Twins swapping places to fool their parents or teachers is a common trope, but how well does it work when it’s the other way around? Can small kids tell the difference between their own mom and their parent’s twin?
One mom and auntie decided to find out and the results went viral on TikTok.
The Parent Swap
Twin sisters Hannah (who has three sons) and Heidi (who has three daughters) share a TikTok account under the name livingadoublelifestyle. They have posted a few videos testing the ability of kids (or in one case, a spouse) to tell them apart.
Now, they’ve done a secret swap. Will Heidi’s daughters be able to tell that the “mom” who just walked into the kitchen to do a chore is actually their aunt Hannah?
As it turns out, it doesn’t take more than a few seconds for the little girls to realize something is up. The youngest child, identified as “Neice #2,” catches on right away.
Soon, the kids are interrogating their aunt to make sure that mom isn’t too far away.
These Kids Are Not Easily Fooled
In the video, you’ll see that the smallest girl immediately stops what she’s doing to watch her aunt run the sweeper. She gets up and follows, examining her aunt’s face to see what’s going on.
Her sister is more occupied, but once she looks up, she immediately asks, “Hannah?”
When Auntie insists that she’s actually Mom, her niece is on the case, checking for clues, like the wrong color of toenail polish and a different phone design.
Check out the video below to see the tiny detective call out her aunt, and demand the truth about the location of her mom.
Moms Are Loving It
If you’ve ever wondered whether your babies would notice if you were replaced, Hannah Heidi and the kids give a pretty good hint as to the answer!
Moms are not expendable, nor swappable, clearly, and the viewers are impressed.
“The oldest treated you like an intruder!” one commenter says, and another adds that the little girl was ready to “call the cops” on her aunt.
Another adds,
“The oldest had absolutely no tolerance for your games. No smile or nothing.”
The kid even argued that Hannah and her mom don’t look alike!
This Recognition Starts Very Early
While most kids won’t face tests like Hannah and Heidi’s babies, with a ‘replacement’ adult who looks very much (well, maybe not to them, but to most of us) like her mom, babies do recognize their parents pretty quickly.
Your baby recognizes your voice in utero and, according to Yale Baby School, will make an effort soon after birth to hear her voice over other voices. (Dad’s voice will be added to the ‘favorites’ list soon after.)
By three months old, a baby can distinguish their mother’s face from a stranger’s face without other cues (like scent or voice), but they’ll recognize their mom’s scent and feel even earlier.
A 1993 study examined this recognition and found that when speech is added, a one-month-old can tell mom’s face from another.
Hannah’s Voice Alerted Her Older Niece
You’ll notice in the video that it’s when Hannah speaks to her nieces that the older one looks up and starts questioning what’s going on.
While the two women’s voices are clearly pretty similar, it raises the question of whether some slight difference was noticeable to the child, raising a red flag (especially since these kids have been put through similar tests before).
Or was it just that she looked up to respond to a direction and spotted the difference?
Either way, these kids are hard to trick.