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Dr. Mercy interviews female 53-year-old twins who have recently been confronted with a dire diagnosis threatening the survival of the second born twin. Sonya and Tonya believe in their hearts that they are identical. Their mother and father were not sure. They are very similar in every way and have a strong telepathy which includes feelings each others’ emotions and symptoms. Their lives have also been similar, marrying husbands who were insecure about the twinship, having two children (boy and girl), and staying close until Tonya developed the disease of alcoholism. The twins talk about this disease, how they coped, Tonya’s recovery and their reunification. Tonya has recently been diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver and this second disease has challenged Tonya to remain hopeful and Sonya to face her twin’s mortality. Dr. Mercy will speak with them again after a biopsy is performed in August. Stay tuned. -
Tina Jenicek is a perfect example of a busy single mom with twins. Her twins are fraternal, a boy and girl 10 years old, attending day camp and learning everything they can at this marvelous age of industry and growth. We are all wondering if their genetic material and life experiences favor similarities or differences in personality, intelligence, and aptitude. Tina will describe her experiences with the twins from conception through elementary school. Our conversation will feature questions about the relationship between the twins, her closeness with each, the dominance and birth order myths, school placement, managing competition, ’best friends’, balancing work and home as a single mom, and all the questions that you have always wanted to ask about raising boy/girl twins. Tina also chairs the Florida Organization of Mothers of Twins in her spare time! She will discuss their services and supports for moms and dads of multiples. Call in with your questions to 1-866-613-1612.
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This program will fascinate the parents of twins particularly because Mike Poff and his wife Pam are raising quads plus three more children. If we ever thought our hands were full, we must wonder how Mike and Pam balance farming, jobs, and children. Mike is going to provide an inside view of his wonderful life in the Blue Ridge Mountains. How do the children manage? What roles do they play? What do the quads think about their special status? How do the quads interrelate? Does every child have a horse and a dog or does everyone share? How do the mom and dad coordinate their activities? Who makes what decisions? How do they handle conflict and discipline? How wild and crazy can life be? What keeps them strong? Tune in and find out how the Poff family works! Mike is our special guest, father, and author. Follow him on his blogs! He is a member of the Linked In Twins group along with Dr. Mercy. Bio: Mike Poff is a Virginia at-home-father of quadruplets plus three and gentleman farmer. He and his wife Pam, seven children, eight horses, six cats, nine dogs and a smattering of cattle live an interesting, full and blessed life near the Crest of the Blue Ridge. Mike is a freelance writer ever spreading the rants, raves and insights of an at home dad of quads. Mike has a Bachelors Degree in Theology and Associates in Radio & TV Production. He worked for several years in the Roanoke VA media market for WVFT TV27, WBRA Public TV and WFIR/WPVR Radio. Mike has recently written for several magazines and newspapers all in his quest to encourage others in their faith, family and relational lives in general. Twins, Most, The Father Life and Prodigal Magazines have all carried Mike’s work.
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In this program, Dr. Mercy will discuss studies performed with identical and fraternal twins as participants. If you have been a participant in a twin study perhaps through one of the large registries that exist through the United States and the world, we would love to hear your experiences. Twin studies can be cross-sectional or longitudinal; they often focus on the interrelationship among genetics, shared environment, and non-shared environment in order to determine the relative effects on personality, aptitudes, life experiences, and health. Some studies have been done with MRI technology to measure the size of fetal brains. Dr. Mercy will cover these resources and will also discuss the recent findings that identical twin DNA is not necessarily identical; she welcomes callers to discuss the implications of such results for society and the twins themselves. She will also report on various twin registries across the world, their purposes, and some results of the longitudinal studies that these registries are used to conduct.
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Dr. Mercy calls upon her studies of numerology to cover the basics that you need to know to live your life.
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If you are a twin, a parent of twins, or close to a twin, you will enjoy the interview with Dr. Barbara Klein, a twin herself and expert in childhood development. Dr. Klein will discuss the strong influences of parenting styles and early childhood experiences on the way in which co-twins relate to each other. These methods of twinning are covered in her book ‘Not All Twins Are Alike.’ She will also answer questions such as; ‘What is it like growing up as a twin? Do twins have difficulty in non-twin relationships? Why do twins fight? Why is twin loss so profoundly difficult for the surviving twin? Why should parents stress the individual differences between their twin children? How can we help gifted and challenged twins? What are the advantages of co-twins being different?’ Dr. Klein’s twin Marjorie teaches rhetorical writing at Stanford University and Dr. Klein will surely comment on their relationship throughout the life stages of childhood and adulthood.
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If you are a twin, a parent of twins, or close to a twin, you will enjoy the interview with Dr. Barbara Klein, a twin herself and expert in childhood development. Dr. Klein will discuss the strong influences of parenting styles and early childhood experiences on the way in which co-twins relate to each other. These methods of twinning are covered in her book ‘Not All Twins Are Alike.’ She will also answer questions such as; ‘What is it like growing up as a twin? Do twins have difficulty in non-twin relationships? Why do twins fight? Why is twin loss so profoundly difficult for the surviving twin? Why should parents stress the individual differences between their twin children? How can we help gifted and challenged twins? What are the advantages of co-twins being different?’ Dr. Klein’s twin Marjorie teaches rhetorical writing at Stanford University and Dr. Klein will surely comment on their relationship throughout the life stages of childhood and adulthood.
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NOMOTC, founded in 1960, is currently a network of over 450 local clubs and 25000 individual parents of multiples. This non-profit organization funded by grants, donations and dues is dedicated to supporting families through education, research and networking. The organization partners with local support groups, health care providers, researchers and educators to raise public awareness about the unique qualities of multiples. NOMOTC publishes current research, expert columns, book reviews, club news, and multiple birth related articles and participates in medical and psychological research projects that involve multiples and/or their families. It is a national charter member of the International Society of Twin Studies and the COMBO. They operate a Support Service Program to assist individuals in special cases including Pen Pals for parents of disabled multiples, support for Higher Order Multiples and Bereavement Support for those who have lost a child or spouse.
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In this lecture format, Dr. Mercy reports on Chinese fraternal twins adopted from the same orphanage and then reunited.
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Dr. Mercy has heard from many twins that she would love the novel I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb, whose books have been popularized by the Oprah Book Club and the merits of his fictional style. The 40-year-old ‘hero’ is an identical twin whose brother has paranoid schizophrenia. The novel covers their childhood, family history (which includes twins), and his psychotherapy with a psychologist who helps him integrate these pieces of his psyche. Dr. Mercy will be discussing the patterns of twinship attributed to the characters in the novel and their importance in the structure of the novel. Tune in and hear how Wally Lamb, a celebrated fiction writer and teacher, handles the twin theme. #1 New York Times Bestseller and Oprah Book Club selection: "Thoughtful . . . heart-wrenching . . . . An exercise in soul-baring storytelling—with the soul belonging to 20th-century America itself. It's hard to read and to stop reading, and impossible to forget." — USA Today Dominick Birdsey, a forty-year-old housepainter living in Three Rivers, Connecticut, finds his subdued life greatly disturbed when his identical twin brother Thomas, a paranoid schizophrenic, commits a shocking act of self-mutilation. Dominick is forced to care for his brother as well as confront dark secrets and pain he has buried deep within himself—a journey of the soul that takes him beyond his blue-collar New England town to Sicily’s Mount Etna, the birthplace of his grandfather and namesake. Coming to terms with his life and lineage, Dominick struggles to find forgiveness and finally rebuild himself beyond the haunted shadow of his troubled twin. I Know This Much Is True is a masterfully told story of alienation and connection, power and abuse, devastation and renewal—an unforgettable masterpiece. I Know this Much is True - Amazon
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Pamela Daniel and Dr. Mercy met several years ago at a Twinless Twins conference in Denver, Colorado and became fast friends.
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This show will explore the actual experiences of two female identical twins during childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Lee and Jesse will relate stories from their early lives illustrating their alikeness and differences, their comfort with other children, their position in the family, and the advantages and disadvantages of twinship. They will also answer the questions: 1. How is it different to be the first born or the second born? 2. How do you see yourselves as different from each other? 3. How do your parents see you as different from each other? 4. How did you relate to each other in School? 5. What did you share? Friends? Belongings? 6. Did you have some secrets from each other and from the world? 7. How did your sister influence your career? 8. How did your twinship affect your view of health and wellness?
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Karey Baker is the mother of two 6-year-old twin boys who were diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis.
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Dr. Mercy has reached out to organizers and potential participants in the Twins Day Festival happening this weekend in Twinsburg, Ohio. She is hoping to connect with people attending the festival during Twin Talk show time to discover what brings them to the festival, what do they love about it, and what experiences do they carry home into their lives. The festival begins officially Friday, August 6 with a day of activities devoted to twins and their families. The following two days are open to the public. Anyone in the neighborhood of Cleveland may want to attend the weekend festivities including a parade Saturday morning, twin contests, and twin talent shows. The festival is an ideal place for researchers to connect with twin subjects for cross-sectional and longitudinal studies, and booths at the festival are purchased by agencies for their research. Dr. Mercy will discuss some of the studies during the show or later in the Twin Talk series.
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Sandy and Dr. Mercy met each other at the International Twins Association convention in Tempe, Arizona.
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Dolores Nick (74), grandmother of three sets of twins, will describe her experiences. In her words, ‘the identical boy twins Skyler and Spender (18) dress the same everyday. The boys elected to share a college dorm room and want to marry twins. The identical girl twins prefer to dress differently. Sierra and Savana (12), best friends, have been through a lot of medical problems. Sierra is a three time cancer survivor, first diagnosed at three and again at five and six, now cancer free. For both sets of twins, it's never "I" it's always "We;" there is sharing, no personal space, and always someone to play with and talk to. Shane and Shyanne, 10-month fraternal twins, are different as night and day. They were "womb mates" and little else is the same. They don't interact much with each other, as of yet, but seem to look for each other if one is sleeping and the other is awake. Shane was supposed to be the "vanishing twin"......but never vanished. It's truly a remarkable miracle that he is here.’
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Denise and Deanne live on opposite coasts, Denise in New York and Deanne in California. Has this geographic separation taken a toll on their twinship? One twin was extroverted and sought the companionship of her peers; the other was closer to the family and sought approval there. They were close in their younger years and supported each other in hard times. How did they find themselves so far apart in adulthood? What forces and factors shaped each twin? How are they alike and different? How do they communicate now in maturity? Do they still think of each other as identical twins and how do they express this bond? This twinship is a fascinating story of twins with primarily non-shared experiences. Their genes, aptitudes, intelligence, and interests are very similar, yet they have lived in two very different worlds both familiar to them from childhood. Hear them discuss the choices they have made as women and identical twins.
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Dr. Mercy will discuss the experimental evidence for anomalous retroactive influences on cognition and affect, research recently published by Daryl Bem. Daryl J Bem is a social psychologist and emeritus professor at Cornell University. He received his PhD in 1964 from the University of Michigan and taught there before going on to join the faculty at Stanford, Carnegie-Mellon, Harvard, and Cornell. He had a distinguished career in psychology, then turned his attention to parapsychology; the self-perception theory of attitude formation and change has been named after him, and he was invited to co-author one of the core international psychology textbooks, known by generations of students as ‘Hilgard and Atkinson’.
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This show will explore the actual experiences of two female identical twins during childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Lee and Jesse will relate stories from their early lives illustrating their alikeness and differences, their comfort with other children, their position in the family, and the advantages and disadvantages of twinship. They will also answer the questions: 1. How is it different to be the first born or the second born? 2. How do you see yourselves as different from each other? 3. How do your parents see you as different from each other? 4. How did you relate to each other in School? 5. What did you share? Friends? Belongings? 6. Did you have some secrets from each other and from the world? 7. How did your sister influence your career? 8. How did your twinship affect your view of health and wellness?