In December 2006 the world’s oldest mother gave birth to twins in Spain, so with so much hype surrounding the birth you would have thought it would have brought the spotlight on twins. On the contrary, the emphasis was placed on the mother’s pensionable age rather than the fact that she was going to be bringing up twins alone, a challenging task at any age. This brings me onto another challenge, raising twins in an unfamiliar country.
For all you expectant mothers or parents of twins and multiples I would like to be able to give you a huge list of resources for Spain but I can’t. It isn’t that I haven’t done any research. I have searched in Google in both English and Spanish, asked around, especially other parents of twins in passing and I have scanned parenting magazines in the newsagents since I arrived in the Costa del Sol in 2004.I have trawled through all the big UK based sites including Tamba, hunting for a link or forum thread which might suggest that there is a support network for expat parents of twins. So far this is the best that I can offer you “Partos Multiples” which is aimed at Spanish parents but if you know Spanish well enough you can learn from it too.
My twins were two and a bit when we left the UK. I had taken the facilities in the UK such as wide shops entrances, mother and baby parking, mother and baby changing rooms and so on for granted. Alongside other mothers of twins, we wouldn’t hesitate to complain if something wasn’t “twin friendly”. I knew that it wouldn’t be quite the same in Spain but I naively assumed that it would be a breeze in such a child friendly country. To be honest it was a bit of a shock to the system when I discovered that there were no twin seated trolleys at the supermarket or huge toilets with baby changing facilities big enough to accommodate a double pushchair.
Consequently, I had to make changes to my routine such as going shopping at the supermarket by myself in the evening or driving out of my village to places were the ground was level and I could walk safely without the fear of being hit by a car. In the beginning, I felt like I was constantly negotiating physical hurdles such as holes in the ground or unexpected staircases. I used to wonder how Spanish mothers of twins coped, but when I looked around myself I realised that they generally had the family support network which is less common for us in the UK.
As they are in the UK, twins in Spain are a real attention grabber, although mine receive less nowadays as they are approaching six and are very unidentical. Families with twins in Spain often like to play up their children’s twinness by dressing them identically with matching bows and ribbons, dresses or contrasting boy/girls outfits. I choose not to dress mine identically although they do wear similar outfits as it is easier to buy their clothes in one go under one roof.
As far as school is concerned, there was no question as to whether they should be separated. In fact, I didn’t have any say in the matter; there were two spaces available in one class so they went there. However, it isn’t ideal for me since one appears to be sharper than the other. It isn’t that she is particularly more intelligent, she is just more outwardly interested which has led to comparisons and assumptions being made by people.
I do feel slightly regretful that since we have moved to Spain, we have kind of overlooked the fact that they are twins to an extent and probably haven’t always done the “right” things as parents of twins. I am sure that had we stayed in the UK we would have made a greater effort to be part of the twins scene but it just isn’t possible here because there doesn’t appear to be one, well not yet anyway.
However, for those of you with twins living in Cadiz, you might be interested in this contact that I found online:
Rota Twin's Support and Play Group
Serving Rota
PSC 819 Box 15
Rota, Spain 9645
Good luck with your twins in Spain everyone!And if you here of any groups let me know here:
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