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Q: My niece and her partner recently had a baby and I gave them $100 as a gift. Now my nephew and his partner are expecting twins. Can I get away with another $100 gift – or do I need to double it? B.W., Ballarat, Vic
A: Looking at this biologically, a baby is the result of the successful fertilisation of an egg by a sperm, so a $100 gift is actually $50 for the mother’s contribution and $50 for the father’s. Not entirely fair, seeing the father’s work was done in less than four minutes, he didn’t have to carry a foetus for nine gruelling months, and he spent most of the agonisingly painful delivery chatting to the hot student midwife with the flippy-floppy ponytail. Regardless, that’s the gift you’ve decided to give: egg plus sperm equals $100.
So if we apply this equation to twins, you’d assume the amount would simply double, which is true for fraternal twins who develop from two eggs and two sperm. But not for identical twins, which share the same egg and sperm, so they’re 2-for-1-deal babies, like supermarket confectionery or Domino’s Two-for-Tuesday pizzas.
Unless you know exactly what type of twins your nephew and his partner are expecting, you can’t really lock in an amount. So show up at the maternity ward with $300 in cash – $200 in one card and $100 in another – then hand over the correct card after asking lots of questions, checking the babies for similarities and conferring with a hospital obstetrician.
And if they are identical, it’s your choice if you want to continue this rule into the future: one gift for birthdays, one toy for Christmas, one chocolate egg for Easter. Unless you can find a 2-for-1 supermarket confectionery deal. There’s always one going.
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