Wombmates!

Mysteries of Life Before Birth...

The expression "my twin brother" or "my twin sister" is a redundancy. If you are a twin, you and your twin are by definition siblings. Brother and sister both mean having the same parents.

There is one historic exception to the statement that twins have the same parents.

After World War II, a West German woman gave birth to twin boys, fraternal twins: one was white and one was black. The doctors were stymied. How could this be? They investigated and found no African relative in either the woman's family nor in the man's family. They searched further and discovered that right after the woman had had sex with the German, she had sex with an African-American soldier stationed in Germany. Later she married the German who accepted that he was the father. So although it's possible that twins not have the same father, they always have the same mother! In the case of identical twins, both twins have the very same parents, of course.

Then there is another twist to consider with respect to identical twins.

My twin and I certainly had the same mother and father.  However, as in all conceptions, father's contribution and mother's contribution joined to create a zygote; that is, a fertilized egg.  How romantic!  Now in singletons, the zygote goes on to become the little one they call their son or daughter.  But in identical twins, the zygote, for still unknown reasons, splits, thus producing two little ones where before there was only one.  Now that, my dear readers, is surely romantic!  From two, one.  From one, two.

Now the philosophical questions becomes, If little Jimmy and Georgie came about from the splitting zygote mommy and daddy made, can't it, the fertilized egg, be considered the twins' immediate parent, relegating Mr. and Mrs. Ross to the role of mediate parents?  Your meditation for the day.  Mine for a lifetime.