Mom Of Twin Boys Slammed Shortly After Tattooing One Toddler In Order To Tell Infants Apart

May 12, 2021

Identical twins are sometimes so identical that even their parents can't tell them apart, but have you ever heard of a case where fraternal twins can look so identical that no one can tell them apart? Interestingly, sometimes fraternal twins end up looking almost exactly like one another, as is the case with celebrity twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. Most people who see them think that they are identical twins, not realizing that they are actually, as Bustle reports, fraternal, or in their case, sororal twins! 

This just goes to show that even non-identical twins, who are no different than two siblings, can look incredibly alike. Sometimes, this can cause problems, especially in the case where one twin has a medical condition and the other doesn't. This was the case for an unnamed woman who posted her problem on Reddit to get perspective about her medical decision. 

The woman told users of the subreddit "AITA" in December 2020 that she and her husband had struggled for five years to get pregnant, eventually choosing to proceed with in-vitro fertilization to conceive. They were blessed with fraternal twins, whom she has given the names "Adam" and "Jake" for the sake of differentiating them while putting up her dilemma.

She proceeded to say that Jake has a medical condition, unlike his brother, and requires some medical intervention once a week to keep it under control. However, one of the days when the woman needed to work, her mother-in-law, who is fully trusted by the family, ended up babysitting for the boys and ended up treating the wrong twin.

In her post on "AITA," the woman wrote about Jake's condition: "Without going into detail, (he) requires a shot once a week. Once he is older he can take pills." She continued, saying that her mother-in-law would be the one giving Jake the shot every day while she was at work, which "worked very well until a month ago when she gave the shot to the wrong kid." The mother-in-law realized right away that she had made a mistake and called 911.

The woman also elaborated about why this mistake could have happened, saying, "Now they may be fraternal but they look identical. I'll be honest my husband and I even mix them up sometimes. Everyone does." While there was no fatal danger to the children because of the mistake made by their grandmother, she was "beside herself" and refused to babysit the children anymore because she was too worried about repeating the mistake, leading the children to be put into daycare instead. 

This led to the daycare nurse being worried about mixing up the boys as well because they couldn't keep their name tags on, which led to a doctor recommending "a medical tattoo." She explained that "they tattoo a freckle, no bigger (than) the end of a pencil eraser, on an area of skin that's easily seen while the child is under mild sedation similar to dental offices."

The doctor also added that the tattoo would fade in 2-3 years, by which time her sons would "have developed more personal features." After discussing her dilemma with her husband, both of them agreed with the doctor and went ahead — their son got "a 2mm brown freckle on his earlobe."

However, when her mother-in-law heard that her grandson had a "tattoo," she "just freaked out." The woman went as far as to tell her mother-in-law to try and find the tattoo on Jack's body, but after searching for some time, she could not find it. When the tattoo was finally pointed out to her, her mother-in-law said, "That's just a freckle." Even after the point was made, however, her mother-in-law was still very angry and "ranting." At this point, the woman asked Reddit users for their feedback about the problem and found that she had a lot of support. 

The top comment on her post was from user Probablynotamantee, who wrote, "...it’s literally a fake freckle. It’s not like you gave him a full sleeve of pin up girls and muscle cars. Also, it’s to make it harder to accidentally kill him or his brother. You made the right call."

Most of the people who commented on the post agree with this sentiment and echoed it, but it seems like the woman who originally posted this failed to find support within her network when she explained the problem to them. She said that while people mostly understood after they couldn't find the tattoo, they "still think I went (too) far in tattooing my child and altering their body." 

There have been no more updates from the woman, but her post had a lot of people discussing and talking about the problem of altering a child's body without permission. The original post currently has over 2,700 comments.

Do you think the woman did the right thing? Would you medically tattoo your child if a doctor recommended it? Tell us what your thoughts are about this mother's decision, and be sure to ask your friends what they think as well.