WEBVTT - Family Secrets Live: In Conversation with Gretchen Rubin, Part II 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:12.600 Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. Hi, 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:16.200 Family Secrets listeners. It's me Danny here with part two 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:19.439 of my conversation with Gretchen Ruben, which we recorded live 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:23.680 back when live audiences were still a thing. This audience, 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:27.640 in particular, came prepared with some really thought provoking questions 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:31.320 about the ethics of secret keeping, informed by their own 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:35.120 personal experiences. I can't wait for you to listen, and 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:36.960 be sure to keep an eye out for more great 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:40.800 bonus content as we work hard on the new season 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:52.120 of Family Secrets coming in October. Hi, Gretchen and Danny, 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:54.440 thank you so much. My name is Sherry Hoft Tostad. 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:57.160 I'm a therapist and I spent One of my specialties 0:00:57.280 --> 0:01:00.160 is infertility and third party reproduction. So I work with 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:04.399 individuals and couples who are pursuing UM using a donor 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:07.399 egg donor sperm donor embryout, and a lot of them struggle. 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:10.240 You know, I can tell them all of the research 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:13.680 behind disclosure and the importance of telling their child their 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:15.640 story from the beginning. What do you think it's the 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:19.360 most important thing I can impart to these these you 0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:23.120 know individuals or couples about the importance of disclosing and 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:27.800 disclosing early. Thank yeah, thank you for that question. Um well, 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:30.720 I think the most motivating thing would be your child 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:33.880 is going to find out. And that's what I'm saying. 0:01:34.040 --> 0:01:38.039 I actually for myself when I received letters and you know, 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:40.480 notes from people or people come up to me, I 0:01:40.640 --> 0:01:44.679 leave the like you know, disclosure good, non disclosure bad 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:47.680 out of it and just say your child is going 0:01:47.720 --> 0:01:51.960 to find out, because that's to me very convincing. It's 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:54.520 just do you want to be in a situation where 0:01:54.560 --> 0:01:56.800 at some point your child is going to turn to 0:01:56.800 --> 0:01:59.880 you and say, how could you have kept this information 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:02.960 from me? We all have a right to know as 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:06.600 much about our genetic identity as possible. And one other thing, 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:10.320 I remember the moment where I suddenly realized I have 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:16.040 been giving incorrect medical history all my life, confidently giving 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:20.920 incorrect medical history, um, for myself and for my own child, um, 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:24.320 in terms of family history, and it's just unacceptable. So 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:28.320 I think on the very practical levels of just horses 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:32.280 fled the barn, not going back. Hi, my name is 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:36.040 hadar Um. I you touched on this a little bit, 0:02:36.120 --> 0:02:38.720 but what is if you're willing to share your personal 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:45.520 opinion on these donors that are maybe unknowingly having several 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:48.080 of these children out there. I mean, I've seen the 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:51.559 stories of you know, up to these seven half siblings, 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:54.640 and how do you feel like the medical community should 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:57.880 be addressing that and should they be limiting because I 0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:00.240 feel like as far as I've seen, there has been 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:04.560 many limitations. Thank you for that question. Are so we 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:07.440 are in Canada are the only two countries in the 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:11.880 developed world that do not have a registry UM that 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:16.399 limits the number of offspring a donor can produce. In Europe, 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:21.639 In Asia, there are there's accountability, there's a registry. There's 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:24.880 a number in Taiwan. That number is one UM and 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:27.040 I think it goes up to maybe about twenty five 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:31.160 and like the Netherlands. But there's there's accountability, and there's 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:35.520 there's what and there's monitoring exactly and the monitoring actually 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:38.960 ends up accomplishing a lot. It means that donors have 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:41.480 to be truthful about their medical histories. There's a lot 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:45.040 of things that go that go into it. The agencies 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:48.520 that are um you know, selling donor sperm and donor 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:53.320 eggs are still promoting anonymity. There's still you can go 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:55.720 on these sites and see that donors are being listed 0:03:55.720 --> 0:03:58.960 as anonymous when it's no longer possible for donors to 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:03.040 be anonymous, and um, to me, that's a kind of malpractice. 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:06.680 It's it's it's no pun intended. It is inconceivable to 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:11.800 me that that people are falling for it, um and 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:14.360 and that, and that it's being advertised and marketed in 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:17.599 that way. So it's one of the reasons why I 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:20.800 will continue to be a voice about this, because it 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:22.920 feels like it's part of the work of my life 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:26.039 now to say, do you realize there's no regulation in 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:31.840 this country about this? And combine no regulation with lack 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:37.200 of disclosure, and you end up with situations where I 0:04:37.240 --> 0:04:42.000 mean a recent story that I heard a doctor who's 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:45.359 I guess probably in his sixties fifties, maybe sat his 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:48.960 teenage children down, um, because they were reaching an age 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:51.440 where they were starting to date, and and he said 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:58.280 to them, don't date anyone from Michigan. And he had 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:01.360 been a medical student, you know, Michigan, and he donated 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:05.240 his way through medical school as a young, poor medical student. 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:07.279 And he was basically he was trying to do the 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:09.400 right thing actually by letting his children know that he 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:11.320 had been a sperm donor. That's a very helpful thing 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:13.800 to know, um, as you make your way into the world. 0:05:13.800 --> 0:05:16.240 But it's also like and nobody leaves Michigan that room. 0:05:18.920 --> 0:05:22.440 I with interest lots of what you said, And you 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:27.839 just mentioned the similarity, but difference between the similarity and 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:33.720 difference between secrets and privacy in the same way i'm 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:38.360 I guess I'm struck by the fact that identity and 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:44.360 ancestry are not the same. And and so what you've 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:52.000 got from your father is identity, the ancestry is different. 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:56.800 That's right, and that's a very profound idea. UM. I 0:05:57.160 --> 0:06:02.320 realized when I told my son what I had discovered, 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:06.159 and that it was actually not a big deal for him, 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:08.760 that oh, he was very happy to realize that he 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:11.279 might not be bald like my dad and my grandfather 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:13.120 and my great but all the all the men, I guess, 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:14.919 even staring at the portraits of my house and like 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:20.400 picturing his future bald self. But he wasn't perturbed. And 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:23.720 I what I realized was that my father, he had 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:27.680 never known my dad, so my father to him was 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:33.080 an ancestor. And I was very identified with my ancestors. 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:35.119 It's one of the reasons why this was so world 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:37.919 rocking for me. I come from a family on my 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:41.360 father's side that was very conscious of its own posterity, 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:45.560 and I had received many stories of the generations before me, 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:48.880 and I had kind of incorporated them into my identity. 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:52.839 We don't love our ancestors. We can't love our ancestors 0:06:52.880 --> 0:06:55.839 because we never knew them, that we didn't walk the 0:06:55.920 --> 0:06:58.440 world with them. We love the people that we walk 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:01.760 the world with. Who we grapple with, and who we 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:05.279 fight with, and we who we you know, engage with, 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:08.120 and who and who and who we love. They're the people. 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:11.800 Those are the people who form our identities. I mean, 0:07:11.840 --> 0:07:14.120 I've come to the realization that really it took three 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:19.200 people to make me. You know, I am as formed 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:23.000 by my mother and my dad who raised me, um 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:26.480 and my biological father, with whom I have a great 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:30.240 deal of familiarity. I inherited a lot of traits from 0:07:30.320 --> 0:07:33.800 him and a constitution from him in a certain way. Um. 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:37.560 But so, but identity wise, I mean, people ask me, 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:39.960 and as someone someone may have this question, so I'll 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:43.200 just answer it. So, do you feel less Jewish now? 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:48.200 Or more Jewish because I'm biologically half Jewish. Um, I 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:53.760 actually feel more Jewish now because I now understand all 0:07:53.800 --> 0:07:56.160 the questions people were always asking that made me feel 0:07:56.160 --> 0:07:58.560 like such an outsider. Now now it just all makes 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:02.040 sense to me. So my sense of self identity is 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:05.160 actually stronger and way more powerful than it was before 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:09.160 my discovery. We'll be back in a moment with more 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:20.240 family secrets. I was a donor at Pennsylvania Hospital, not 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:23.840 University of Pennsylvania Hospital, pensyl for in the seventies and eighties, 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:29.440 and it was anonymous. And then five years ago, because 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:32.559 my father's DNA before he died was in a mix, 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:36.120 they started contacting looking for their grandfather and discovered it 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:40.800 was me, and I have since been in touch and 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:44.240 met two of them. I am in writing touch with 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:46.959 several others. The question I have for you, and this 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:51.640 is a dilemma I'm having now, is UM, a woman 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:55.679 put her d N A in and is looking for 0:08:55.920 --> 0:09:00.400 it is clearly me, and somehow I didn't her back. 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:02.920 So I found the mother and wrote to the mother 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:07.319 and to ask, and the mother wrote back, please don't 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:10.240 tell my daughter. It would ruin the family. Although the 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:13.680 daughter must see something already, and I don't know what 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:18.400 I should do do what it is my responsibility to 0:09:18.440 --> 0:09:20.720 the mother who says it would wreck her family, or 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:24.880 to the daughter who wants to know. That's you see 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:27.760 the kinds of stories that are coming. I mean, it's extraordinary. 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:31.520 Thank you for sharing that, and thank you for asking that. Um, 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:35.360 it would seem to me that the daughter is searching 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:39.520 and your information is available, so she will find you 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:44.080 if she wants to. She will find you because she's 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:48.199 looking right. She she she took a DNA test, right, 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:55.920 So it would seem to me that making yourself discoverable 0:09:56.800 --> 0:09:59.720 is your best, you know sort of action in a 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:02.440 way like I. I was approached by a man in 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:06.360 his eighties after a talk I did recently, who just 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:09.360 randomly was at the talk, knew nothing about what I 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:11.440 was going to be talking about, and it turned out 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:14.240 he had been a donor at the institute in Pennsylvania 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:17.800 where I was conceived at around the same time. And 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:19.800 after we talked, he said, you know, I'm going to 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:24.240 do a DNA test so that my biological children, if 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:27.440 I have any, can discover me, which I thought was, 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:30.160 you know, as the opposite of what some responses are right. 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:34.840 So you've made yourself, You've made yourself available, and that's 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:37.840 a beautiful thing. UM. And now I think it's like 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:40.520 up to the fullness of time to let it play out. 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:44.440 That's what I would say, Hi, Danny, I'm My name's Rina. 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:49.079 I'm a huge fan of writings. UM. I have a question. 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:54.400 Dr Van rccle says that when you have a traumatizing event, 0:10:55.080 --> 0:11:00.880 that that trauma can become cellular UM and that shame carries. 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:04.920 My question is, have you carried any of the shame 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:08.600 that you speak of that your parents had, and if so, 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:14.600 what do you do to combat in That's a great question, 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:18.319 and I think the answer is yes. I think that's 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:20.280 one of the things that I really had to contend 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:25.439 with is I had to rethink and reimagine my history, 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:30.920 my history with my parents, UM, how they I found 0:11:30.920 --> 0:11:33.760 it very painful to read The Body keeps the Score 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:37.400 reread it. I had read it once before. I, before 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:39.240 I had made this discovery. I didn't find it nearly 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:46.199 as painful to know that they were UM. My parents 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:49.880 themselves were in a dissociated state. UM. I think from 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:53.319 most of our shared lives together, because they were keeping 0:11:53.400 --> 0:11:57.040 a secret. You know. The tagline for Family Secrets the 0:11:57.120 --> 0:11:59.760 podcast is um to keep the secrets that are kept 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:02.120 from us, the secrets we keep from others, and the 0:12:02.200 --> 0:12:05.920 secrets we keep from ourselves, and the secrets we keep 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:13.520 from ourselves are in many ways, the most toxic of secrets. Yes, yeah, 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:16.960 Gretchen is mentioning my my Christmas card. When I was 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:20.440 a little girl, I was the Kodak Christmas poster child. 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:25.040 And there was a whole story when when you read 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:27.880 my book, you'll I write about it in Inheritance. There 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:30.880 was a whole story that went along with how an 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:34.000 Orthodox Jewish girl wound up wishing the entire world to 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:37.840 merry Christmas. Um. But when you actually look at the poster, 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:42.160 look at it with cold eyes, it's so clear that 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:44.960 it was set up, that I was set up to 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:48.200 be the Kodak Christmas poster child, which is not the 0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:49.960 story that I ever understood. But if you just look 0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:53.280 at it, I mean the confirmation bias, you know, it's 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:56.959 it's so clear that that's what it was. So my 0:12:57.040 --> 0:12:59.800 parents when when my son was born, my mother walked 0:12:59.840 --> 0:13:02.199 into the hospital room he was you know, hours old, 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:06.679 and she said he looks just like a Shapiro, and 0:13:06.760 --> 0:13:09.240 she meant it. I believe she could have passed a 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:13.640 polygraph test. So we were in this world of the 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:18.520 unthought known. We existed in this world of the unsaid, 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:21.400 and I think I was really formed by that in 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:24.280 so many ways and in terms of how what I 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:29.720 do with it? Um, I do this with it, um. 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:33.000 I think I've written from that place for a long time. 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:37.800 I try to be as I try to take the 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:42.400 material that life has presented me with and shape it 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:47.040 into art, shape it into something that will touch other lives, 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:51.559 to connect, um, to to do it in as authentic 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:54.640 a way as I possibly can, so that I feel 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:59.120 like I'm I'm using it. It's not using me. Danny, 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:02.800 This is dan Um. Thank you not only for your books, 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:06.560 but for reading some of them for audible. My question 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:16.200 is about the cross section of secrets, lies, and privacy. Um. 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:19.480 So there's a certain energy that seems to be involved 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:23.960 with maintaining a lie or keeping a secret, and wondering, 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:29.880 as a memorist, when you are protecting someone's privacy, is 0:14:29.920 --> 0:14:33.360 there any fear of, like not keeping your facts or 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:37.360 your identities straight? Which one you're gonna protect? Me which 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:42.480 one you're gonna make public? UM? Does it take a 0:14:42.560 --> 0:14:46.520 similar kind of energy as keeping a secret other secrets? 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:54.000 That's interesting. It's in all of my memoirs I've had 0:14:54.080 --> 0:15:03.440 different relationships to the question of UM, protecting or changing, 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:07.960 you know, the the identity, the the identifying details of 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:11.520 of people that I have written about I and it's 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:16.200 it's it's again as individual as this, the circumstances and 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:21.800 the book. For example, UM, in my first memoir, Slow Motion, 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:25.280 my mother was still living and UM and by the way, 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:27.360 it's going to be on audible two more I mean, 0:15:27.360 --> 0:15:28.840 I mean it's going to be an audiobook. I have 0:15:28.880 --> 0:15:33.880 two more UM of my backlist that are turning into audiobooks, 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:36.960 which is so pleasing to me, both Slow Motion and 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:40.840 still Writing. But in Slowmotion my mother was still living. 0:15:41.200 --> 0:15:43.440 I was very conscious I did not want to hurt 0:15:43.480 --> 0:15:49.120 my mother. You know, if any of you are writing memoirs, UM. 0:15:49.200 --> 0:15:52.520 One of the things that like a really good tool 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:56.360 with which to think about this is the question of 0:15:56.400 --> 0:16:02.360 motivation writing out of revenge. Gretchen was just saying, doesn't 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:04.320 this come up with wedding toasts too? It's like a 0:16:04.400 --> 0:16:08.880 chance I've seen wedding toasts go very awry, right, and 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:11.800 it's like why why why are you choosing now to 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:14.800 recount the entire romantic history of the bride like that 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:19.320 kind of thing. Um. But the question of motivation, I 0:16:19.320 --> 0:16:21.680 think if the writer is sitting there and thinking, I 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:25.360 can't wait until so and so read this, then it's 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:30.880 a really good indication that, um, you're writing like to 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:35.640 someone against someone. UM. When I mean I protected my 0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:40.760 biological father's identity because it felt like that was completely 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:43.800 the right thing to do. It's one thing to be 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:46.360 contacted by a biological child, is another thing to have 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:50.240 that biological child, you know, plaster your name all over creation. 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:53.040 I mean, that was and there was no reason for it. 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:56.520 There was nothing, nothing to be gained by anybody in 0:16:56.600 --> 0:16:59.920 terms of doing that. But when I've written about my parents, 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:03.640 my half sister who I grew up with, I mean 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:10.760 much older half sister, UM, I've felt that what I've 0:17:10.800 --> 0:17:18.840 attempted to do is tell my story as UM, conscientiously 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:23.720 and in the most crafted way that I possibly can, 0:17:25.000 --> 0:17:27.399 not to tell their story, but to tell my story 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:31.080 that also has them within my story. We don't live 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:36.760 in isolation, UM, My friend Andrea debuse Uh the third, 0:17:36.960 --> 0:17:40.360 the wonderful writer. He I once heard him say when 0:17:40.359 --> 0:17:42.440 somebody was saying, how could you have written about your 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:45.840 younger brother, his younger brother had been abused by a 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:47.959 high school teacher. How could you have written about him? 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:50.680 That you had no right to do that? And Andrea said, 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:52.840 you know, when I would come home after school to 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:55.840 our parentless empty house, and I would walk down the 0:17:55.880 --> 0:17:58.520 hall and my brother's bedroom door was closed, and I 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:00.400 would hear what was going on on the other side 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:03.080 of that door. What was going on the other side 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:05.960 of the door is my brother's story to tell. But 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:08.640 what happened to me on my side of the door, 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:11.439 and my feelings about not being able to protect my 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:14.679 brother and my own sense of helplessness, that's my story 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:17.720 to tell. And I love that as a example because 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:21.080 it's actually a door and a knob and a hallway. 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:24.240 It's like, that's yours and this is mine. But again, 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:27.000 we don't live in isolation, so our stories touch each other. 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:36.840 We'll be back in a moment with more family secrets. HI, 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:40.400 how are you. My name is Sophia UM. I am 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:44.200 very interested in the idea that um when your father 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:49.439 discovered your success. I can imagine he was proud and 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:52.800 he wanted to get to know you. But your father, 0:18:53.000 --> 0:18:55.800 biological father, is not a simple man. He's also very 0:18:55.840 --> 0:19:00.320 accomplished person. So from your angle, how did your relation ship, 0:19:00.560 --> 0:19:05.840 um flourish considering that he's not an average individual? And UM, 0:19:05.880 --> 0:19:09.600 also where are you holding in your relationship now? You know, 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:14.000 I don't know that my biological father initially felt proud 0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:19.040 or anything like that. I think he initially just felt like, oh, um, 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:23.480 this is just it's it's very hard to to make 0:19:23.560 --> 0:19:27.480 that kind of leap with someone who's a stranger, even 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:33.680 though there's all of this you know, genetic you know, commonality, 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:39.720 and a sense of again the familiar. Um. I feel 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:43.440 that we were lucky in a lot of ways because 0:19:44.359 --> 0:19:48.080 we both tried to do the right thing. Ultimately, there 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:50.680 was a lot of a sense of compassion and kindness 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:54.600 UM that flowed in both directions. And to go back 0:19:54.640 --> 0:20:00.239 to privacy, I talk very openly about and I right, 0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:04.840 very openly and inheritance about what that experience was of 0:20:04.880 --> 0:20:09.480 finding him and eventually meeting him. But I'm never going 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:14.960 to talk or write about our relationship as it moves forward. Um. 0:20:15.000 --> 0:20:18.679 Because that feels like we get to have that relationship 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:22.080 now and that he doesn't have to be the biological 0:20:22.119 --> 0:20:25.320 father of a writer. He just gets to be the 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:28.200 biological father of Danny and I get to have him 0:20:28.240 --> 0:20:31.359 as my you know, whatever that relationship is, it's not 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:33.960 he doesn't feel like my father, feels like we have 0:20:34.040 --> 0:20:39.879 a special, unusual friendship for which there's no playbook. Hello, 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:42.160 So my name is Sarah and I have a question 0:20:42.160 --> 0:20:45.879 on behalf of my family and my father who um 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:49.600 was most likely conceived at the with Star Institute, him 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:53.280 and his two siblings and found out that they were 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:57.040 to well not all of them, but he was, even 0:20:57.080 --> 0:21:00.400 though he never knew it was part of his family history. UM. 0:21:00.480 --> 0:21:04.640 So my question is, um, if you have any research ideas. 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:08.800 He's sort of hit a wall and UM he's been 0:21:08.800 --> 0:21:11.800 down to the wes Star Institute and they deny any 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:15.880 sort of history. Um. He's been now multiple times and 0:21:16.040 --> 0:21:20.040 even walked off the premises by security and just would 0:21:20.040 --> 0:21:22.639 like to know where he can continue the research and 0:21:22.680 --> 0:21:26.240 how he can figure out, UM, if my grandparents actually 0:21:26.280 --> 0:21:30.520 did go down there for you know, infertility treatment. What 0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:33.520 your was your father born? Um? He was born in 0:21:33.600 --> 0:21:37.520 nineteen fifty and um my his siblings were born I 0:21:37.560 --> 0:21:42.639 think nineteen fifty three and fifty five. It's so interesting 0:21:42.720 --> 0:21:46.760 to me that Wister would um deny any knowledge of this, 0:21:46.880 --> 0:21:52.080 because there are many newspaper articles about Um Edmund Farris. 0:21:52.119 --> 0:21:54.520 I'll just give you a brief overview of this. You 0:21:54.600 --> 0:21:58.880 understand the question. Um, I forgot how near Philadelphia we are, 0:21:59.560 --> 0:22:05.040 so I was able to find out where I was conceived. 0:22:05.040 --> 0:22:08.000 And it was an institute too, called the Faris Institute 0:22:08.000 --> 0:22:11.800 for Parenthood, and it was um run by a man 0:22:11.920 --> 0:22:15.800 named Edmund Ferris Um who had originally been at the 0:22:15.800 --> 0:22:19.520 Whister Institute. This is all on the campus of penn Um. 0:22:19.560 --> 0:22:22.280 Faris was the director of the Whister Institute. He was 0:22:22.359 --> 0:22:28.359 performing regularly um donor inseminations there. He had an entire 0:22:28.600 --> 0:22:31.239 lab set up there where he was This is what 0:22:31.320 --> 0:22:35.879 he was doing. And when the church caught wind of 0:22:35.880 --> 0:22:38.680 what he was doing, they put a lot of pressure 0:22:38.680 --> 0:22:41.960 on him to shut down. And also, one of the 0:22:42.200 --> 0:22:45.080 stranger things that I discovered that I write about an 0:22:45.119 --> 0:22:49.359 inheritance is that Faris was not an m D. Which 0:22:49.400 --> 0:22:52.560 means that he was practicing medicine without a license. He 0:22:52.680 --> 0:22:55.440 was a scientist. He was a brilliant scientist that actually 0:22:55.480 --> 0:22:59.280 never got his proper do um, largely because he was 0:22:59.440 --> 0:23:03.520 disliked and he was also doing it was It's very 0:23:03.560 --> 0:23:06.040 likely that it would would have been Edmund Farris who 0:23:06.680 --> 0:23:11.360 your grandparents, your grandparents would have gone to. Right, So 0:23:12.920 --> 0:23:16.320 it's undeniable. I mean it's in newspaper articles. I'm sure 0:23:16.359 --> 0:23:23.760 your father has found those newspaper articles. The institutional lack 0:23:23.840 --> 0:23:27.399 of culpability, I'm not even sure what to say about 0:23:27.920 --> 0:23:31.960 that's it's because it's not there's no denying it. It 0:23:31.960 --> 0:23:35.040 would seem to me in terms of learning more that 0:23:35.160 --> 0:23:37.159 the answers are all going to be in the d 0:23:37.280 --> 0:23:42.840 na um, that that if there's If that was the case, 0:23:42.880 --> 0:23:47.359 then family tree wise, there ought to be someone, you know, 0:23:47.400 --> 0:23:50.600 a really good genealogist to help your your your father 0:23:51.000 --> 0:23:55.439 kind of sort that sort that out. Um. That's the 0:23:55.480 --> 0:24:15.679 best I can offer. Thank you so much, Stretched and Danny. 0:24:23.320 --> 0:24:25.639 For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I 0:24:25.760 --> 0:24:28.800 Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to 0:24:28.840 --> 0:24:29.679 your favorite shows.