How the spike in multiple births 20 years ago plays out today on campus
If you run into Joseph and Matthew Hayes on Rutgers’ College Avenue Campus, you might assume the Rutgers accounting majors are twins. Same bone structure, same build, same smile, same walk.
Dig a little deeper and you’ll learn they’re taking the same classes and weighing job offers from the same accounting firm. The seniors room together in an off-campus apartment, and both dig classic rock and grunge bands.
So that twin thing? If you bought into it, you’d be right. But only fractionally.
Matthew and Joseph Hayes, Rutgers Business School Newark and New Brunswick, are actually two-thirds of a set of triplets. The third brother, Devin, will begin classes at New Jersey Institute of Technology in the spring. Matthew and Joseph are identical; Devin is fraternal.
“I do get called Joe on occasion, which I’m pretty used to by now,” Matthew Hayes says.
The Tinton Falls residents are part of a robust subset at Rutgers: twins or triplets who not only share the same birth date, but are also sharing the same college experience.
Kenneth Iuso, university registrar, says his office doesn’t track how many multiples are enrolled at any given time, but a list of students with the same last names, dates of birth, and zip codes yields 366 entries, including a few triplets.
“So there are possibly 180 multiple births as of this semester,” Iuso says. “I’m shocked there are so many.”
The folks at the Centers for Disease Control wouldn’t be so amazed. The federal agency records a dramatic uptick in the occurrence of multiple deliveries, with New Jersey playing a major role in the trend.
Between 1980 and 1997, CDC notes, the number of live births in twin deliveries rose 52 percent, and the number of live births in triplets and other so-called “higher order multiple deliveries” soared 404 percent. According to the agency, triplet rates for Nebraska and New Jersey were twice the national number.
Experts speculate that the figures were so disproportionate because New Jersey is home to a greater number of women with careers outside the home who choose to start families after 35, when it becomes harder to get pregnant.
Many of these women turn to fertility methods which historically have increased the odds of multiple births, notes Dr. Serena Chen, director for reproductive medicine at Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston.
Not only is the region “blessed with more topnotch reproductive facilities than any other area in the country,” Chen says, but it also has a substantial cohort of women with the educational and financial means to access those services.
Adriana Barone counted four or five set of twins – in addition to herself and her sister Angela – among her friends at Eastern Regional High School in Voorhees. Most of them went their separate ways after graduation last June; both Barones opted to commute to Rutgers’ Camden Campus for this, their first semester.
“We both knew right away that we would stay together,” Adriana Barone says. “We’ve always been close, even though our personalities are opposite from each other. When people say twins are linked together, it’s definitely true: We have separate rooms, but when we get changed, we often come out wearing the same thing. Or we’ll be thinking the exact same thing at the same time. It’s a little weird – but in a good kind of way.”
One area where the fraternal twins diverge is in career paths. Adriana is studying business; Angela is a nursing student who hopes to find work in pre-natal care.
“We were the only twins in our elementary school for a while, until we reached middle school, but we were the only ones who looked alike,” says Andrea Martinez of Newark, a senior in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences majoring in nutritional sciences. “Our parents used to dress us the same, up to about fourth or fifth grade. Then we’d had enough of that.”
The siblings share the same taste in clothes, adds Vanessa Martinez, a student in the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy majoring in public health and political science, with a Spanish minor. “At night on campus, people often confuse us with one another. It freaks them out,” she says.
There are multiple advantages to being a multiple, all the siblings agree, among them an expanded wardrobe and circle of friends, as well as always having your best pal by your side – literally and figuratively.
“I was never bored as a child; I always had at least one playmate,” Matthew Hayes recalls. “Growing up, the three of us played sports together, basketball and baseball. When we’d go to bars or parties, we always hung out together.”
“Vanessa and I talk about pretty much anything and everything: school, stress, work,” Andrea Martinez concurs. “There’s really no competition between us – I can’t remember the last time we fought.”
Laurie Cohen, a graduate student in sociology and associate director of educational policy and research for the Economic Development Research Group in the School of Public Administration and Affairs at Rutgers-Newark, is no stranger to the multiple-sibling phenomenon.
The mother of 16-year-old triplets – two girls, one boy – she believes it’s important for these sisters and brothers to forge their own identities in life, even while remaining close.
“Making their own way in the world is crucial,” says Cohen, who conducts research into the effect of the number of siblings on a person’s wellbeing. “Children do individualize themselves in the family in general, but the experience is more intense in multiples.”
Meanwhile, Rutgers officials might want to gear up for yet another influx of multiples shortly down the road. National Geographic magazine reports that between 1998 and 2002, New Jersey had the highest ratio of triplet births in the country. That first wave of incoming first-years could start hitting Rutgers in 2016.