May 23, 2026 — 5:00amQ: 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 Photo: Drew AitkenA: 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.guru@goodweekend.com.auGet the best of Good Weekend delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. Sign up for our newsletter.Read more from Modern Guru:Is it rude to keep listening to my podcast while my partner is talking to me?Is it bad luck to throw out my old Bible?Am I being precious about how to use my tea towel?Help! My new partner doesn’t wash his hands after going to the toiletIs it wrong to eavesdrop on someone detailing their intimate problems on the phone?Danny Katz is a columnist for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. He writes the Modern Guru column in the Good Weekend magazine. He is also the author of the books Spit the Dummy, Dork Geek Jew and the Little Lunch series for kids.From our partners