Hadley Freeman

All twin baby books will tell you to think of your children as individuals – but there are advantages to coordinating their clothes. Plus, why Ivanka is the new Gwyneth.

The Clooneys have had their twins! Any suggestions on how they should dress their babies?

Eleanor, by email

Yes, hearty double congratulations to George, Amal and your babies, who are presumably so beautiful they are already being locked down for the remake of The Golden Child. Plenty of magazines are already chucking in their tuppence on how these children should look because it’s important for babies to understand that they are being aesthetically judged by the media as soon as they’re out of the womb. Vogue, for starters, published an article headlined How to Dress Twins which consisted of a load of laughably expensive (£107 for a onesie? I’ll take 10!) baby outfits, all, of course, matchy-matchy.

I’mma stop you right there, Vogue. Now, as I might have mentioned once or 10 billion times before in this paper, I have twins, and as all twin books will tell the Clooneys, you should always think of your children as individuals, and this means not referring to them as “the twins”, and not dressing them in matching clothes. Now, to be honest, there are good reasons to do the matching thing, although they are entirely about you, the parents, and not them, the babies. It saves you from having to think of two different outfits, and it ensures everyone knows you are a superhero who gave birth to two babies at the same time. This last factor is often overlooked but when you have non-identical twins, as the Clooneys do, it is especially important. Dammit, sometimes a woman needs some extra acknowledgment from strangers after she’s been up all night doing double feeds. On the other hand, it’s also a bit weird to treat your children like comedy dolls purely for your own validation, and probably psychologically scarring to boot. What a surprise that fashion magazines should endorse it, then!

Just get a couple packs of onesies from Mothercare, queue up some documentaries on Netflix and get comfy on the sofa, Amal, while you try to coordinate film-running times with alternating feeds. That’s the only coordination you’ll be caring about for the next year. Trust me.

Source: theguardian.com