Mum comes under fire for hack to tell identical twins apart: 'Take them to a tattoo parlour'

Mums know having a sense of humour is a pretty integral part of the job of parenting.

In fact, being able to poke fun at yourself can help you get through those long days of being at home with children.

But a US mum of three boys' tongue-in-cheek hack to help tell her identical twin boys apart saw her come under fire after she posted it on social media.

Watch video above.

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The woman, who is known as Kaitlin P on TikTok, often takes to the platform to post videos about life with her children, including a set of twins. A previous post that has racked up more than 752,000 views was devoted to the subject of how she was able to tell her identical twins apart, with her admitting she couldn't.

But it was the video she uploaded this week in reply to one of the comments that caused a backlash after she joked about getting the twins tattoos in order to differentiate them.

"I thought the best way to tell my identical twins apart would be to take them to a tattoo parlour and get them their own tattoo," she said.

"Well when I took them there the guy said 'No, must be 18 years of age or older, blah blah blah'. So today I got us temporary tattoos to try out."

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The video then shows Kaitlin looking through the tattoos before joking she was going to put them on their foreheads, before instead putting them on their hands.

She eventually chose a tattoo of the planet Mercury for one twin and the initials KO, referring to the boxing term knock-out, before the video ended with the two boys gazing up at their mum.

She uploaded the video with the comment, "How do they look?" and the hashtags #identicaltwins #twinsoftiktok #identicaltwin #twinsoftok #identicaltriplets #moditwinmom #identicaltwinboys #diditwins #momotwins #fraternaltwins and #momsoftiktok. It has so far racked up almost 300,000 views and 43,000 likes, and resulted in hundreds of comments.

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But it didn't take long for the outrage to begin. "Why would u even think of getting them real tattoos?" asked one. "So no ones gonna talk about how she said she took HER BABY TO A TATTOO PARLOUR," said another.

Many made suggestions for ways to tell her children apart, ranging from dressing them in different clothes, to different coloured nail polish, piercing the ear of one and even getting a "doctors note to get a specific mark behind the ear or something like that."

Another wrote, "For anyone wondering, people get like a small dot or something tattooed behind the ear of one twin. I hope that's the kind she meant. They normally fade."

Another suggested that if she was planning to use temporary tattoos she must remember to write down which twin had what.

Others poked fun at her for not correctly identifying some of the tattoos, or for a scene when one of the twins appeared to grab the scissors she was using.