WEBVTT - Nom du Père 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:08.440 Family Secrets is a production of I Heart radiom. My 0:00:08.520 --> 0:00:11.000 mother kept secrets and spoke to me in a kind 0:00:11.000 --> 0:00:16.160 of code. Nothing was straightforward. From childhood. I had to 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:19.360 figure out how to read her mind too intuite the 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:23.720 contours of her reality. If I developed empathy at first, 0:00:24.200 --> 0:00:26.920 it wasn't so much a way to find connection as 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:31.800 a survival strategy. My parents gave me burdens in childhood 0:00:32.280 --> 0:00:39.120 that I honed into gifts. That's Sherry Turkle. Sherry is 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:41.560 a professor at m I T, where she is also 0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:44.879 founding director of the m I T Initiative on Technology 0:00:44.920 --> 0:00:49.040 and Self. Her most recent book is The Empathy Diaries, 0:00:49.280 --> 0:00:53.960 a memoir. Sherry's is a layered story of many secrets 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:57.440 and swumming at the center of them all, a massive 0:00:57.520 --> 0:00:59.720 secret she is asked to keep from the time she's 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:03.480 a a small child, one that slices to the core 0:01:03.560 --> 0:01:19.480 of her identity. I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is family secrets, 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:22.280 the secrets that are kept from us, the secrets we 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:25.640 keep from others, and the secrets we keep from ourselves. 0:01:33.080 --> 0:01:36.240 There were two landscapes of my childhood. There was a 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:42.200 Brooklyn landscape and a Rockaway landscape. We lived in Brooklyn, 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:47.440 in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, which were wonderful streets 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:54.560 with grocery stores and hardware stores and five and dimes 0:01:54.600 --> 0:02:00.400 and richly textured urban environment. We lived near Prospect Park, Okay, 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:05.920 so there was a playground and great grounds. And Brooklyn 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:10.079 of my youth was a wonderful place for children. We 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:14.840 bounced balls and played Jack's on the sidewalk, and there 0:02:14.840 --> 0:02:20.320 were hardly any cars, and it was really a very 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:25.520 idyllic street life, a kind of urban street life. It 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:30.280 made me love the texture of city life. But in 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:35.400 the house, the boundaries of our home, it was a 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:39.760 life where no strangers were allowed in the house. On 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:42.800 the other hand, at Rockaway, where we went in the summer, 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:49.239 we had the beach Um. Rockaway was very close to Brooklyn. 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:52.400 We went to the end of Church Avenue, and very 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:55.440 soon you were crossing a bridge and you were in 0:02:55.600 --> 0:03:00.000 this state of land that was a world away from Brooklyn, 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:05.480 a kind of summer retreat for lower middle class of 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:09.240 working people in New York City. I think we paid 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:15.000 eighty dollars a season for our bungalow. In this bungalow colony, 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:20.200 you'd have eight or ten bungalows, five facing each other, 0:03:20.560 --> 0:03:24.280 with a court that had three cement pavers that made 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:27.840 up this courtyard. And the social life of the summer 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:32.320 was organized around these ten bungalows in this court. And 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:35.920 there would be fireworks on the boardwalk on Wednesday, and 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:40.080 there would be maybe a party in the court once 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:42.440 a week, and that you played with the children in 0:03:42.480 --> 0:03:46.280 the court. There was a generational thing where the older 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:49.400 people in the court watched the babies, you know, and 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:54.240 the teenager babies that for the younger children, and everybody 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:59.119 played majong, and everybody played cards. We amused each other 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:03.160 by singing to each other. It was really quite another time, 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:06.720 and this would have been in the in the fifties. 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:10.080 Again we had a court, we had neighbors. It was 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:14.320 a much more social world. But my grandparents were intensely 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:21.920 private and the life of our family was really enclosed 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:24.480 in the world of our family. So even though we 0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:28.800 lived in a beach setting, we knew all the people 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:33.520 in that little court. No one came onto our porch 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:38.440 or into our home. We spoke porch to porch. So 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:43.080 my childhood was a combination of seeing people in social 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:48.440 spaces on the street, but really understanding that my family 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:55.200 was very turned inwards and lived a life of secrets 0:04:55.240 --> 0:05:01.040 and privacy and almost kind of hyper vigilance, as though 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:05.400 we had secrets to hide, and we were just in 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:10.039 our family and didn't let people in. This not allowing 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:13.480 strangers in or anyone else in and staying on your 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:16.599 porch and talking to other people from that distance, was 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:20.680 that particular to you. I always knew that we were 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:27.960 special because we were keeping secrets. The secrets in Sherry's 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:33.560 family started out relatively small. The lies seemingly innocuous and silly, 0:05:33.720 --> 0:05:37.400 stuff like her mother lied about her height or her age. 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:40.640 One time, her mom tried to pass off a store 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:44.400 bought knit beret a gift to Sherry, as something she 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:48.200 had knit herself. Even as a child, Sherry had the 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:52.000 sense that something was off. She knew she couldn't totally 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:56.880 trust the things her mother said or did. My world 0:05:56.880 --> 0:06:01.280 of secrets begins with my mother's character and my mother's ability, 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:05.920 which I understood in so many ways, um to live 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:10.000 in the truth that pleased her. So for example, she 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:13.800 was five eleven or perhaps six ft tall. She was 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:18.480 very tall, and she didn't make her peace with that 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:21.719 until she found out that said Teris was five eleven, 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:24.200 and then somehow she admitted to me that she was 0:06:24.240 --> 0:06:26.919 five eleven. She explained to me that when she was 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:29.680 a single woman, every time she went to get her 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:34.400 license renewed, she would explain to the women at the 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:38.800 Bureau of Motor Vehicles that she needed to shave some 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:42.920 inches off her height, because a single woman shouldn't be 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:46.520 five eleven. It's easier to get a husband if you 0:06:46.560 --> 0:06:50.240 were five ten, or five nine or five eight. I 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:53.560 never quite understood that, but she had gotten herself down 0:06:53.640 --> 0:06:57.400 to five seven, which was preposterous. By the time she died, 0:06:57.520 --> 0:06:59.840 I actually looked in her handbag. I mean she was 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:03.040 down to five seven, which, as I say, was preposterous 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:06.680 because she was a beautiful, tall, magnificent woman. And she 0:07:06.680 --> 0:07:09.479 had also gotten her age down to kind of a 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:12.360 permanent twenty nine. She was twenty nine when she married 0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:15.480 my father, and she was twenty nine six years later 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:20.200 when she when she married her second husband. And again 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:23.360 the way this was done, which was kind of by 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:27.760 just explaining to the women at the registrate for motor vehicles, 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:32.000 you know that she just needed to be younger to 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:35.160 catch a husband, or to not far to make her 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:38.960 husband feel more comfortable with her age. I don't know 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:42.240 how she did it, but she aged very little. According 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:46.240 to the records the New York Records Department, the film 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:49.280 she told about the hat is particularly interesting, and there 0:07:49.360 --> 0:07:53.280 was I have a very clear memory of her coming 0:07:53.680 --> 0:07:56.080 to pick me up. I was at my grandparents house 0:07:56.680 --> 0:08:00.600 and she shows me this white hat that she's this 0:08:00.680 --> 0:08:03.160 little knit hat that she said she had knit for me, 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:06.080 and I had seen it in a five and ten 0:08:06.240 --> 0:08:10.080 store near my grandparents home, and I knew she hadn't knitted, 0:08:10.120 --> 0:08:11.920 and I didn't know what to do. I was kind 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:15.720 of paralyzed because I didn't understand, you know. I think 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:18.559 I said thank you, but it upset me for years 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:21.720 and years and years, this lie and seeing her as 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:25.280 as somebody who would tell lies that I couldn't understand. 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:28.960 I couldn't understand their meaning or why. I kind of 0:08:29.040 --> 0:08:32.320 understood why she wanted to be shorter or younger, but 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:38.240 why this hat, Why the hat. Indeed, what Sherry couldn't 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:40.719 have realized at the time when she was given that 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:43.440 hat at the age of eight, was that her mother 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:46.240 had been coming from a doctor's appointment at which she 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:50.400 had received a scary diagnosis. So when she was coming 0:08:50.440 --> 0:08:52.600 home from the doctor to pick Sherry up from her 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:56.120 grandparents house, she saw the knit cap at the five 0:08:56.160 --> 0:08:58.800 and dime and decided to bring her daughter a gift. 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:02.120 But what came out of her mouth when she presented it, 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:04.960 perhaps as a way of connecting with Sherry during a 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:10.600 worrying time, was I made this for you. I'm so 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:17.400 struck by your mother's fantasies and her aspirations, but more 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:22.360 than anything, her ability to bend the world to her will. 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:26.760 She wanted to be a mother who would have knit 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:33.040 that cap for you, So she became that in that moment. 0:09:33.720 --> 0:09:36.840 My guess is that she was not aware at all 0:09:36.960 --> 0:09:41.040 that she was lying. In that moment, she just decided 0:09:41.080 --> 0:09:43.080 that that was so, the same way she decided she 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:47.400 wasn't five eleven, or that she was twenty nine. Yes. Yes, 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:51.760 in these moments, she was taken up by how she 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:55.520 wanted the world to be. I think that's exactly right, 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:59.880 that she was capable of becoming house she wanted to 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:02.760 could be, and being the person she wanted to be. 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:06.000 You know, in technical terms, they say that you know 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:11.599 the neurotic style of hysteric is that they believe their wish, 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:16.640 the lies they tell is the deepest possible wish. And 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:21.000 I think that these wishes really structured her, her character, 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:26.240 These wishes for herself, these wishes for me, really became 0:10:26.320 --> 0:10:31.240 who she was, really became who she was. It's striking 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:33.120 me too that you know, when you were a child, 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:38.520 you lived in a Kosher style um and what that 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:42.400 meant was that in the home there wasn't work, and 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:45.520 there wasn't shrimp, and you know, there wasn't seafood and 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:48.800 milk and dairy and meat would be I suppose not 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:53.840 eaten together. But when you would go out, particularly on Sundays, 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:57.720 the Jewish ritual of going out for Chinese food on Sundays, 0:10:57.760 --> 0:11:00.640 that you know, all bets were off, like apparently in 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:06.760 Chinese restaurants, pork was okay. Yes, these were my grandmother's 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:11.120 ways putting the world together. But the Kosher laws meant 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:16.800 was what you did in your home is where these 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:21.600 kosher laws applied. And then what you did outside that 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:25.640 was a completely different story. None of the rules needed 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:31.240 to apply there, so pork on the outside didn't count 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:36.000 as breaking the rules. And again it's making the world 0:11:37.040 --> 0:11:40.760 fit the way you want the world to be. It's 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:46.120 very my family. In my family, certainly people constructed the 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:50.720 world the way they wanted it to be. Beyond knit 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:54.840 hats and secret pork, the greatest secret at the center 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:59.920 of Sherry's childhood was her her own identity, her very name. 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:05.679 My name was Sherry Zimmerman, and I hadn't seen that 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:10.080 name or heard that name really until I started school, 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:12.920 and legally that name had to be on a piece 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:16.360 of paper. But I was just part of the Bonnerwits clan, 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:20.480 which was my family name by my grandparents name. My 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:23.720 mother had divorced my father, whose name was Charles Zimmerman, 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:26.560 and when she went back to live with her parents, 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:31.720 Robert and Edith Bonnowitz, I was just Erry. I was 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:35.160 told that I was never to mention my father or 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:40.559 his name. They were constructing a world in which, because 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:43.560 your mother was divorced when you were very young, and 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:50.480 divorce was quite uncommon in that milieu, that somehow simply 0:12:51.160 --> 0:12:54.640 you didn't have a father, and you weren't allowed to 0:12:55.160 --> 0:13:00.000 speak or even know anything really about this mysterious person 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:02.520 and who had been your father and had briefly been 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:07.520 your mother's husband. His name was never said. I knew 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:10.600 not to say it or ask anything. It was one 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:14.120 of those things that it was completely foreclosed. It was 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:16.480 not you know, it was not like you could ask 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:19.000 a question and be told we're not talking about that. 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:27.079 You just knew not to ask. We'll be back in 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:41.520 a moment with more family secrets. Sherry's mother remarries a 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:45.160 man named Milton Turkle, and together they have two children. 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:49.560 These kids think that Sherry is their biological sister, while 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:54.040 Sherry silently carries the truth of where she comes from. 0:13:54.040 --> 0:13:57.080 So often when secrets are kept, there are times when 0:13:57.160 --> 0:13:59.760 one is asked to become a secret keeper, and you're 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:02.840 at child, you're being told you must keep something as 0:14:02.880 --> 0:14:06.000 fundamental as your name a secret, and you live in 0:14:06.120 --> 0:14:10.680 fear of slipping up. There are a few incidents, were 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:14.599 a few moments when I do slip up. Not many, 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:18.880 but there's one in particular when I do. And it's 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:22.480 at a girl scout meeting and we're going around, and 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:25.720 you know, we're asked to say our name, and I 0:14:25.840 --> 0:14:29.480 say that my name is Sherry Zimmerman, and my mother 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:33.680 is stricken. She clearly doesn't know what to do. I mean, 0:14:33.720 --> 0:14:37.480 it isn't that she's angry. Of course she is angry, 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:42.080 but more than angry, I've outed her. She doesn't know 0:14:42.120 --> 0:14:46.560 what to do. Looking back, I have pity on myself 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:52.880 actually because I realized the terrible weight that I was holding, 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:57.120 because when I slipped up, the pain that I caused 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:03.400 was terrible, and the pain being uttering your real name. Yes, 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:05.760 I mean that the gesture was so tiny, it's so 0:15:05.960 --> 0:15:08.760 natural that I did it. I meant no harm. You know, 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:12.080 I was tired. It was an evening to meeting, and 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:14.280 i'd all day. I had been Sherry' Zimmerman at the 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:16.400 school that was kind of out of the way, and 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:19.160 you know, I was sort of sent to a school 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:22.200 as far away as possible from from where our social 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:26.520 life was. And yet at this meeting, I don't know. 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:30.760 I just said the truth, and the truth was it 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:34.840 was an impossible truth. It was truly a secret. I 0:15:34.880 --> 0:15:37.760 mean it wasn't like a little secret. It was a 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:42.480 secret that would fracture this family that was built on 0:15:42.560 --> 0:15:49.320 a lie. And I really have such pity and compassion 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:53.360 for myself and for her, who couldn't make a life 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:56.520 where this could be known, who felt that she couldn't 0:15:56.560 --> 0:16:00.520 do that. It's so interesting too that you did have 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:04.640 that slip. It was in front of your mother. Could 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:06.800 it could have been somewhere else, It could have been 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:09.680 in some other circumstance where your mother hadn't been in 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:12.640 the room, But it happened when your mother was in 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:18.120 the room. Yes, and many psychoanalyzes later. I mean I thought, 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:21.840 on some level, was that an act of rebellion. I'll 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:25.560 never know, but there's there's obviously some part of that 0:16:26.240 --> 0:16:31.960 could have been wanting to somehow have some moment of 0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:35.840 truth with her. But what happened, Danny, what happened and 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:40.160 was so telling, was that she didn't yell at me. 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:43.680 She didn't speak of it. We didn't speak for I 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:47.040 think two weeks. And this was a woman who was 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:50.120 talking to me all the time. I you know, we 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:53.280 were talking and talking in our you know, our way 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:56.320 of relating was to tell stories and talk. I mean, 0:16:56.360 --> 0:16:59.200 I got my love of language from my mother. She 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:03.520 couldn't to me for two weeks, and it wasn't really 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:08.560 in anger. It was really because she didn't know what 0:17:08.720 --> 0:17:14.600 to say. This was so fundamental, this secret was so fundamental. 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:17.199 I mean, she i don't think she knew how to 0:17:17.280 --> 0:17:20.520 handle it. In her circle. She was my troop leader. 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:23.639 She was the leader of this girl's got true. And 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:26.520 I think it really raised the question for her as 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:28.600 to whether or not she was going to start to 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:31.880 tell people or And I think what happened was that 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:34.479 people sort of start, you know, put two and two together, 0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:37.040 and they sort of I think this was a secret 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:41.879 that many people knew about. But she just let people 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:46.560 assume what they wanted to and never confronted him. After 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:50.080 Sherry is not so Freudian slip, Milton and Sherry's mother 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:54.080 decide it's time to pursue Sherry's official adoption, for her 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:57.720 to take Milton's name. That will make things simpler, right, 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:02.719 But there's this all matter of Charles Zimmerman, who objects 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:06.960 to the adoption and insists on seeing her. Sherry visits 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:10.040 her biological father a few times until her mother puts 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:13.480 a stop to the visits. Of course, Sherry yearns to 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:16.439 know him. At the custody hearing, the judge turns to 0:18:16.480 --> 0:18:19.280 her and asks the question, do you love your father? 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:25.439 I was afraid to say no, I don't love my father. 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:27.960 I mean I didn't want to never see him again. 0:18:28.320 --> 0:18:31.520 So I said, yes, I love him, and then I 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:36.000 immediately saw my mother turn her face away since this 0:18:36.119 --> 0:18:39.320 was just it was like the worst thing that I 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:43.080 could have said. And so the judge then says, go 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:47.560 over and kiss him. And I made to kiss Charles Zimmerman, 0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:51.639 and that I look again at my mother, who's again 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:58.680 averting her eyes, and I'm taken out of the room. 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:04.040 This was actually one of the for me, most terrible 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:07.639 incidents of my childhood, because what had taught me is 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:12.120 that you have a decision. Any choice is the wrong choice, 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:16.240 because if I had said I didn't love Charles Immerman, 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:19.439 I would never have seen my father again. And if 0:19:19.480 --> 0:19:23.920 I said I loved him, well, my mother was stricken. 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:26.720 And it turned out that I didn't get to see 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:29.800 Charles Zimmerman much. I saw him maybe once or twice again, 0:19:30.400 --> 0:19:32.800 and then my mother found another way to put a 0:19:32.800 --> 0:19:36.359 stop to it. I mean, my mother was determined that 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:39.800 I would not see him very much. She had her 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:43.200 own reasons to be frightened at him, which I learned later. 0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:48.199 Remember how Sherry's mother had received a frightening diagnosis just 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:52.120 before buying her that knit hat, Well, that was yet 0:19:52.160 --> 0:19:57.159 another family secret, the secret of her mother's cancer. It 0:19:57.280 --> 0:19:59.520 was very common in those days to hide illness from 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:03.480 children and even other family members. Doctors and the medical 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:08.200 establishment believed this was for the best. Sherry's mother receives 0:20:08.200 --> 0:20:12.360 a mass ectomy and undergoes treatment. The Cherry doesn't know 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:18.000 or see. You write something that I was particularly taken with, 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:20.960 which is when we don't want to know the truth, 0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:24.080 we don't hear the truth spoken to us, or we 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:27.119 don't see what's playing as a day in front of 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:31.240 our eyes because we can't afford to yes. That whole 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:34.560 story of my mother's cancer and how it unfolded, which 0:20:34.600 --> 0:20:38.520 really was over a nine year period from her diagnosis 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:44.439 to her death, is really a story of my being 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:50.120 given a tremendous We're having access to a great deal 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:56.960 of information and not putting it together. She didn't want 0:20:57.000 --> 0:20:59.240 me to know because she wanted me to go away 0:20:59.240 --> 0:21:03.120 to college. This was her focus. She knew. But if 0:21:03.119 --> 0:21:05.919 I knew that she was as ill as she was, 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:08.919 I wouldn't have gone away to college. I would have 0:21:08.960 --> 0:21:13.440 lived at home, and I would have wanted to commute 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:15.760 to a college in New York City. I mean, I 0:21:15.800 --> 0:21:18.880 just would have That was the nature of my relationship 0:21:18.920 --> 0:21:24.240 with her. Sherry does indeed go away to college, to 0:21:24.400 --> 0:21:28.760 Radcliffe in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the university that has long been 0:21:28.800 --> 0:21:33.480 her dream. She's a brilliant student and finally is exactly 0:21:33.560 --> 0:21:36.760 where she wants to be. But then in her junior year, 0:21:36.960 --> 0:21:40.760 during exam week, she receives a call that changes her life. 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:45.119 I get a you know, a note from the dean, 0:21:45.600 --> 0:21:48.440 and they bring it to me in the library. Call home, 0:21:48.520 --> 0:21:51.520 go home, Go to Brooklyn Hospital. There's no one at 0:21:51.560 --> 0:21:54.479 home to call. Go to Brooklyn Hospital, and I just 0:21:54.680 --> 0:21:58.159 go and I talked to a doctor, and as we 0:21:58.240 --> 0:22:01.080 have a kind of miscommunication, I realize he's telling me 0:22:01.200 --> 0:22:05.080 my mother has ten days to live. And I realized 0:22:05.160 --> 0:22:08.439 I behave as though I'm listening to new information, and 0:22:08.520 --> 0:22:12.840 part of me knows that I know. And I've never 0:22:12.880 --> 0:22:17.840 forgotten that feeling. I've never forgotten that feeling of almost 0:22:18.040 --> 0:22:23.320 pretending that I'm learning something new and not knowing if 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:27.800 I'm pretending I'm learning something new or am I It 0:22:27.920 --> 0:22:31.199 was just an out of body experience, and that feeling 0:22:31.240 --> 0:22:33.479 has never left me. I can read, I can summon 0:22:33.520 --> 0:22:37.440 it even as we speak. I was given so many 0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:42.320 clues that she was ill, and yet I didn't know 0:22:42.480 --> 0:22:45.800 she was ill. But when I find out, when I'm 0:22:45.880 --> 0:22:51.400 told she's ill, I almost have to pretend I'm surprised, 0:22:53.080 --> 0:22:58.080 because part of me obviously knows and has known something 0:22:58.160 --> 0:23:01.960 was in this, and it only raises that question of 0:23:02.040 --> 0:23:06.320 what we know. We can't say you know what's unconscious. 0:23:06.920 --> 0:23:10.760 I want to say it was unconscious, because really, if 0:23:10.800 --> 0:23:12.760 you would say, as your mom ill, I would have 0:23:12.760 --> 0:23:15.800 said no, and I behaved as though she was not. 0:23:19.240 --> 0:23:23.200 Sherry's mother dies, and after her death, the dynamic between 0:23:23.240 --> 0:23:28.320 Sherry and Milton Turkle grows ever more fraught. He refuses 0:23:28.320 --> 0:23:30.399 to do the paperwork that would allow her to have 0:23:30.440 --> 0:23:34.160 clearance for her senior year scholarship at Radcliffe. He wants 0:23:34.160 --> 0:23:36.720 her to stop going to school so she can stand 0:23:36.800 --> 0:23:39.640 in for her mother and care for her younger siblings. 0:23:42.560 --> 0:23:48.280 I think he saw no way forward raising these two children. 0:23:48.480 --> 0:23:52.680 They were aid and eleven by himself. I think he 0:23:52.840 --> 0:23:57.439 thought that was completely beyond him, and he saw me 0:23:57.840 --> 0:24:00.560 as the Not only was I to see could keeper, 0:24:00.640 --> 0:24:03.000 but I was considered sort of the adult in the family. 0:24:03.119 --> 0:24:07.119 I was the designated adult, which was another actually a 0:24:07.119 --> 0:24:10.280 great burden, you know, if there was a handyman coming, 0:24:10.320 --> 0:24:14.280 if there was a you know, I was sent to, 0:24:14.320 --> 0:24:16.000 you know, sort of make sure he did a good 0:24:16.080 --> 0:24:19.000 job and pay him and get the receipt. And I 0:24:19.119 --> 0:24:21.680 was kind of the person who was most even when 0:24:21.720 --> 0:24:25.240 a child, who was considered most most capable to sort 0:24:25.240 --> 0:24:27.439 of deal with the outside world. And this was my 0:24:27.560 --> 0:24:31.560 family being very insular, the shadow of the Holocaust being 0:24:32.200 --> 0:24:36.280 weighing very heavily on them. They're wanting to keep to themselves. 0:24:37.000 --> 0:24:38.879 And in this case, I mean, I just think he 0:24:38.960 --> 0:24:43.040 felt he could not imagine being in charge of what 0:24:43.200 --> 0:24:46.159 was ahead for him. He used the phrase you in 0:24:46.200 --> 0:24:50.200 the old country, the eldest daughter would do it. It 0:24:50.400 --> 0:24:53.200 just was it was his kind of way of summing 0:24:53.320 --> 0:24:56.080 up that there was a way of thinking about this 0:24:56.240 --> 0:24:59.000 where it was a natural thing for me to take 0:24:59.000 --> 0:25:02.360 this on. I no longer think of it as malevolent. 0:25:02.480 --> 0:25:06.000 I think it was deeply selfish. I think it was 0:25:06.480 --> 0:25:09.639 him not being able to put himself in my place. 0:25:09.680 --> 0:25:13.840 It was the anti empathy moment of it was my 0:25:14.040 --> 0:25:18.159 learning empathy by having someone behaved there's no empathy towards me. 0:25:18.920 --> 0:25:22.199 But I don't know if he wanted to be cruel 0:25:22.240 --> 0:25:27.040 to me. I think he felt bereft. I think when 0:25:27.080 --> 0:25:31.280 people feel bereft, they just behave in a crazy way 0:25:31.320 --> 0:25:34.320 and what they see as their self interest. And I 0:25:34.359 --> 0:25:38.080 think that's what's happening with with Milton and his response 0:25:38.119 --> 0:25:40.960 to me, and so he kind of pulls the ultimate 0:25:41.240 --> 0:25:45.359 power play and I just leave. In fact, I dropped 0:25:45.359 --> 0:25:48.640 out of college, but I don't come home to take 0:25:48.680 --> 0:25:51.400 care of my sister and brother. I go to Paris. 0:25:53.200 --> 0:25:56.600 There's kind of running through your story something that I 0:25:56.640 --> 0:26:00.679 relate to, which is that it's really a story of survivor, 0:26:01.280 --> 0:26:03.960 of you know, sort of ultimately, you might have gone 0:26:04.000 --> 0:26:07.439 home and taken care of your younger brother and sister, 0:26:08.000 --> 0:26:10.679 and that would have completely altered the course of your life. 0:26:11.080 --> 0:26:15.040 And you don't you do what's necessary to survive and 0:26:15.040 --> 0:26:38.359 to thrive. Yes, we'll be right back. Sherry does eventually 0:26:38.440 --> 0:26:42.120 end up finishing her undergrad and soon after attends graduate 0:26:42.160 --> 0:26:47.000 school at Harvard, where she studies sociology and psychology. This 0:26:47.119 --> 0:26:51.600 is where she first encounters the seminal concept gname duper 0:26:52.680 --> 0:26:59.520 name of the father, as developed by French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacom. 0:26:59.640 --> 0:27:03.119 Like you when people say to me will psychoanalysis is 0:27:03.160 --> 0:27:05.960 so passe, the notion of the unconscious? Why do you 0:27:06.000 --> 0:27:08.680 become a psychoagonal? Why do it psycho one of the training? 0:27:09.320 --> 0:27:12.879 What's the use of it? I always say, well, there's 0:27:12.960 --> 0:27:15.600 no way for me to experience the story of my 0:27:15.640 --> 0:27:20.159 life and not believe in the unconscious, because I was 0:27:21.000 --> 0:27:27.439 working through all my life, including yesterday, the fact that 0:27:27.520 --> 0:27:30.359 I was not allowed to know the name of my father, 0:27:31.520 --> 0:27:37.639