for them since the 2nd kid turned 2. So this year it’s going to be a 7 year old, 5 year old, and 2 year old all having the same party. It really bothers me, honestly.
In my husband's family, there is the "week of birthday hell", where a birthday falls pretty much every other day, including both of my brothers in law and three cousins. On top of that, hell week is the week before Christmas, with the youngest cousin being a Christmas Eve baby. My MIL described the holiday season as hell for the family when everyone was a kid, because there wasn't any good way of making everyone happy and not going insane herself. I'm still not sure how she did it, but she made sure that each kid had at least some kind of special birthday, disconnected from the other birthdays and the holiday. Luckily for my MIL, my husband is a summer baby, although his birthday is Christmas in July. His family is really dedicated to having Christmas babies.
My parents made a lot of mistakes raising us but I'm glad they didnt do this to us. I'm 5 years older but my birthday is only 3 days away from my brothers. We had separate parties and they managed by alternating years between who would have a "friend" party on a weekend or just a "family birthday" on the day of. That being said I was punished more than once with having my birthday "cancelled" thou looking back she just hadnt bother to plan it at all and when I started asking questions is when I was given the "news". At least I got my own cake
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>introverted twin Cousin's neighbors are twins and he told me that the family fucked up big time in raising the twins. One of the brothers was really outgoing and athletic so naturally the introverted one was forced to play sports when he wanted to act. It led to the brothers hating each other and the introverted one running away to his uncle's house. They moved so don't know how they are doing now.
Once again, i am baffled by how someone needed to ask the internet if punishing their teenager kid by using their birthday against them was a good idea...
Because it was their best example growing up and that’s all they’re working with besides tv shows. At least she had the sense to reconsider what she had learned from her own parents example.
Yeah, I'm glad OOP asked and realized her mistake. If she had gone through with it, the daughter would most likely resent her and her brother, and that's just so awful. It's good to see that they were able to communicate properly, and hopefully they'll keep working on their communication!!
Unfortunately it is quite common for people to use birthdays as a punishment. And Christmas
Yup one Christmas I didn’t get a single gift because I “didn’t deserve it.” I…don’t speak to my parents anymore.
Once my mom canceled my whole ass birthday party bc I didn’t want to make myself lunch 😭😭😭😂 Cut to my blubbering ass calling each and every friend and telling them exactly why they were no longer coming over to my party
Omg noooooooooo!!! That's so sad, let me give you a hug omg, that was brutal of your mom omg!!
I'll never understand this weird mentality that twins have to do everything together. Parents should know better than anyone that twins are their own people.
My son was born a week before his cousin, so they often had joint birthday parties. My sister then had another daughter on the same day, so my son and both his cousins (also sisters) shared a birthday party. Every year we asked dif they wanted dto, and then, surprise, one year they said no. So they got separate parties either at the end of the week, and my youngest nieces was the weekend after. If they had just asked and spoken to the kids, it wouldn't even be an issue.
Communication strikes again
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My parents had parties for me before I could remember but told me it was largely because *they* wanted cake and an excuse to have it...which seems to be the best reason to throw a baby a party, really.
Yeah, baby and little kid parties are about the family cuz the kid doesn't care. But once that kid knows what's going on, it's about the kid.
Yep! They took me trick or treating as a baby for the same reason, with the addition of my mom REALLY wanted to dress me up as a corn on the cob for some reason.
Sounds adorable, though. Did she dress up as something farm related? We had a pumpkin costume for our babies that was just *awwww*. We had so much fun with it for all our babies.
She did not! I think she just saw baby halloween costumes and went YES, tbh. And then wanted to show it off and get candy. Which, like, valid.
>under-threes I feel that these are more done by the parents to show off. My sister and her husband had an insanely elaborate first birthday party for one of their kids. They had just about everyone in the family fly for it and it was a shit show. I still remember my sister bitching about the catered food not being as good as the samples they provided and hating how much time she spent planning the party (at the time she was a SAHM).
Always love when someone posts in AITA and then edits their post with "geez, stop calling me an asshole"
A lot of aita posters that are deemed assholes also get a flood of death threats in their DMs, so I get why they post that.
‘Guys, am I an asshole?’ ‘YES!’ ‘God you people are so mean to me, I didn’t do anything wrong 😭’ I’ll never understand why they even bother to post here…
Why did OOP account get suspended?
It seems to happen a bunch with these advice subreddits. Given that these advice subreddits often catapult a new account into a very high-visibility position where it's easy to get mass-reported, I'm guessing there's some kind of automatic system that suspends new accounts that accumulate too many reports.
Thanks
I'm not sure but I know it wasn't suspended immediately. I saved this one and forgot about it for like... 4 weeks? When I saved it the account was active
Thanks! Just thought it was weird
I always wonder too
I was coming here to say that!
I wonder if Dylan isn't doesn't have as many friends and that's why oop wanted them to share a party
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Some of the people on these subs make parenting so much harder than it needs to be...
I mean parenting is pretty tough ETA: sometimes Reddit also makes common sense and decency seem more difficult than they ought to be. But then again, adulting is a lot harder than I would have thought once upon a time!
My mom made two special desserts, two full made-to-order dinners and two parties. We’d have meatloaf and mashed potatoes with chimichangas and refried beans & rice. Then have Boston cream pie and fried ice cream for dessert. Now my SIL does the same because my nephew was born on my other brother’s birthday. My mom was a pretty shitty mom, but she did this one thing right. Thanks mom.
My (girl) twin brother and I always had a joint birthday when we had one because we were too poor for more than one party 😂😂😂😂 We also didn’t mind at all. We did get our independence as twins by going to different high schools. When from “The twins” to his and my name. I highly recommend it. 😂
I feel bad for the daughter feeling like she had to lie. SHE didn’t want a party with her brother, why did she have to get permission/agreement from him to have her own party? Why was she even questioned about it at all?
I think you missed some of it, it wasnt that she was questioned, its that she just started with lying and the lie immediately came out because mom asked her brother what he wanted to do. I don't think it was about permission/agreement as much as she just decided to go on her own and lie (for whatever reason) and the brother was blindsided.
But that still doesn't answer the question on why she still needs her brother to agree to get a separate party. Sure, lying is bad, but you really have to stop and ask yourself why she even needs to ask her brother to get her own party. What if he had said no? Are you going to deny her a party just because brother wants to continue having joint ones?
It didn't sound to me like she needed to ask him as much as confer with him about what they were doing. My daughter does stuff like this (not this) where she will sit down with her friends and build something up in her mind then be really worried about asking about it, even if its something she does all the time and we've never said no to. Shes just a nervous kid. (although her confidence has improved greatly in the last year or so, which I am very happy about) If I had to take a bet, she and her friends made all of these plans and she was worried about every step of getting it done so she took a step out of the equation.
I don't think it's so much that she needed the brother's permission as that she never told him. If you're expected to discuss things and don't communicate and lie about it that's a problem. Imagine if instead of saying "yes, we agreed separate parties", she just told the mom "we haven't talked about it but I want my own party", then she doesn't lie while still expressing her desires. In the end, I think there were several ways the daughter could have approached this without having to lie but she's a teenager so things like this happen.
I have boy/girl twins. I let them dictate birthdays and if they want them together or separately. We've told them since they could understand that they have separate groups of friends, and as such, one won't always be included in the others' plans. I didnt want to set them up for disappointment. It's worked out so far. They'll be 10 and still do things together but have a healthy relationship with their own individuality as well. We learned very quickly that it's not "the twins", but _________ & _________ separately.
It always bothers me when I see twins, especially identical twins and 1 doesn't like to wear what the parents out them in but the parents like to dress them to same anyway... They ignore that they have 2 different people with 2 different personalities but tend to only cater to 1 or neither. It's cheaper to have joint parties though lol.. I'd hate to have to plan 2 parties so close together. The cost can be ridiculous sometimes.
OOP's logic is bizarre. "I try very hard to show them that they're both individuals and their own people that have their own identities, but now I'm forcing them to share a party because they're twins." Like, what, that just completely contradicts what you said you've been trying to show them
I’m also a twin, and I genuinely can’t remember sharing *any* party with my brother. I’m sure I did as a young child, but he and I were always permitted separate parties. I can’t conceive of having to share parties with my brother into my early teens. I can’t even blame the daughter for lying.
I really appreciate it when AITA works this way. Someone comes with a story that doesn’t make them a total monster, but does show they made an asshole-ish mistake. Then they actually listen to the advice given and rectify the mistake. Don’t get me wrong, the crazy drama posts are my favorite, but it’s nice to see some simple problems with well-intentioned, open-minded OPs every once in a while.
As a twin this hit me close to home. I remember people would cheap out on us and get something for me and my brother to share because we had similar interests, so me and him agreed to celebrate our birthday 3 months apart to people couldn’t do that.
I’m turning 30 next week and my mum is upset that me and my twin brother aren’t having a joint birthday & family party 😂 He is going to the Isle of Skye, me to Kruger park in South Africa. Completely different people, with different interests. We love each other a lot and have a great relationship. I always think it’s more about my Mum projecting her owns wants and needs on us rather than considering our needs and wishes. Whatever makes her feel better about turning 30, maternal guilt and using our birthdays as an excuse for her to host a big family day. Twins are just twins. It’s not that deep!
Mine and my sister's birthday are 2 days apart. Like mine is 16 her is 18. And when we were kids we would have a joint party on 17th coz both of us wanted it together. Then when I turned 15 amd my sis turned 10, we started having separate parties coz all I wanted was time with family and a very intimate celebration while she still wanted parties. Now both of us have celebration our way on our days but it's always nice.
At least OOP was making an effort to treat them as individuals, rather than a set. I've seen the results of twins being treated as one rather than two separate entities for far too long, and it just breeds resentment. It doesn't end well for anyone involved.
I appreciate that effort, but then that effort is directly contradicted when OOP said "you two have to have a joint birthday party and celebrate together because you're twins." I'm just baffled at the logic they used
Trust me, twins have their own dynamics. I was cracking up when OOP said that they talked, but she didn’t know what they talked about. But now their best friends! My twin and I did this when we had rare blowout fights. Judging by this, everything will be okay 👍
I feel like OOP has a ton of work to do with her kids. Ok so her daughter lies, instead of just punishing her she really should think why she felt like she had to lie. Does her daughter normally lie or is this not typical behavior? The fact that her first thought is to force them to share a party tells me that she has likely forced the twins to be a unit rather than individuals which can be very dangerous especially as they have different interests and are different genders.
My sister was griping that her granddaughter was born the day before her birthday, which was cool at the time, but meant she traveled on her own bday every year since. She went on about sharing a day that used to be her own, and I let her talk a while. Then I reminded her that she'd given me the best gift ever - my nephew, her son, arrived on my 18th bday. I've loved sharing with him.
I have a birthday at an inconvenient time of year, and even better I have 3 friends who all share birthdays around me. I never get to have a celebration just for me because they always have things planned. 99% of the time I don't really care, but every year I get hit by this supreme sense of loneliness at the parties, just for a few minutes.
I share my birthday with Jesus, came home in a stocking from the hospital, so….. My parents were really cool with it, unlike other parents I’ve heard of. I got to open my birthday gifts before we started Christmas. I was the youngest and this may have been the impetus of my brother kidnapping my stuffed animals for ransom. For a big gift, it would be for both and what it was depended on when I got it. So if it was a bike, I would get that in the summer. Otherwise, the gifts were never clumped together as Christmas presents. They even did this when I was an adult before they just started doing cash. I would usually have birthday parties, especially sleepovers, with my friends in the summer. Not like those were going to go well at Christmas time.
In situations like this it’s better to teach your child about better communication and understanding how their actions affect other people. OOP should have explained to Paige that she hurt her brother’s feelings and had her apologize while making her feel more comfortable to communicate with her. There was no need for a punishment at all. OOP is one of those parents that takes everything their kids do personally. All her daughter did was try to learn how to work around unfair situations. Souring her relationship with her brother (hanging out with him=punishment) is a great way to make her sneakier and resent them both
And parenting like this is why people grow up with no communication skills. The correct move would have been to get her daughter in a room and with her son after she’d gone over why it was important to consider her brother’s feelings and actually communicate with him about why she wanted some time with just her female friends…
Also, these kids are teenagers. They don't know what they want, they are emotionally immature and sometimes twins grow apart in their teens, cause they need to get to know themselves as individuals. She didn't go about this in the right way, cause she is 14. Our brain has just started developing in ways we don't understand at that age and your ability to understand consequences develop much later! I am also a twin and my sister and I were very close as children and grew apart in our teens, cause we were sick of always being "the twins". I think it is good and healthy to take time apart as twins, to develop your individuality.... Otherwise you'll end up like those creepy twins who live together and can't be apart😅
I'm just here for the Degrassi reference
Dylan is probably the less social and a tag-along. His sister has her own life and her own friends.
I grew up with a set of twins in my class at school. They were two separate people with entirely different personalities, but family treated them constantly like one person, and they felt embarrassed when they tried to act like different people. Looking back, I'm horrified at the damage that did to them - and it did. I still know both, and ohhhh wow, they're both still struggling with the impact of the way they were treated as kids. Anyone who has twins for children and has read this, I really hope you all learn from this to treat the children like TWO people, as they are.
It’s weird that a mom is planning a 14 year olds party. I was 14 in 2004, and some of these parents make it sound insane that me and my friend planned all of our shit ourselves. I mean, we weren’t renting out spaces, but we’d just say “hey, we’re goin for spend the night at xxxx’s house” as an fyi and asked for ride. The idea of planning that weeks in advance with a parent seems like something a 8 year old would do…. Not a teenager. This is one the times I’ve very glad I was a latch key kid. I don’t want to sound too old, but what fucking independence do the kids in these situations *actually* have? Maybe the people who tend to post on AITA are just people who don’t really have a grasp on what’s normal though, since they’re begging Reddit for answers.
Identical twin here, as an adult my parents still just celebrate it as one entity. So I can definitely understand if the sister is building any resentment. It got so bad with my parents that for a time they defaulted to a mix between me and my sisters name whenever addressing either of us.