Raising kids/fairness etc.

 

I have three kids, all girls. Oldest is 14 and the two younger are 8 years old and twins. My questions are in regards to what do people consider fair mostly regarding the twins. Here's the scenario. My twin girls are about as different as night and day. Other than both being blond and smart, they are different heights, weights, shoe sizes, etc. One tends to be much more "artsy" than the other and slow to pick up playing sports.  She also tends to be the smaller of the two. And when I say smaller, I mean typically at least one full size in clothing and 1 to 1.5 shoes sizes smaller...which leads to some of my dilemna. We try to reuse clothing and a lot of my oldest daughters things get handed down to the twins. We also have a couple sets of friends that bring us back of clothes that their duaghters outgrow. We're not poor, but people realize raising three kids isnt cheap and we're not too proud to accept the clothes. That and they are usually nearly new. Anyways, last year we signed the twins up for basketball. The program offered here gives girls the choice to either play basketball or be cheerleaders. It didnt surprise us that the larger, typically more sporty twin chose to play while the other chose to cheer. I am one of those that beleives you should outfit kids properly so actuall basketball shoes were purchased for one and cheer shoes for the other. No issues there. This year rolled around and both kids decided to play instead of cheer. Not going to lie, I was a little excited by this. When it came time to buy new shoes, I assumed that the larger twin had outgrown her basketball shoes from last year and planned to buy her a new set. It was discussed and decided that the smaller twin would use the shoes purchased last year since they were barely used and look virtually brand new. (we only use basketball shoes for basketball). I felt bad with doing this, but also didnt want to spend twice as much money considering BBall shoes are $30+. Well, I took the larger twin out and when shopping for shoes, actually had a hard time finding the right size, but ended up doing so. We got home, everyone was ok with things and along we go. I will say that the old shoes were a little big for the smaller twin, but with thick athletic socks not ridiculously big or anything.

 

This past weekend was their first game and while they were sitting next to each other putting their shoes on, I noticed that the new shoes looked really similiar in size to the old shoes. Afterwards when we got home, I compared the two and found that they were in fact the same freaking size! In fact the older shoes almost look a little bigger. Apparently I should have had the larger twin try them on before deciding to buy new ones which is funny because I kind of thought I had. Anyways, now I feel kind of bad. I dislike having the smaller twin having to wear shoes that would have fit the larger twin, so by rights she should have had the new shoes. Even after 8 years, I still feel new to this and constantly wrestle with what's considered fair or not fair. I also am an only child, so I never really had to deal with this sort of thing growing up. I always got new stuff, but I also wasnt involved in sports as much as my kids are. It gets expensive with three kids.

 

Thoughts? If not direct experience with your own kids, how did your parents handle hand me downs? We try to offset like when it came time for bicycles, the larger twin actually rode a two wheeler first, so she took the oldest sisters bike and the smaller got a new one. This was partially as an incentive for her to catch up and learn. It's odd having two kids born 2 minutes apart develop so differently.

 

 

 

My origial intent was to see if she stuck with it before investing in new shoes. I just feel bad that she did end up with the old shoes when by rights she should have gotten new ones since the old ones were the same. I feel its my mistake. As Eville is saying though, she probably doesnt even care anymore at this point. Probably beating myself up over nothing.

 

What's sad is that if the girls were actually different ages, I wouldn't think twice about the situation, but it's more the fact that they are the same age that makes it so awkward at times.

 

Thanks for the input.