Inspired by my niece, who always blamed her (nonexistent) evil twin.
Wouldn’t it be fun to say: “It wasn’t me, it was my evil twin”? If you happen to be a twin, I doubt that either of you is evil, but tell the truth: As mischievous children growing up, how many times did you point the finger at the other hoping they’d get the blame for what you did?
Fun, eh?
We weren’t triplets, but with 1.5 years between Jackie and me and 2.5 between younger brother and me, there must have been plenty of times we felt like same-age kids to our stay-at-home mom. Before the lesson of the necessity of taking blame took hold, we pointed the finer at each other every chance we got for everything bad we did. (My brother cut my hair first, I’m sure of it. My sister stuffed me in the—unhooked—dryer, I didn’t go willingly. RoseMary got the paints out, not us! He dared me to staple my thumb.)
Whether mom ever bought into our blame-game or not never came to light. I suspect that she was a lot smarter than her toddlers gave her credit for and knew exactly which mini-terrorist had completed which act.
Deceitful children…
Don’t you think kids have a natural sense of self-preservation and will toss the credit for bad actions anywhere they can? Of course, we probably all know too many adults who still behave that way, but moving on…
Back to that parental lesson of taking responsibility for our own actions and learning accountability. It was as popular with us as laughing at ourselves, even when it was deserved. Taking the culpability and sharing the credit sounds great now, but that age of learning comes long after the usage of the, “S/HE DID IT!” passing of the buck.
My dear niece wasn’t so big on foisting things onto her much calmer little brother, but she was an ace at saying with attitude, “My evil twin did it.”
Where does a kid even get that notion?
She’d roll it out at a moment’s notice, never batting an eye or revealing a smirk, or giving anything a way. I’m sure the first time she said it, my sister and I looked at each other and thought, huh, where’d another kid come from?
Why can’t adults…
I’ve been thinking about how to use such an attitude to our advantage in adulthood.
“Rm, who broke the shredder?” My spouse makes this inquiry quite nonchalantly.
Stoically, I reply, “My evil twin must have stopped by!”
He pauses in his tracks to consider this new piece of information. No, he shakes his head, by now I’ve met all her family.
Haven’t I?
Pray that I have.
But, hey for a moment, he had to wonder, right?
Taking the blame for the things we do that are less than stellar is never an easy thing. It is, however, a very large part of growing up.
I would like to never be the bad friend again, never hurt someone’s feelings, never forget to say thank you or do the right thing. But I’m not that good. How convenient to assign fault to some other part of myself rather than taking a deep breath and setting the responsibility squarely on my own shoulders where it belongs.
Teaching kids to accept their shortcomings but not let those flaws define who they are must be a daunting task for parents. It’s hard for adults to shake off mistake-baggage and move on. Perhaps allowing ourselves to have an Evil Twin on which to occasionally blame things is not, exactly, a bad idea after all.
Parents, what do you think about your kids?
Adults, how about yourselves?
Other inspiration from kids: How my niece & nephew raised me
And my Entire Fun Family
Hi Rose Mary,
After going back to my childhood, I see that the blame game started after me and my younger sister saw our parents doing the same thing. If parents want their kids to be responsible, they are the ones who should lead by example. You can’t be expecting for your kid to stop blaming others for their mistakes, when he / she sees you doing otherwise. It is hypocritical! Thank you for sharing your experience!
Zaria
Zaria, you are right about the parents setting the example. I don’t think that I ever saw my parents blame someone else for anything they’d done. Although for decades mom blamed everyone else for stealing the first slice of pumpkin pie from her freshly baked one. My brother finally discovered the truth and she had a good laugh for faking us out for so long!
Growing up, I used to blame my brother and sister for things. As I got older, I stopped doing that. If I did something wrong, I owned it.
Yep, Jason, it’s pretty normal for kids to do that–place blame. The trick is for all of us to grow out of it!
Shifting blame and responsibility is very much the American way these days: it sounds as though your niece was ahead of the curve. Meanwhile, she doesn’t plan to run for public office, does she? 😉
My niece is way too smart to run for office!
My sister blamed me for everything. Kids might need to accept responsibility, but they also know how to play that game. Kids learn too soon, how to pit one parent against the other.
Kids not knowing responsibility, and putting the blame on others, is part of that entitlement, everyone is special and gets a trophy mentality. If they feel so special, they cannot accept the blame, for they are perfect. Pretty soon they have a sense that anything they do is right, everyone else is wrong for blaming them.
Thanks for sharing this with us.
Did she ever own up to doing things, William? We never got away with the parental-pitting-against each other. They caught onto that early. And one parent would answer our request with, “What did Mom/Dad say?” And boy if we lied to that question were we ever in trouble! As my cousin said to her husband once upon a time, “It’s us against them (they had 3 kids), we have to present a united front.” HA!
We are in a sad state in our country because more people aren’t accepting responsibility for their actions.
Your niece sounds hysterical. I never had an evil twin. I was an only child so I guess I just accepted from a young age that I would get the blame. You are right that it can be difficult to admit that you messed up, especially when you’re still little. An evil twin seems like a great invention, and probably a sign of your niece’s intelligence and creativity.
Glad you got that from my post, Erica, my niece is still a riot! There’s a post on here, “How my niece and nephew raised me,” that shows some more of their humor and inventiveness. One time, Adam, the little brother, disappeared into his room for quite some time. We checked on him and he had built an entire fleet of battleships out of things like empty toilet paper rolls, paper towel rolls, shoe boxes. He must have been hoarding them. He was maybe 5 years old. The imagination of kids is so inspiring!
I used to think, growing up in this wild family, that I wanted to be an only child, but reflecting I’m glad that I had such chaos in my life. I can lone them–their stories–out to you anytime!
Nice post! It makes me think that indeed truly growing up comes only with becoming fully responsible for your own actions and not blaming your evil twin sister, other people or external circumstances.
Well said, Kristina. Growing up is about accepting responsibility–in all its varied forms.
Hi Rose. I love your playful posts! It must have been so much fun growing up with siblings to get into trouble with. I have an older brother, but we are 7 years apart, and therefore never really spent much time playing together.
Doreen, my older sister, brother and I were non-stop entertainment for each other, let alone our parents. We also had 10 cousins in close proximity as well as a half dozen neighborhood friends. Our younger sister is 10 years my junior, so she had an entirely different upbringing–including 3 siblings to boss her around! I hope as you got older your bro and you developed a different friendship.
We did indeed, Rose! the relationship between me and my older brother has now grown into something of real mutual love and respect. It took a long time coming, but it has been worth the wait.
That is wonderful, Doreen! It’s great to have siblings as friends.
Children will happily put someone else in the “hot seat” to escape a telling off. I did it and often. My mum used to reprimand us both so I wonder why on earth I bothered.
Parents have a responsibility to ensure their children are taught right from wrong. Their actions may not always depict this, as children will be children. As an adult these principles tend to stick with you.
Thank you for writing about serious matters in a light hearted way.
I think our parents knew I was the most likely culprit! Good for your mum for handing out equal punishment! That was probably a very wise thing to do.
You are so right–it’s up the parents to teach their kids to take responsibility. Sadly, we often see where that has not been the case.
I can’t expect children to react differently as adults they learn from us. Just listen to the news. Watching the the US presidential debates, each candidate is blaming one another. Our children learn from us. Then when are children do the blame game we wonder where it comes from.
Arleen, my niece obviously got her sense of humor from my sister and her husband! You’re right, kids learn from what they see. I wish the world would practice all the good things and not the bad ones.
As a parent of two kids close in age, It is common for kids to deny deny deny, they would never admit to something they did inappropriately. Well, I realized it’s all about the approach. If the parent is screaming, they are going to deny any wrong doing. If the parent talks more calmly, they may fess up. But there’s no guarantee. Great post!
Is there any guarantee when you’re a parent? HA! I admire you as a group of people trying to raise little humans into good big humans! You’re right, though, as kids we were always far more terrorized by my Dad’s calmness than when Mom threatened with the paddle. He was scary. (He was really a total mush, but he played a scary Dad extremely well!).
Rose, growing up with 5 brothers and 5 sisters there was always someone to blame – unfortunately dad always saw through that and the guilty was punished.
The funny thing about twins – a younger brother and sister are twins and they would never blame each other – they would gang up and blame any other one of us, which gave them the advantage in the blame game.
Fun post but with a pretty good message.
Lenie, that is really funny that the twins would gang up and blame the rest of you! Totally understandable with the number of kiddos in your family, that they would be the cohesive unit. What fun for them!
I recall when my now grown daughter Anna was about 8 years old. She didn’t blame an evil twin for anything, but she sure did have a colorful alter ego.
One time I was outside in the fall doing yard clean-up work. Anna came out wearing an outlandish combination of clothes and colors. “Where’s Anna?” she asked, “I’ve been looking everywhere for her and can’t find her.”
I asked, “And what is your name?”
“I’m Stephanie.” I assured her I’d let Anna know that Stephanie was looking for her. I also made a point of taking her picture. After Stephanie left, Anna came out dressed normally. I told her about the girl looking for her. Anna, putting on a suitably puzzled expression, left to find the mysterious Stephanie. Of course Stephanie returned wearing the exact combination of crazy attire, still looking. The back and forth adventure continued until my daughter decided to do something else with her afternoon. It was a goofy kind of behaviour that brightened up my day. I’m glad to have the photo as a reminder.
This isn’t a response about blame but I couldn’t resist. Hope you don’t mind. 🙂
Ramona, sometimes the very best part of writing a blog are the comments that follow it. What a great story! Like my friend, Maureen, below, who had an invisible friend named Martha. I love the imagination of your daughter, of Maureen, of all kids who are letting their imaginations run free…and most importantly…entertain us adults! Great story.
My sister and I are nearly 5 years apart and are completely different. I was a tomboy, always out to find the next adventure, a straight A student and very serious minded. Sis was more concerned with being popular – a cheerleader of course – and I think the first words out of her mouth were marriage and children. So we lived in the same house but mostly just passed each other in the hallway, all of which means it never even occurred to me to blame her for anything because our parents never would have bought it. Even as an adult, I’d rather fess up to a mistake than live with the guilt because I tend to be pretty hard on myself when I screw up.
We women, particularly, are very hard on ourselves when we screw up. Blast it. Five years can be a world of difference in sisters. Our younger sister is 12 & 10 years older than Jackie and I. A whole different relationship, to be sure. Jackie was the cheerleader–I was too big of a klutz for that action!
Oh yeah, I have tried to hide some mistakes from my husband. Not that he would care, but that he laughs like crazy at me when I do one more thing…but I always tell him. Okay, truth is: I like making him laugh. Even at my expense!
Hi Rose, as a kid I always thought having a twin would be fun. You know those twin hijinks. Not necessarily an evil one to blame things on, but maybe the girl is on to something with that idea. 🙂
She was a very inventive child. And yep–I’m with you on the hijinks–it’s always better to share them with someone!
Blaming an evil twin could be a fun thing to do. It may give us a light-hearted moment and time to come with terms with what we’ve done, but ultimately we need to accept responsibility for our actions. It is a real balancing act for parents to instill that sense of responsibility without making the child feel inadequate or too afraid of making mistakes to try something new or pursue a dream.
Righto’ Donna! Not that I haven’t had other moments, but when I was The Bad Friend to the sweetest person ever a few years ago, I was beside myself (twin again?) until I could apologize to her. It was an awful feeling to know I’d hurt her feelings.
Yes to the parental part–what a challenge! Jackie used to always say, “I love you, but I don’t like what you did.” Then she would explain the impact of their actions. It must have worked because they are now in their 30s and are very responsible adults. Weird and fun, but responsible!
I say thank you for introducing to me to the evil twin I cold have been blaming all these years:) Keen idea!
Yes, Jacquie, it’s never too late to blame her!
I didn’t have an evil twin but my mom loves to tell people about my invisible childhood friend Martha. I don’t know that I actually ever used her for a scapegoat though. All I really remember about her was she rode a motorcycle and I believe she moved to Texas at some point. I bet my mom could tell us more! lol!
Martha, eh? She sounds very adventurous. I think she’d be fun to hang out with!
Unfortunately there are way too many adults who have never grown out of fingerpointing and looking for a scapegoat, mostly as a way of avoiding accountability.
You are right, Ken. I dealt with them too often when I worked in the world of HR. Couldn’t figure out why their parents hadn’t taught them about consequences.
Hahahaha ❤️
So good to have you and Adam for blog-fodder!
It’s always hard to accept blame for something but ultimately it is the right thing to do and you will be better for it in the end. It is funny that kids are innately born with the “I didn’t do it” gene. We have to teach them from a very young age to not lie in the first place, the difference between right and wrong. And I believe they have to learn that there is a consequence for not being truthful and for bad behavior…or they just grow up to believe that whatever they do is just okay.
Well said, Mom-Jackie. I got to witness you teaching your kiddos that very thing–the consequences to actions is very important for kids to learn. Every time!