The Twins Day Festival Is Almost Here!​

Did you know there’s an entire weekend set aside to celebrate Twins and all things twin?

Twins Days (www.twinsdays.org) was started in 1976 and is held annually in Twinsburg, Ohio in the beginning of August.  It claims to be “the world’s largest annual gathering of biological twins and other multiples in the world!” That’s an amazing amount of aligned DNA in one location.

The slogan is: Apart We’re 2Gether.

So catchy, right? I couldn’t help myself. I ordered my twin and me T-shirts.  When the order arrives, I’ll post a shot of us – assuming I can get her to pose with me.

Perhaps, I can get her to do this too:

Twins Days Festival – Official

Join us for Virtual “TWINGO” on Saturday, August 8th at 5:00 p.m.! This will be played through the Zoom platform.

Play for a chance to win a Souvenir Voucher to use at the Official Twins Days Souvenir Tent at the 2021 Festival! Cost to play is free, and all ages, twins and non-twins, are welcome! 

So why is being a twin so unique that an entire weekend is organized around it?

The short answer is that twins are fascinating. Glimpsing matching faces bat their eyelashes at the same time in an identical manner is intriguing.  So is observing them communicate without words, showing up at a party with the same outfit, or successfully taking on challengers in ping pong or tennis. Twins are marvels and have been heavily studied by experts.

When I was growing up, twins were uncommon.

In my high school of 1300 students, there were two sets of boy-girl twins and two sets of identical twin girls.  In “There Really Are So Many More Twins Now” (www.theatlantic.com), the author informs us that statistical reporting began in 1915, and until 1980 about “one in every 50 babies born was a twin, a rate of 2 percent. Then, the rate began to increase. By 1995, it was 2.5 percent. The rate surpassed 3 percent in 2001 and hit 3.3 percent in 2010.” Now one out of every 30 babies born is a twin. The increase in the twin birth rate is attributed to the increased use of in vitro fertilization and other assisted reproductive technologies.

Even if there are more twins among us, identical twins like my sister and me are relatively rare.  About 3 or 4 in every 1,000.  To state the obvious, identical twins are always the same sex – both are boys, or both are girls. In case you’re wondering, identical twins don’t generally run in families, but fraternal or dizygotic twins do.  The occurrence of fraternal twins has to do with a woman’s ability to drop more than one egg during ovulation; those eggs are then fertilized by two different sperm cells.

Back to Twins Days in Twinsburg, Ohio.  I’m anticipating this year’s virtual event, and I’m committed to attending a future live event. The opportunity to check in with other twins about their life experiences is compelling. I have questions beyond the ones interested parties have posed to me all my life – like do you and your twin have telepathy, and did you play tricks on people? I crave delving into the deep layers of twindom. To do that I need to compare notes with my people.

What would I ask?

Two questions press me.  How many of my fellow twins were raised believing they were fraternal only to find out through DNA that they’re in fact identical twins? And while I could rev up my favorite search engine and learn exactly how many twins were placed for adoption like my sister and me, there is more to that circumstance than a statistic. Important details surface through stories shared one-on-one (in this case two on two) with in-person meetings. I crave that contact and connection. For me, being a twin and being an adoptee are two things I’m still learning about. 

Believe in yourself, in your vision for your future and in your ability to take a small step each day toward achieving your vision. – Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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