WEBVTT - DANI SHAPIRO 0:00:05.559 --> 0:00:12.600 You know what I think. I think every family has secrets, secrets. 0:00:12.680 --> 0:00:16.640 Some are big, really big secrets, and some are a 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:24.000 little and some, once the revealed, are huge life changing. 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:28.560 Today's guest, I love someone with Delilah discovered quite by 0:00:28.680 --> 0:00:33.120 accident that her family had been keeping one of those 0:00:33.600 --> 0:00:40.720 huge life changing type of secrets. In Danny Shapiro and 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:44.680 her husband sent some DNA testing kits in for analysis. 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:46.800 It was supposed to be just a little thing, a 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:50.840 whimsical little thing. Her husband was doing it. Danny, who 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:55.000 is a very successful author, thought I'll do it too, 0:00:56.320 --> 0:01:01.960 But the surprising results evoked some serious emotions that could 0:01:01.960 --> 0:01:08.200 be labeled anything but whimsical. What Danny, a self proclaimed 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:12.319 daddy's girl, learned was it the man who raised her, 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:19.280 the man she adored, could not possibly have been her 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:23.959 biological father. Imagine that some of you have found that 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:26.640 out in the same way. As a matter of fact, 0:01:27.319 --> 0:01:30.000 at this time when Danny discovered it, both her parents 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:33.560 had passed away, so when covering the mystery was up 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:36.600 to her, there was simply no one left to ask. 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:40.840 As an author of several nonfiction books, and now with 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:48.000 curiosity and all these jumbles of emotions, Danny, alongside her 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:52.000 journalistic husband, set to work. It took her just three 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:57.440 short days to unlock the truth of her conception and 0:01:57.720 --> 0:02:02.720 her identifying her biological father. Danny shared her story and 0:02:02.760 --> 0:02:06.080 found that there are many people who have uncovered similar 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:12.000 findings from these beginnings. Her podcast series Family Secrets was conceived. 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:18.040 Season three debuts on Thursday, February six. Family Secrets features 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:22.680 real life stories of individuals sharing facts that maybe DNA 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:29.000 and genealogy research has revealed, presented in the kindest and 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:34.239 most compassionate of ways. Danny also has a new book out, Inheritance, 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:38.320 about her own discovery and the journey of self it 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:41.640 took her on. She's joining us today to talk about 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:45.160 this journey. Right after I shared this important information with 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:50.160 you about my podcast sponsor, The Home Depot. If you're 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:54.040 listening to this podcast on your smartphone, you know just 0:02:54.120 --> 0:02:56.920 how many apps there are for downloading. The Home Depot 0:02:57.000 --> 0:02:59.800 has a new one, a new app version that makes 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:03.919 getting what you need for your home so quick. One 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:08.200 of the most popular new functions the image search. Snap 0:03:08.240 --> 0:03:11.400 a picture with the home Depot app and find what 0:03:11.560 --> 0:03:15.560 you need. The app recognizes the item you need replaced 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:17.880 and tells you where you can find it in your 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:21.280 neighborhood home Depot, right down to the aisle and the 0:03:21.400 --> 0:03:25.680 shelf in the store. While you're listening to this podcast, 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:29.160 download the new home Depot app. It'll come in handy 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:32.840 when you need it most. With me on the phone 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:37.040 is Danny Shapiro, author of a number of books. Her 0:03:37.120 --> 0:03:43.360 latest is called Inheritance, a memoir of genealogy, paternity, and love. 0:03:44.080 --> 0:03:45.760 I love the cover of it. Is that one of 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:49.560 your dresses as a child, Thank you? It was that 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:53.040 was address that I wore as a flower girl and 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:55.480 a cousin's wedding. So it's really meaningful to me that 0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:59.800 it's on the cover. Very ethereal. Yeah, Like it's got 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:03.680 like a blithe spirit feel to it. When I picked 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:05.520 up the book and saw the cover, I thought, I 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:08.040 bet this was one of her dresses, without ever delving 0:04:08.040 --> 0:04:10.960 into the inside, just judging a book by its cover. 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:14.560 I like the cover. I'm glad. I'm glad. I really 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:17.200 it was so important to me. I mean, the book 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:20.279 to me is so much about love and there's a 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:23.120 tremendous amount of warmth in it, and I wanted I mean, 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:25.080 we do judge books by their covers. So I wanted 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:30.120 there to be that sense of just being about family 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:32.440 and history. And you know, there's a reason why the 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:34.760 word love is in the subtitles. To me, all about 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:37.560 love ultimately, In fact, I would say I'm not that 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:40.960 far into it. I'm only up to a hundred and fifteen. 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:44.479 But so far everything I've read is dripping with love. 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:46.599 I would have started it with a memoir of love 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:50.520 and just left it there, I think, thank you. So 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:53.400 let's kind of start at the beginning. Born and raised 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:57.880 Orthodox jew Yeah, I was raised in New Jersey, just 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:01.480 outside of New York City, and my father's family in 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:09.320 particular were a observant, you know, very religious, devout family, 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:12.000 and my mother's family was less so. But you know, 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:14.920 both of my parents were were Jewish, and my mother, 0:05:15.160 --> 0:05:18.840 when she married my father, agreed to raise any children 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:22.280 that they would have in that religious observant way. So 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:25.040 that is how I was raised as an only child 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:29.360 in Hillside, New Jersey. And the whole time, just by 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:33.919 the stories I've read, you were a daddy's girl. I 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:38.760 was a total daddy's girl. I just adored my dad. Um, 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:43.560 he was really you know, the much warmer of my 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:48.360 two parents, the much more like sort of physically affectionate 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:52.919 with a huge hugger. And you know, my mom just 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:58.080 kind of didn't have those particular kinds of instincts. So yeah, 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:02.120 you know, I've heard it said if you have one 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:05.840 adult or you know, preferably a parent, but any really 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:08.880 anyone in your childhood who really gives you that kind 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:11.400 of love, you know, that's what saves us. I've heard 0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:13.880 that said, and I've shared that truth over and over 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:16.599 and over again on the air off the air because 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:18.560 I work a lot with kids in foster care, and 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:20.760 I say, you know, if a kid has just one 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:28.839 parent or one person who's consistent with love, with unconditional love, 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:32.440 that changes the trajectory of a life. It's so true. 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:35.960 I mean, it could be a grandparent, or a teacher, 0:06:36.120 --> 0:06:39.479 or a mentor or a neighbor. It doesn't have to 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:43.280 be someone in the immediate family. But it's just I 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:45.080 was always I mean, that was my dad for me. 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:50.320 But I was also always on the search. I was always. 0:06:50.440 --> 0:06:53.080 I think one saving grace for me was that I 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:57.680 recognized my angels when they appeared. I recognized my teachers 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:01.600 and all through my life. Um, but certainly. I mean 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:04.159 I lost my dad when I was twenty three, but 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:06.960 certainly for those first twenty three years he was that 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:09.479 for me, and afterwards too. He's always been there for 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:11.960 me all through my life, you know, to this day. 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:19.720 So growing up Orthodox community, blonde hair, fair skin, pink cheeks. 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:23.280 You start your novels saying you were always staring at 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:26.040 the in the mirror as a little girl, looking for something, 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:28.280 but you didn't even know what you were looking for, 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:33.120 just looking deep into your eyes to to unlock this mystery. 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:35.680 Did you ever feel like that story of the ugly 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:38.440 duckling where the the swan doesn't quite fit in with 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:42.920 the ducks. Yeah, I absolutely did, because I was told 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:46.040 every single day of my life, really literally every day. 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:48.920 This is not an exaggeration. I was told, you don't 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:52.000 look Jewish. It doesn't you know, your mother must have 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:55.040 had an affair with the Swedish milk command or you know, 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:57.040 you're sure you're Jewish, or when I was older, it 0:07:57.120 --> 0:08:00.400 became because Shapiro is I'm fond of saying Piro was 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:03.680 like the Smith of Jews. Yes, yes it is. You know, 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:05.880 it's a dead giveaway, and people would say, so is 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:09.160 your husband, the Shapiro. You know, once I was married, 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:11.480 you know, once I was a grown up. So every 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:13.360 day of my life I was, in one way or 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:17.440 another told that I didn't look like who I knew 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:20.800 myself to be. UM. So when when that happens when 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:25.120 you're a child, it really contributes to making you feel 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:28.800 like you don't belong. I felt, I felt like something 0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:33.200 didn't add up. I think it probably is what turned 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:35.560 me into a writer. You know, from the time that 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:39.679 I was a teenager, I was always just scribbling and 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:42.920 scribbling in notebooks and you know, you know, under the 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:46.960 cover's late at night writing trying to like dig for 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:49.160 something that I didn't even know was there. But I 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:52.560 just knew that something didn't add up. There was a 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:55.320 mystery that I couldn't solve, and and I think I 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:57.800 felt writing, in some way or another was helping me 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:00.120 to solve it. Well, I think you were born and 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:02.720 a writer. Just reading the little bit that I've read, 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:06.400 you were born a writer, But solving that mystery probably 0:09:06.440 --> 0:09:10.040 propelled you into being a really good writer. M hmm, 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:12.760 I wondered, because you know, when I started writing, I 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:15.920 started writing novels, and then I turned to memoirs. You know, 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:19.080 I turned to telling stories that were out of my 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:22.439 own life and shaping stories out of my own experience. 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:25.160 And you know, knowing what I know today, you know 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:28.200 from where I sit now, that makes a lot of sense. 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:30.640 I know why that was the case. Um, it was 0:09:30.679 --> 0:09:34.920 the case because I was after some sort of elusive 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:39.200 truth that I couldn't get at. So fifty plus years, 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:45.080 five decades, you live as Danny Shapiro, Jewish daughter, living 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:50.360 your life, married, had a child, and then your husband says, hey, 0:09:50.400 --> 0:09:52.520 why don't we take this DNA test just for the 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:54.680 fun of it, And you didn't even really think of 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:58.000 it there was a big thing. I totally didn't think 0:09:58.040 --> 0:09:59.600 of it as a big thing. In fact, I almost 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:01.760 didn't do it. I mean, he wanted to do it 0:10:02.320 --> 0:10:05.680 just for sort of recreational reasons, and he just asked 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:07.480 me if I wanted to do it too. And I 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:11.120 think about that now because taking that DNA has changed 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:16.320 my entire life and my understanding of myself and of 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:19.520 my history. And if I hadn't done it, I just 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:24.160 never would have known. And it's so interesting because you know, 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:27.280 I have been a student of identity in some way 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:30.600 or another, all my life. And I've also been someone 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:33.880 who's always tried to tried and tried to make meaning 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:36.600 out of things I didn't understand. And you know, if 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:39.320 it's true what they say, some people believe that when 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:42.280 we pass away, we get a moment where we can 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:44.400 survey the whole thing and we can see everything that 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:47.640 we didn't know. And I think about that sometimes now 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:50.000 because if that, if that's the case, and if that 0:10:50.040 --> 0:10:52.760 were me, and if I had never made the discovery 0:10:52.800 --> 0:10:55.959 that I did, I would have just like knocked myself 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:58.600 upside the head at that moment and think I missed it. 0:10:59.080 --> 0:11:03.839 I missed the whole thing, Delilah, Like I just missed um, 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:08.520 something so fundamental and essential about myself. And how many 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:12.720 other people have taken those same DNA tests and learned 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:17.160 truths that they had no clue of. Yeah, so I 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:20.520 can tell you. Actually, I mean, twenty six million people 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:23.360 in the last two years to have ordered these over 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:27.360 the counter DNA tests. It's become the most popular holiday 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:32.160 gift in America. Families are all giving these kids to 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:37.400 each other and then approximately two of people who take 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:41.840 these tests find out what's called it's actually has um 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:45.080 initials it's called an m p E, which is what 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:49.560 happened to me. It stands for not parent expected, and 0:11:49.720 --> 0:11:53.120 in PE is kind of like an e MP, a 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:57.880 big bomb that goes off and doesn't damage the buildings, 0:11:57.920 --> 0:12:01.559 but damages like everything inside your heart. We're going to 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:04.760 talk about the impact that truth bomb had on you, 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:09.439 that e MP right after this important message. So you 0:12:09.559 --> 0:12:13.560 got your results back, that's right, I mean, I so, 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:16.760 so I I get my results back and I and 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:20.720 I discover in really pretty short order that my beloved 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:27.840 dad had not been my biological father, and that changed 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:31.000 both everything and nothing right, Like I remember saying to 0:12:31.040 --> 0:12:34.199 my best friend a few weeks later, do you still 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:37.000 see me as the same person? I was in such 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:39.640 I was reeling, I was in such shock, and she 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:44.000 looked at me with such compassion, and she said, you 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:46.840 are the same person. You just didn't You just didn't 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:51.360 have all the information. But you, Danny, are the same person. 0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:55.840 But now you have all of the pieces of the puzzle. 0:12:56.960 --> 0:13:00.559 But you know I should say too that, I mean, 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:04.920 I now see my story and you know what I 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:07.360 discovered and the journey that I've been on, and that 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:11.200 I write about an inheritance. I see it as miraculous 0:13:11.240 --> 0:13:16.160 because I had just enough clues to be able to 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:19.840 piece together the story of my identity. I mean, there 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:22.440 are so many people out there who never are able 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:27.720 to know. And it only took thirty six hours from 0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:31.360 the moment that I realized that my dad had not 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:35.080 been my biological father until I found the man who 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:38.960 was thirty six hours with nothing more. I don't have 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:41.600 like great detective skills. It was just nothing more than 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:45.240 a couple of hunches and a little face block and 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:50.200 little googling and a couple of long ago conversations that 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:52.680 came back to me. Because I also think one of 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:55.800 the things about just all of us as human beings 0:13:55.920 --> 0:13:58.680 is that when something's really important, like if we have 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:01.840 a conversation and we don't even know it's really important 0:14:01.880 --> 0:14:06.320 at the time, if it's really important, something inside of 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:10.439 us kind of sits up and takes note and remembers it. 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:14.360 It's like an invisible tape recorder kind of goes off 0:14:14.400 --> 0:14:18.640 and we are able to retain it whole. And that's 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:21.680 what happened to me. Um conversation I've had with my 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:25.440 mother literally thirty years earlier came back to me, and 0:14:25.480 --> 0:14:28.280 it was full of clues. If I hadn't had that 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:30.680 conversation with my mother, I'd still be walking around going 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:33.680 I know my father wasn't my biological father, but I 0:14:33.720 --> 0:14:35.560 don't know who was. And I'm never going to know 0:14:35.600 --> 0:14:38.320 more about this story. Both of my parents have passed. 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:41.040 But your mom gave you that clue when she said 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:45.040 an institute in Philadelphia, that's right. And it was just 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:49.080 such a quote unquote, such an accident, right, such a 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:53.200 um unlikely thing that my mother would have let that slip. 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:56.600 But she used the word institute and she said Philadelphia. 0:14:56.680 --> 0:15:00.720 And based just on that, I was able to put 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:03.800 together a big part of the story. And if I 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:06.640 hadn't had that, I would have looked at those results 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:08.040 and I would have made up You know, we all 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:11.240 we we make up stories all the time. We all 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:13.640 go through life that way, not just writers. We we 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:18.400 create narratives to make sense of the world around us 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:20.320 and to make sense of ourselves and to make sense 0:15:20.360 --> 0:15:24.160 of our families. And if I had discovered that my 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:28.280 dad hadn't been my biological father, and I hadn't known 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:30.880 anything more about it, I would have had to assume 0:15:31.600 --> 0:15:34.320 that my mother had an affair that would have been 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:37.120 the only thing that would have made any sense, and 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:39.520 it wouldn't have made any sense, but that's what I 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:44.960 would have assumed. And instead my mother let's slip that 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:49.440 my parents had trouble with fertility, trouble conceiving me, and 0:15:49.520 --> 0:15:54.480 they had gone to an institute in Philadelphia. And because 0:15:54.480 --> 0:15:59.160 of that, really, within minutes of making the discovery about 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:03.560 my dad, I knew what had happened, and I knew 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:07.960 that my biological father must have been a spun downer. 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:12.800 And that was the beginning of unraveling the mystery of 0:16:13.360 --> 0:16:17.880 you know, couples. In those days, we're told never to 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:21.720 tell anyone, to keep it the biggest secret if they 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:25.080 made a baby in that way, to not tell their 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:28.560 own parents, to not tell their siblings. That was the 0:16:28.600 --> 0:16:31.680 case with everything. I mean, that was the case with everything. 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:36.160 When when I was a teenager, I got in a 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:38.320 fight with my dad. My father and I were fighting 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:41.480 every day, every week, and I was sent to live 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:45.000 with my grandparents. And I was sobbing and crying and 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:47.880 I said to my grandma, my mother's mother, my maternal grandma, 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:50.080 I don't know why my dad hates me so much. 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:54.040 And she said sissy. He doesn't hate you. He's afraid 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:58.120 you're going to turn out just like he did. And 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:00.960 I said, I don't get that. He's a wonderful man. 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:04.119 He's successful, he's an engineer, he's smart, you know. And 0:17:04.160 --> 0:17:07.120 I'm going on and on listing all my dad's great qualities. 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:10.879 And she said, your dad got a girl pregnant in 0:17:11.000 --> 0:17:14.480 high school and he's afraid you're going to end up 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:19.080 in the same boat. Mm hmm. Wow. And just like 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:21.000 you described in your book when you looked at the 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:25.800 DNA results and realized, wait a minute, I just sat 0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:29.400 there like and I was, what fourteen fifteen maybe sixteen, 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:33.560 Oh my goodness. And then she dropped the big bomb. 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:39.920 You can't tell anyone. I told you this. You can't 0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:42.280 tell your mother, you can't tell your father, you can't 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:48.600 tell anyone. I told you this. Yeah, you know. I 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:52.120 have this podcast called Family Secrets in which I talked 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:54.960 to my guests about family secrets. And one of the 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:59.399 most heartbreaking things for me and so many of the 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:03.600 story is that the person who the secret was kept 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:07.960 from often ends up being thrust into the role of 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:11.639 being the secret keeper. And you know, it's like this 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:14.040 double whammy. It's like you find out something that you 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:16.160 were never supposed to know and it was hidden from you, 0:18:16.560 --> 0:18:19.480 and then you have to hold it yourself. I don't 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:22.199 believe in keeping secrets like that. I don't either. I 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:25.399 have so many kids that are adopted, and you know, 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:28.720 in our generation when when you were adopted, you weren't 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:32.320 told that, you were never told that. You know, it 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:35.280 was all these big secrets and you weren't told who 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:38.240 your birth family was. Or I have a girlfriend who 0:18:38.320 --> 0:18:41.840 got pregnant when she was a teenager and she never 0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:43.600 got to know her baby, never got to bond with 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:45.679 her baby. They took her baby, they placed her baby 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:49.000 for adoption, and you don't talk about it. Well, that's 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:51.960 the amazing thing about now. The time that we're living 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:57.159 in now is because of the combination of this DNA 0:18:57.280 --> 0:19:00.600 testing and the unintended consequences of the d n A testing, 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:05.320 which is that everybody's signing out. Everybody's signing like I. 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:09.440 I've been on the road since Inheritance came out in hardcover, 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:13.160 and everywhere I've gone there have been wall to wall 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:16.800 people and they are people with stories. And when it 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:21.120 started happening, it stunned me. I mean, I'm a writer. 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:22.679 I've been on book tour a bunch of times. I 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:27.840 had never experienced anything like this. And they were late 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:32.000 discovery adoptees who never knew they were adopted. They were many, 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:36.360 many people who had biological fathers who had been sperm donors, 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:40.640 or even now biological mothers who were egg donors. There 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:45.720 were lots of people from the adoptive community or adoptees. 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:49.439 There were, like the story you just told me, grown 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:52.000 women who as teenagers had put up a child for 0:19:52.040 --> 0:19:55.359 adoption and then that child grows up and find them eventually, 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:58.560 or they find the child. There are men have always 0:19:58.560 --> 0:20:01.159 had children they didn't know about like that, they literally 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:03.080 just never knew about you know, got to go pregnant 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:05.080 and then you know, just never knew about it. And 0:20:05.160 --> 0:20:08.959 so there's like a reckoning going on because of all this, 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:13.439 and it's huge. From where I sit, it's it's epidemic, 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:18.000 and and I think that even though sometimes it's hard 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:20.679 and sometimes it's painful and it's kind of rocking a 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:26.120 lot of families, I also think it's great because it's 0:20:26.119 --> 0:20:28.880 the end of the era of secrecy. It's the it's 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:31.399 the end of it. There can't be these kinds of 0:20:31.400 --> 0:20:35.720 secrets anymore because everybody's finding out everything. Well, my sister 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:40.439 is the genealogist in our family. She loves genealogy. She 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:44.200 she could have a business just doing genealogy for people 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:47.000 because she's so good at it. I mean, she's just 0:20:47.119 --> 0:20:50.760 really really good. I am not that detail oriented person. 0:20:51.480 --> 0:20:55.320 I'm just not. And she pours over charts and graphs, 0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:58.840 and she reads the census. She loves censuses, and she 0:20:58.880 --> 0:21:03.879 reads the census takers comments from you know, decades gone by, 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:06.800 and holy molly, she dug up a lot of secrets 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:12.000 in our family. And I'm like, whoa, wow, because not that, 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:14.640 you know, not that our family was perfect by any 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:17.760 stretch of the imagination, and we weren't religious, we weren't 0:21:17.840 --> 0:21:21.239 Orthodox or anything like that. But you grow up with 0:21:21.280 --> 0:21:25.560 these concepts of these notions that you are who you are, 0:21:25.920 --> 0:21:28.000 and then when you find out you you aren't who 0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:32.200 you thought you were, it's it's bizarre, exactly. I mean. 0:21:32.240 --> 0:21:36.520 I I felt, you know, like, you know, so interesting 0:21:36.640 --> 0:21:40.400 for me as a writer, because I've always been digging 0:21:41.080 --> 0:21:47.720 and suddenly it all made sense. But it was also 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:51.200 all this brand new, like it forced me to think 0:21:51.240 --> 0:21:56.000 about what makes us us, Like what makes a family 0:21:56.040 --> 0:22:00.640 of families doesn't matter? You know, the genes matter? Does 0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:05.160 biology matter? You know, nature versus nurture. You know, there 0:22:05.240 --> 0:22:07.600 was so much that I felt like, Wow, I am 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:11.840 getting the most extraordinary front row seat to all this. 0:22:12.160 --> 0:22:14.280 Like I remember, you know, like you mentioned, I've like 0:22:14.480 --> 0:22:16.520 stared at my face in the mirror as a child. 0:22:17.280 --> 0:22:20.359 In the days after my discovery, and especially when I 0:22:20.359 --> 0:22:24.720 identified my biological father, who I happened to look a 0:22:24.760 --> 0:22:28.359 great deal like, I looked at my face in the mirror, 0:22:28.400 --> 0:22:32.960 and for the first time I actually understood my face, 0:22:33.080 --> 0:22:35.280 Like I understood why those people had all been saying 0:22:35.280 --> 0:22:38.000 that all my life. I understood where I came from 0:22:38.040 --> 0:22:42.240 in terms of the nature piece of it. And so 0:22:42.359 --> 0:22:47.040 much of the journey for me was one that had 0:22:47.080 --> 0:22:49.960 to do with you know, at the very beginning after 0:22:50.000 --> 0:22:53.720 my discovery, well meaning people would say things to me like, well, 0:22:53.760 --> 0:22:55.760 no matter what, your your father is still your father. 0:22:56.600 --> 0:22:59.920 And at the beginning I had a really hard time 0:23:00.000 --> 0:23:03.600 I'm taking that in or even knowing what it meant, 0:23:03.920 --> 0:23:07.439 because I had just discovered that in biological terms, he 0:23:07.600 --> 0:23:12.680 wasn't and in all likelihood. My parents knew that and 0:23:13.359 --> 0:23:17.359 had of course kept it a secret, and so I 0:23:17.400 --> 0:23:21.600 had been raised with that secret at the center of 0:23:21.640 --> 0:23:27.000 my life. And the journey was really one of and 0:23:27.080 --> 0:23:28.959 this is one of the greatest gifts of this for me. 0:23:29.800 --> 0:23:32.520 I had to really think about my parents, and I 0:23:32.560 --> 0:23:35.359 had to think of them not as my parents, but 0:23:35.440 --> 0:23:40.159 as people, as human beings who existed before me, and 0:23:40.200 --> 0:23:46.960 who made choices and decisions based on their own desires 0:23:47.520 --> 0:23:51.840 and their own histories, and the same. Of infertility in 0:23:51.880 --> 0:23:54.760 those days, oh my goodness, like the shame of male 0:23:54.840 --> 0:23:57.960 infertility was so tremendous that you couldn't even get a 0:23:58.000 --> 0:24:02.720 doctor to say it existed. And there was so much 0:24:03.440 --> 0:24:07.919 heartache that went into childlessness, not being able to have 0:24:07.920 --> 0:24:12.000 a child. And what I came to feel was that 0:24:12.080 --> 0:24:16.680 my dad was a hero. My books dedicated to him, 0:24:17.080 --> 0:24:21.080 and that he was more, if anything more my dad 0:24:21.600 --> 0:24:23.840 than he had been before, that he had done something 0:24:23.880 --> 0:24:30.160 that was hard and heroic and sacrificial, absolutely sacrificial. I think, 0:24:30.200 --> 0:24:32.080 you know. One of the very painful things for me 0:24:32.160 --> 0:24:34.520 is I did come to say because my father was 0:24:34.560 --> 0:24:39.080 a very sad guy, and I always felt his heart. 0:24:39.200 --> 0:24:43.679 I always felt that he there was something at his 0:24:43.800 --> 0:24:48.920 core that was was lonely and sad, and I had 0:24:48.960 --> 0:24:51.800