WEBVTT - Family Secrets Live: In Conversation with Gretchen Rubin 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:12.920 Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio High 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:17.200 Family Secrets listeners. It's Danny here to share another incredible 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:20.840 conversation with you, the second in our series of live episodes. 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:25.239 Recorded in January. During my paperback tour, I sat down 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:29.040 with author and podcast host Gretchen Reuben, who interviewed me 0:00:29.160 --> 0:00:33.320 about my own family secret. We also talked about the 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:37.239 still almost totally unregulated world of sperm and egg donation 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:41.520 and why the era of recreational DNA tests could mean 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:45.000 the end of secrets for anyone who wondering where they 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:47.920 really come from. Stay tuned for the second half of 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:50.960 my conversation with Gretchen. We opened the discussion up to 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:54.080 our audience, who had incredibly moving stories of their own 0:00:54.120 --> 0:01:10.040 to share. That's out tomorrow. My first question, Danny, is 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:13.880 I mean, you're a writer, You're having this intense experience. 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:17.960 Did you know from the beginning that you would write 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:23.040 about it? I really did, I really did. I It 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:28.279 wasn't knowledge like I thought, Oh goody, my next book. 0:01:28.680 --> 0:01:30.679 It was my life has turned upside down. This is 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:34.720 great copy, right, That's what Nora says. And I even 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:37.840 had writer friends saying, like, boy, this is going to 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:40.959 be an amazing book, and I was almost insulted initially, 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:43.880 like this doesn't feel like a book. This is my 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:47.640 life that's been so upended. But as a writer, I 0:01:47.720 --> 0:01:52.800 have always um written in order to understand what I feel, 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:56.800 what I know, what I think, what I the world 0:01:56.800 --> 0:02:00.520 around me. It's how I it's literally how I how 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:05.920 I process. And so I began writing very quickly, even 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:10.000 just scribbling on index cards, because I wanted to remember 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:13.480 what it was that I was feeling, because my um, 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:16.799 my emotional life was moving sort of so rapidly. Um, 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:19.440 I don't know that we can remember what shock feels like, 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:21.880 you know, months later, that kind of thing. But there 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:25.920 also was a ticking clock because I was aware that 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:30.840 anything that I might learn about the truth of my identity, 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:34.359 about what my parents had known or not known, about 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:38.720 what the world of medicine was like at the time 0:02:39.000 --> 0:02:42.840 of my conception, literally the story of my life and 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:46.320 how I came to be. Anyone who still knew anything 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:49.799 about that was going to be elderly. And so my 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:52.200 my husband and I like, forgive me for this. My 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:55.000 my husband I had a running joke because I'm I'm 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:56.880 a writer. I don't like picking up the phone and 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:59.480 calling people who don't want to hear from me. Um. 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:02.240 I would or make a good investigative journalist that way. 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:04.600 And if you're reaching out to people in their nineties 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:06.800 that they probably don't have email, which was always like 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:10.160 the writer's first refugees, I can just send an email. 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:12.959 It's uh, the easier way to go about it. So 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:14.440 I would be in the position of having to pick 0:03:14.480 --> 0:03:16.320 up the phone and call people and I was dragging 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:19.760 my feet, and my husband Michael would say, he may 0:03:19.800 --> 0:03:24.000 be dead by Friday. Yeah, so that that that guy 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:27.640 made that that definitely got me going yes. Um. And 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:31.040 one of the things that was interesting was as you 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:35.480 approached your biological father and he and his family became 0:03:35.560 --> 0:03:42.000 sort of comfortable with connecting with you, how did they 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:44.680 respond to the book And also sort of the two 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:46.839 stages of the book, because it's one thing to be like, hey, 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:49.080 there's gonna be this book, and then it's like, hey, 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:52.040 this book is actually like a huge runaway bestseller, and 0:03:52.080 --> 0:03:54.000 now I have a podcast and maybe there's gonna be 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:57.040 a TV show and I'm giving lectures all around the country. 0:03:57.120 --> 0:04:00.800 I mean, it's one he may not have, they may 0:04:00.800 --> 0:04:04.360 not have conceived of what the book might become. So 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:07.960 how did they how they grappled with that? Well, to 0:04:08.040 --> 0:04:12.800 begin with, I was transparent with them from the time 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:15.920 that we were conversing with each other that that I 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:18.920 would be writing about it. I mean, all they would 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:20.960 need to do is that's a good example, like do 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:24.160 the right thing right away, because if you had just 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:27.400 sprung a book on them, slid that by. Yeah. And 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:30.279 also I think energetically it wouldn't have it would have 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:33.159 polluted the air between us because I would have really 0:04:33.200 --> 0:04:36.240 been secretly taking notes. I was never doing that. I 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:40.520 was and anyone who knew anything about my history as 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:44.159 a writer that I've always written about family secrets, I've 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:47.479 always written about identity. These have been my subjects. And 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:50.720 then it turns out that I was the family secret 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:53.160 and that my identity has been upended. Of course I'm 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:56.640 going to write about it. So I was transparent about 0:04:56.680 --> 0:05:00.080 it from the beginning. Um, what I did when I 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:03.799 finished the book and it was really done and ready 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:06.520 to be turned into my publisher is I sent it 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:09.480 to them. I sent it to my biological though. Note 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:13.400 that's pretty unusual usually with memoirs there they really don't 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:17.000 do that. It's unusual to allow someone the opportunity to 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:21.200 weigh it. Well, it's a little dangerous because it's like 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:24.839 giving someone wet clay. I'm like, here, you can shape 0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:29.000 this now. It can feel like, um, it's giving permission 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:33.159 to really kind of make changes. What I was interested 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:37.680 in mostly was that he felt that his privacy was protected. UM. 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:40.480 I had taken great pains to protect his privacy. It 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:43.560 was very important to me to do that. UM. But 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:46.239 I wanted him to feel that his privacy was protected. 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:47.640 I wanted to make sure that there was nothing I 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:51.240 had missed. Uh. I guess I wanted his blessing too. 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:53.719 I wanted him to like it. I wanted him to 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:57.800 feel that it accurately reflected what it happened between us. 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:00.880 But mostly it was that I wanted his privacy to 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:06.120 be protected. And so the second part of this, which 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:11.159 is that UM, the book came out and did strike 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:15.680 a chord and did start to be a book that 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:18.760 you would know about, you know that you couldn't really 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:21.640 avoid knowing about. I was on a lot of TV shows, 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:23.480 and there were a lot of pieces written, and there 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:26.320 was a big piece in Time magazine right before the 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:30.000 book came out, So the question of like, how did 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:35.279 that feel too, Um, people who were in the book, 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:38.800 even with their identities protected, but they were in the book. 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:44.919 They've been wonderful and I think actually proud, I would say, 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:49.560 and UM in a certain way, very interested in following along. 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:52.680 So that's another way in which this has been a 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:55.520 kind of remarkable. Um. I you know, one of the 0:06:55.520 --> 0:06:58.280 things that I've said often since the book came out, 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:03.440 and I've met so many people who are having these 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:09.560 discoveries of various kinds because of easy, accessible DNA testing 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:13.640 and the impact that it's having on our society and 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:18.440 on so many families. My story is a good one. 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:21.040 Not all of the stories are easy. A lot of 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:23.920 them are quite painful. There's pain in all of these 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:26.920 stories of discovery. I mean, it was a very very 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:31.000 hard thing for me to metabolize that my dad, who 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:35.440 raised me and who I adored and who loved me 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:39.040 into being and is a huge part of why I 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:41.800 am the person that I am, UM, that he wasn't 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:43.920 my biological father, and that I had never known it. 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:47.400 That was really hard. But then there have been so 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:50.880 many gifts in the wake of this discovery, and one 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:55.040 of them really is that my biological father and his 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:57.600 family have been as kind and as open as they 0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:02.160 have been. Well, Um, I have a podcast called Happier 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:04.280 with Grudge and Ruben and Elizabeth at My Cost and 0:08:04.320 --> 0:08:08.120 I interviewed you for our book book club, and one 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:10.320 of our listeners asked a question that I thought was 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:15.360 really interesting, which was, do you think that your biological 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:17.680 father and his family would have been as willing to 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:21.080 meet with you if they couldn't have seen that you 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:23.840 were so accomplished, Like they could just look you up 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:26.400 and see like And then I remember in your first 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:29.280 letter to him, you say I'm a wife, I'm a mother, 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:32.280 I'm a writer. You know you sort of say I'm 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:37.480 a ordinary, stable person with a good life, a rich life. 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:39.079 But he could also look that up and see that 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:41.320 you were very accomplished. Do you think if you hadn't 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:44.200 been so google able they might not have been willing 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:48.200 to open themselves up to you. One of the things 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:51.520 that I'm hearing a lot um as I've been traveling 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:55.400 for the last year since Inheritance came out, UM, is 0:08:55.960 --> 0:09:01.360 that whenever there is a situation like this in a 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:06.120 family of any kind of someone sending an email or 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:10.200 calling or writing a letter saying I'm confused. I mean, 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:13.040 but I have this information. I think we're related. I 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:15.839 think i'm your biological daughter, or I think i'm your 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:19.320 half sibling, or you know, I got these results from 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:22.760 my DNA test and they point to some kind of 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:27.600 genetic connection. The very first response that across the board 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:33.440 every family that I have encountered UM has is feeling threatened, 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:38.760 every single one. And I think it's hardwired into us. 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:43.959 It's a primal reaction. It's a primitive reaction. It's like, 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:46.400 you know, we're sitting here in a synagogue. It's like 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:49.800 it's the outsider, you know, it's it's the it's the 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:53.360 it's the outlier. It's the stranger in our midst that 0:09:53.440 --> 0:09:55.600 kind of feeling. But it's more than a stranger. It's 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:58.640 somebody who might have a claim, and that's even more 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:02.320 threatening in a way. And and the threat usually UM 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:05.640 goes straight to financial. What do you want from me? 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:10.040 You want my money? Um, even if it's you know, 0:10:10.320 --> 0:10:14.120 I know a story where the person who has made 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:19.320 the discovery was a extremely wealthy person, uh, and the 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:23.800 the discovered biological family was not. But there's still that 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:27.679 feeling of what do you want from me? I, um, 0:10:27.720 --> 0:10:34.680 I have nothing for you, and the times that families 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:37.600 are able to get past that. I mean, it's just 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:39.920 my I mean my biological family. The same thing that 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:42.040 was the first response was what do you want? No, No, 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:46.120 I I donated anonymously. I signed a contract. I was 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:50.360 guaranteed an anonymity. You know you're you're you're intruding into 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:55.600 my life. Yes, I was google able. I also when 0:10:55.640 --> 0:10:59.200 I initially wrote to him, I was very conscious of 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:02.160 wanting him to understand that I was a human being, 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:05.800 you know, a wife, a mother, living in Connecticut. You 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:08.880 know that I was um that I came in peace. 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:14.080 But at the same time, on my website, the very 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:15.960 first thing you would have seen at that time on 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:18.400 the home page of my website would have been a 0:11:18.440 --> 0:11:22.040 picture of me with Oprah with her arm around me, 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:24.880 because I had recently been on super Soon Sunday. Now, 0:11:25.000 --> 0:11:28.520 that is both good news and bad news. And I 0:11:28.559 --> 0:11:32.560 really think, as someone very concerned about his privacy, that 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:37.240 the idea that Oprah could come bring out spring out 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:42.040 from the bushes with a microphone episodes. So I do think, 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:44.400 and and and also he started, I think digging into 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:47.400 my history a little bit as a writer and seeing 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:51.160 that I've written about family all my life will be 0:11:51.200 --> 0:11:59.480 back in a moment with more family secrets. So talk 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:02.520 for a moment about what this was. You write about 0:12:02.520 --> 0:12:05.960 this so beautifully in the book, and it's it's the moment. 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:11.120 It's this tremendously thrilling, terrifying moment when you and your husband, 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:13.880 and your husband's like, here we go, here we go, 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:17.079 and you're opening up the page and there's a little 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:19.680 video of him and you see that it's your father 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:23.200 and it's your features, and your husband says, oh my goodness. 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:26.320 He even runs a question an answer session the way 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:29.199 you do, and you recognize yourself in his gestures. I mean, 0:12:29.280 --> 0:12:32.200 talk about what that was like after all this time 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:36.400 of feeling the sort of sense of not quite fitting 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:39.760 in and now suddenly seeing your face in someone else's face. 0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:43.679 I think it will stand forever as the most surreal 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:47.600 moment of my life because it wasn't so much looking 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:51.880 at someone who looked like me and gestured like me. 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:57.800 It was also realizing that I hadn't had that familiarity before. 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:03.080 And you know, when we grow up in our biological 0:13:03.080 --> 0:13:06.360 family and we know it's our biological family. There's that 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:08.840 thing that we do just as human beings that's sort 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:11.920 of like, oh, he walks like Uncle Mo. You know, 0:13:12.000 --> 0:13:15.600 oh he has Grammy's nose, or oh, you know, we 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:18.080 don't even think it. It's just when we know that 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:21.120 we're part of a biological family, that is part that 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:24.080 familiarity is part of being part of a biological family. 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:28.679 If we are adopted, and we've always known that we 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:31.920 were adopted, and it's been woven into our identity from 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:35.079 the time that we're very small, then we know why 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:40.199 we don't look like our biological family or why there 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:45.400 is this sense of unfamiliarity. In an adoption literature, there's 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:51.520 a beautiful phrase called um genealogical bewilderment. We know why 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:57.720 there is this geneological bewilderment. But if our identity has 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:02.080 actually not been told to us, as you know, our 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:05.960 identities are formed by the stories were told from the 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:08.440 time were very small, and it's a story that we're 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:12.360 told is this is your biological family. But in my case, 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:15.839 on my father's side, it was not. I did not 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:20.760 have that familiarity. I did not have that recognition. In fact, 0:14:20.880 --> 0:14:27.560 I looked completely unlike a Shapiro and and that was 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:29.840 a big part of the story of my life. People 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:33.880 constantly telling me that I didn't look Jewish, that I 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:37.520 didn't look like my father's family. Um. I was constantly 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:43.200 mistaken for, you know, just being not not not being Jewish. 0:14:43.320 --> 0:14:46.960 And meanwhile, and I would come back with raised kosher 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:51.440 you know, when to achieve us, you know, like, don't 0:14:51.480 --> 0:14:53.920 talk to me about not being Jewish. Um. But it 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:56.240 was the story of my life. So when I saw 0:14:56.360 --> 0:15:00.160 my biological fathers phase for the first time and was 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:02.720 lecturing for those of you who haven't read the book yet, 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:06.120 he was standing by, you know, behind a lectern, delivering 0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:12.880 a lecture on medical ethics, and you can't make it up. 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:15.440 You can't know. I couldn't. I changed identifying details. But 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:17.520 that wasn't one of them. That would be cheating, that 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:21.760 wouldn't have been fair. Um, But there was. I saw 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:25.880 his gestures, and when I saw his gestures, I recognized 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:29.240 my gestures. And that was like a heart stopping moment 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:33.920 because it was seeing the familiar in a stranger. He's 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:36.960 a stranger. But it was also like I wasn't looking 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:38.720 at a video of a fireman. You know, I wasn't 0:15:38.720 --> 0:15:41.120 looking at a video of something I've never done. I 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:45.160 stand behind podiums all the time, and I deliver lectures 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:47.640 all the time, and I run q and as all 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:50.400 the time. So he was doing something that was very 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:53.120 familiar to me. So I could see I could see 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:56.400 myself in that way. Well, in speaking of medical ethics, 0:15:56.440 --> 0:15:58.520 it's interesting since the book has come out, and since 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:01.920 it's it's made such an pression on people, you have 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:05.680 become sort of the voice of kind of all the 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:11.240 people who are experiencing what we might call like technology 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:15.960 enabled UM secret discovery, and you are starting to talk 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:19.200 to people about medical ethics and bio ethics. How has 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:21.480 that been for you to kind of be pulled into 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:26.160 this expertise UM? And and also in kind of a 0:16:26.240 --> 0:16:30.120 larger way, you are also sort of a a person 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:33.200 where many people who have secrets like this want to 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:35.560 confide the secret in you. And now with your your 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:38.200 podcast Family Secrets, that's given you a way to sort 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:41.360 of give boys to that. UM. How has it been 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:44.080 for you to sort of be thrust into these roles 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:49.320 by what happened to you personally? You know, it's interesting. 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:53.360 The other night I was in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and 0:16:53.400 --> 0:16:56.960 I was having UM an onstage conversation with Dr Bessel 0:16:57.040 --> 0:17:00.520 Andrew Kolke, who is the leading expert on t mamma 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:04.960 UM in the world. And one of the things that 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:08.600 Dr Vander Kolch writes about in his book, which is 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:12.000 called The Body Keeps the Score, he writes about the 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:16.240 necessity when you've experienced a trauma of some sort one 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:19.400 of the ways that people recover best is if they're 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:23.240 able to take action, um, if they're not in some 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:30.000 way trapped, either physically or emotionally. And I was reading 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:34.440 Dr Bandicooke's book, and I was thinking about what I 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:38.440 was able to do in the wake of my discovery. 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:43.760 I was able to do something with it. First, by 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:47.639 I mean, my journey and my book are the same 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:53.439 in many ways. I was trying to understand what it 0:17:53.560 --> 0:17:57.240 meant that my dad wasn't my biological father. Both of 0:17:57.280 --> 0:18:00.720 my parents were dead. I was trying to piece together 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:03.040 as best as I could what they had known and 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:06.520 whether they had consciously kept this from me. I was, 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:08.840 you know, there were so many mysteries that I was 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:12.840 kind of trying to untangle and I as a writer, 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:15.920 that's what I do, that's that's my toolbox. And then 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:18.880 the book came out, and from the very first event, 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:22.520 it was clear that people were coming who had their 0:18:22.560 --> 0:18:26.719 own stories and had their own discoveries, and and they 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:32.360 were from all different kinds of discoveries and different roles 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:35.960 in the discovery process. There were older men who were 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:39.120 coming to my events, and I would realize that they 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:42.120 had been sperm donors and they were trying to figure 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:43.960 out how to deal with the fact that they might 0:18:44.000 --> 0:18:49.760 be contacted. I would see couples sitting together and looking 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:53.720 kind of stricken, and I would realize, Oh, you have 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:57.080 donor conceived children who don't know, and you're trying to 0:18:57.119 --> 0:18:59.359 figure out what to do about that. And then I 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:03.040 would see many people who were had recently discovered that 0:19:03.080 --> 0:19:06.640 they were adopted, or recently discovered half siblings, or recently 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:10.520 discovered fathers who discovered children that they had never known about, 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:16.800 um adopted children, discovering birth parents and vice versa. All 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:19.000 of this was happening. And I think that for me 0:19:20.000 --> 0:19:24.119 becoming having this voice and ending up having you know, 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:28.679 a megaphone in a way, has been the action that 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:35.480 has allowed me to process, metabolize, and heal from what 0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:42.040 was really a very shocking UM discovery. And in terms 0:19:42.080 --> 0:19:44.520 of the bioethics of this, I mean, we're in this 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:47.720 moment where can I ask a question, just show of hands, 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:55.679 how many people have bought a DNA test in this room? Yeah? 0:19:55.760 --> 0:20:02.119 A lot of you. Yeah. So the number are I 0:20:02.160 --> 0:20:07.200 think last year was twelve million kits were sold this year. 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:09.760 I think it was a little bit. They were expecting 0:20:09.760 --> 0:20:11.280 it to be higher, and I don't think it was 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:14.919 at least I read an article about twenty three and 0:20:14.960 --> 0:20:19.200 me laying off some of its staff because they were 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:22.040 expecting a bigger explosion. But I can tell you that 0:20:22.880 --> 0:20:28.360 of those many millions of people who are gifting families, 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:31.440 gifting each other at Hanukkah and Christmas. You know that's 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:35.480 what my mother in law gave it to me for Christmas. UM. 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:38.520 I saw on Twitter recently somebody posted something like, you know, 0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:41.640 all all those people who who got their DNA test 0:20:41.680 --> 0:20:49.359 for the holidays, Easter is gonna suck. But they're they're 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:53.840 hundreds of thousands of people who are making versions of 0:20:53.880 --> 0:20:58.400 this discovery and the bioethics community, I mean I've spoken 0:20:58.440 --> 0:21:01.080 at Harvard and at Stanford, i was us at Johns Hopkins. 0:21:01.359 --> 0:21:04.199 I'm going to pen speaking with the head of the 0:21:04.200 --> 0:21:07.720 program at Colombia. It is one of the I mean, 0:21:07.720 --> 0:21:11.120 we have many ethical issues of our time, but it's 0:21:11.240 --> 0:21:14.400 one of the big ones, because what does it mean 0:21:14.440 --> 0:21:19.080 that the science has changed everything and that men and 0:21:19.119 --> 0:21:22.160 women to now because of egg donation who were promised 0:21:22.160 --> 0:21:26.560 anonymity no longer have it. Secrets are are no longer possible. 0:21:27.080 --> 0:21:30.320 There's a huge stream of people who are making really 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:35.040 difficult identity shifting discoveries and the question of what is 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:38.320 our moral responsibility to each other. I think one of 0:21:38.320 --> 0:21:41.440 the reasons why Inheritance has resonated so much is because 0:21:41.960 --> 0:21:44.919 I have become an expert on this from the inside, 0:21:45.800 --> 0:21:50.320 from the inside, right, it's it's not a research project, 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:53.159 it's um And you know. One of the things that 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:56.439 happens that I feel that I can give voice to is, 0:21:56.520 --> 0:21:58.920 for example, in the adoption community. I think a lot 0:21:58.960 --> 0:22:02.159 of people thought who hadn't read the book yet, I 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:06.920 thought that I was saying that nature is all important, right, 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:09.440 it mattered to me to meet my biological father. I 0:22:09.520 --> 0:22:11.880 actually had people saying to me like, why would that matter? 0:22:12.720 --> 0:22:14.320 And it was usually people who grew up with their 0:22:14.359 --> 0:22:18.000 biological parents, you know, who just couldn't kind of imagine 0:22:18.040 --> 0:22:21.560 themselves in my shoes. But one of the things that 0:22:21.600 --> 0:22:24.640 I feel like I'm here to say is my mother, 0:22:25.680 --> 0:22:30.960 who was my biological mother. I actually double checked. Um. 0:22:31.040 --> 0:22:35.120 She and I weren't close. I never felt connected to her. 0:22:35.760 --> 0:22:39.080 We were just kind of oil and water. She was 0:22:39.200 --> 0:22:43.720 my biological mother. My dad, who it turns out is 0:22:43.760 --> 0:22:49.520 not my biological father, is like a soul connection to me. Um. 0:22:49.520 --> 0:22:51.680 He died when I was twenty three years old, and 0:22:52.320 --> 0:22:54.560 there hasn't been a day that's gone by that I 0:22:54.560 --> 0:22:57.920 haven't spoken to him and thought about him. My books 0:22:57.960 --> 0:23:00.960 have been for him in a certain way. I've written 0:23:01.000 --> 0:23:03.720 about him, I've wrestled with him. I've tried to understand him. 0:23:04.240 --> 0:23:06.080 He's on the cover of your book now. He is 0:23:06.119 --> 0:23:08.720 now on the paperback that you all have that is 0:23:08.760 --> 0:23:11.560 a picture of myself as UM a little girl with 0:23:11.600 --> 0:23:13.880 my dad, and you can see the connection between us. 0:23:13.880 --> 0:23:16.200 I love that picture so much because there's so much 0:23:16.520 --> 0:23:20.959 unfettered joy. It matters not at all that he's not 0:23:21.040 --> 0:23:25.200 my biological father. That it didn't matter. Then I'm sure 0:23:25.280 --> 0:23:28.240 that didn't matter to him. I didn't know. The problem 0:23:28.280 --> 0:23:31.159 is not knowing um And that's what I really kind 0:23:31.200 --> 0:23:33.639 of feel like I am trying to give voice to 0:23:33.800 --> 0:23:37.320 because there was a huge amount of secrecy in those days. 0:23:37.480 --> 0:23:40.600 It's just it's what was counseled, it was what was believed. 0:23:41.119 --> 0:23:44.159 Everyone felt that they were doing the right thing. And 0:23:44.160 --> 0:23:46.560 and I've come to understand one of the gifts of 0:23:46.600 --> 0:23:50.840 this process for me is there's this great term um 0:23:50.880 --> 0:23:58.560 in in ethics, which is retrospective moral judgment. We can't 0:23:58.720 --> 0:24:02.480 judge the past by the standards of the present. And 0:24:02.560 --> 0:24:05.359 when I first found this out, I really thought, how 0:24:05.400 --> 0:24:08.840 could they? How could they? How could they? Everyone has 0:24:08.840 --> 0:24:11.360 a right to know their own identity as much as possible. 0:24:11.400 --> 0:24:14.160 How could they have kept this? For me? My journey 0:24:14.480 --> 0:24:17.160 was to get to a place of imagining my parents 0:24:17.520 --> 0:24:21.760 as people, as people of their time, as people who 0:24:21.800 --> 0:24:24.720 existed before me. And that's a great gift. We don't 0:24:24.760 --> 0:24:27.080 often get to do that about our parents. We don't 0:24:27.119 --> 0:24:30.159 think of our parents as people separate from us. And 0:24:30.240 --> 0:24:34.480 I had to think of them as this traumatized, deeply 0:24:34.600 --> 0:24:39.800 ashamed couple who were childless in the late nineteen fifties 0:24:39.800 --> 0:24:44.480 and early nineteen sixties, male infertility was so shameful it 0:24:44.480 --> 0:24:47.199 didn't exist. You couldn't get a doctor to diagnose it. 0:24:48.119 --> 0:24:52.040