A new dad was apparently so nervous he wouldn't be able to tell his twins apart, he resorted to his own creative methods for telling the difference: marking their hands with a marker. But as he later shared in a post on Reddit (which has since been deleted), his wife FLIPPED when she found out. Now, he's wondering if he really did do the wrong thing after all.
The problem first started when the new dad had to return to work after his twins were born.
You see, his wife often has the twins share clothing, and it's getting the dad all mixed up.
"They both look almost exactly alike and I can’t figure out which is which," he wrote. "I asked if she would separate some clothes but she said no, because she thinks it’s cute they share clothes."
But things have only gotten worse.
"Anytime I call one the wrong name she gets mad and ignores me for an hour," he added. "She spends all day with them every day so she knows exactly which is which. I can’t do that."
That is why the newbie dad came up with the whole marker on the hand thing. It was supposed to be a simple yet creative solution to his little problem. But oh man, did he go and step in it.
"I drew a little dot (with a safe marker) on one twins right hand and one on the other’s left hand and I made sure to have the names right," he explained. "It started to work."
But then his wife found out about his little trick, and let's just say, she was TICKED.
"She got really mad at me because I needed that much help figuring out our babies names," he wrote.
However, the dad argued that he does need some help in telling them apart.
"She spends all day with them. I do not," he said.
This little tiff, however, is not blowing over …
"She got mad and left the house," he said. "A few days passed and she’s still mad at me. Now I’m here wondering if I [expletive] up here. Was I an [expletive] here?"
On Reddit, a lot of people thought his wife was being completely unreasonable.
Give the dad a break! they argued. After all, babies don't have a ton of defining features in the beginning, and when you have two at home who look identical … well, it ain't easy.
"Your wife is going to have to get used to people messing up on identifying them until they get older," one commenter wrote. "Rather than drawing on them, maybe there is something else you can do. But if she's not willing to help you, IMO she has no right to get upset."
"You don't spend as much time with them, you're naturally going to struggle, and not doing anything in the meantime to help you distinguish them makes your wife TA unfortunately," another person added.
"Your wife is handling this terribly," a third person chimed in. "Of course you would need help if you don't get to spend as much time with them. That doesn't make you a bad parent."
But also, there's this: "She can't just ignore you and expect the problem to get better," the person continued. "She shouldn't be dressing them the same if it makes it difficult for you to identify them or at least have them wear different clothes when you are home. She got mad at the the one thing that was helping."
To be fair though, plenty of people were giving the dad side-eye for using markers on his kid.
"Dude, there are better ways to do this," one commenter advised. "Paint their nails in a different color, for example, the marker, safe or not, was not the right thing to do."
"What you did was to DRAW ON YOUR KIDS WITH A MARKER — dude … Really?" another added. "Give them printed onesies, colorful socks, a safe bracelet or whatever. But don’t paint on your offspring. Or your wife gets mad, for all the good reasons. They’re not sheep."
The dad later wrote that he's tried other methods of telling the two apart, but his wife was just not here for it.
"I asked about giving them bracelets (that they can’t choke on of course)," he wrote. "She laughed at the idea. Every idea I came up with she shut down."
"She says I should be able to figure it out and it is driving me absolutely bananas," he added.
Oh, man. Here's hoping the dad hangs in there a bit longer (and stops writing on his kids with marker). After all, a few more months and those kids will start to develop some defining features — and then (hopefully) they'll be easier to tell apart.
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