What’s it like to be a Triplet?

Did you ever wish you had a sibling your age? Imagine having two of them!

Meet Chana and Rochel Cunin, who are triplets with a boy, and Fortunee, Susy and Victoria, who are all triplet girls.

Our names are Victoria, Fortunee and Susy Cohen, and we are all 16 years old. Yes, we are triplets. 

Hi, our names are  Chana, (Moshe, our brother), and Rochel Cunin, and our birthday is Yud Tes Teves. We’re 13 years old, and we live in Reno, Nevada. 

 

The Cunin Triplets

Hi! Do you look alike? Do people ever confuse you?

We might be sisters, and we might have been born on the same day, but no, we don’t look anything alike! When people see us in the street, they think we are best friends, because we don’t look anything like sisters. The three of us have different color eyes and hair, and we are all different heights.

No, we don’t look alike at all, and our brother looks like a mix of us, but people confuse us all the time. One of the things we have probably said a million times is “No, I’m not Rochel!” or “No! I’m not Chana!”. Even our friends sometimes accidentally call us the wrong name. 

 

Have you ever pranked people?

Sadly, we don’t look alike, so we are not able  to prank people, but if we did we would love to prank people. It would definitely be a lot of fun!

Yeah, mostly just prank teachers though. Even though people mix us up, they know that we look different so it wouldn’t work too well. But when we were younger, we tried it a few times. The teacher just usually got confused, even though they knew we looked different, but they couldn’t remember who was supposed to sit where!

 

Some people think triplets have telepathy. Do you ever know what your sibling is thinking? Do you finish each others sentences? Can you feel when one triplet is hurt, even if you’re not there?

An analogy would be: we are all fruits, but one is an apple, the other is a pear, and the other is a grape. We have different attitudes, we all like different foods, different colors; we are too different to be triplets! When one of us gets hurt, we don’t feel each others pain and we never think about the same things. We don’t believe this is true in triplets, twins, or even quintuplets. It is not even scientifically possible!

We don’t exactly have real telepathy, but sometimes we think the same things. Like for example, I might be singing a song in my head and I walk into a room and my sister/brother is singing the exact same song! Also, we think about similar ideas. When I was little, if I wanted the last cookie or something like that, I would try really hard to not think about it, so one of my other triplet wouldn’t think of the same thing.

 

Do you each have different friends?

We all have the same friends, because we go to the same places. We are always together, but we have a few different friends. 

Mostly we have the same friends; only a few different ones. 

 

Do you go everywhere together? Same school? 

 We go everywhere together; from the mall, all the way to school, but we all have different schedules in school so we only have a few classes together. Yes, we even celebrated our Bat Mitzvah together. 

We have different levels for subjects, so half the day we’re not in the same class. When we are in the same class, it’s nice. Sometimes it’s a bit embarrassing, like if one of us answers a question wrong. On the first day of school (since this year was our first year of high school, and it was a new school) our teachers were very excited when they found out we were triplets. They still can be annoying sometimes, like they compare our grades, and tell things about one to the other. It also makes it a lot easier when we’re in the same class – instead of carrying 6 big books home for homework, we share them and each bring half.

 

Do you like being a triplet?

We love being triplets, and we would never want or even wish to not be a triplet. Imagine having two best friends everywhere you go;  you are never alone anywhere! You always have someone to talk to, and since they are the same age, they understand you perfectly.

We understand each other very well. When we are in an awkward or annoying situation, we can just glance at each other and know exactly what the other is feeling, and it’s nice having someone your own age, besides for your friends. Besides for the basic stuff, I don’t really feel any different for being a triplet. But on the other hand,  one of the most annoying things is the questions people ask. Like, we’ve probably heard “What’s it like to be a triplet? Do you like it?” from at least one person in every room, or when we meet new people, they ask us our age. When we tell them we’re the same age, and they find out we are triplets, their mouths just drop open and their eyes bug out, and we just roll our eyes.

 

Do triplets run in your family?

There are a lot of twins in our family but never triplets, so it was a big surprise for our family! 

Multiples run in our family, but we’re the only set of triplets; the rest are twins.