I’m a mom of twins but I would never dress my kids in matching clothes. Here’s why.

Marah Eakin’s twins. Courtesy Marah Eakin As a mother of twins, people often give me matching clothes for my two kids. However, I’ll never dress them alike.

I actually find it easier to dress them differently. But it’s more than ease — I also want to give them a sense of individuality. When I found out I was having twins, it wasn’t really a surprise.

My husband and I had done in vitro fertilization, and when we decided to implant two embryos, we knew it was a possibility. What was a surprise, though, was how a lot of people responded. Many of the gifts we opened from well-wishers were two of something — two tiny matching onesies, two identical bears, a set of matching crib sheets.

 I wondered why would people do that. Yes, we were having twins, but they were fraternal. And even if they weren’t, we never assumed they’d have the same likes, interests, or personalities.

In my mind, having twins was just having two kids at once — not two of the same kid.  Learning my own way of raising twinsAs I grew into being a twin mom, though, I realized how many other twin moms really valued this kind of sameness. My neighbors across the street have identical twin boys, and I’ve never seen the two of them in different outfits.

My husband’s cousins are twins, and their mom gave me a bunch of matching hand-me-downs. A twin-parent friend told me about a group she’s in of girl-boy moms that trade tips for finding outfits that match across genders. The group is peppered with photos of creative matches, all sported by preteen duos in various states of kiddo disarray.

My kids are 4 now, and as different as can be. That could be genetic — or it may be how we’ve raised them. When I was pregnant, my husband and I took a class at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles directed at twin parents.

Taught by an adult twin who was married to another adult twin, the class was less about the details of birthing and bathing twin babies and more about how to shepherd a set of twins into the world.  The twins. Courtesy Marah Eakin”Never give them similar names,” the instructor told us.

That would make people mix them up or always group them together. She also said to have two separate birthday cakes and to sing happy birthday to each child, alternating who goes first each year. They’d notice, she told us, even if we didn’t.

Don’t always put one twin first when you say their names — like Adam and Eve, for example. That’ll leave one feeling slighted or like the one that always has to follow, not lead. Twins, the instructor said, can seem like part of a whole — especially if they’re identical — but treating them as such limits their range of development.

Always grouping your multiples can take away their sense of individuality, or even lead to them clashing.  Choosing not to have them match works for usWhile a lot of twin parents say that they lean toward matching out of ease, I’ve always found it to be easier to just have a big dresser of clothes to choose from, where all the kids clothes are mixed together. In the morning, they can choose a shirt from drawer A and a pair of pants from drawer B; that way, I don’t have to worry about having two clean versions of everything or whether matching sets are folded all together in the drawer.

Moreover, because I have boy-girl twins, it gives them the freedom to wear whatever they want, regardless of their gender. I’m not bothered if my daughter wants to wear a dinosaur shirt that I bought because I thought my son might like it. If my son wants to wear a floaty dress on a hot summer day — which he did semiregularly as a toddler — then he can because that’s his prerogative.

 It’s important for each twin to have their own identity. Courtesy Marah EakinI’ve always viewed my own clothes as an expression of my personality. They tell the world who I am and how I want to be seen as an individual, separate from my husband, my friends, or my coworkers.

My children might be twins, born on the same day from the same mom, but that doesn’t mean they’re not distinct little souls with unique likes, color preferences, and interests. They’re only in preschool, but even now, I want them to have the freedom to express themselves however they want. While that could one day mean matching outfits, I want that to be their choice, based on a connection or interest they both have, rather than one I’ve assigned to them.

Until then, it’s different clothes for my twins, adorable photo ops be damned. Read the original article on Insider.