Transcript
Speaker: For parents building their family with the help of donor, one question can feel overwhelming. When do we tell them? than knowing the wrong thing because for parents building their family with the help of a donor one question can feel overwhelming when do we tell them Today, I'm joined by reproductive endocrinologist, Dr. Danny Shapiro and donor conceived adult, Josh McLaurin.
Speaker: More than 30 years after Dr. Shapiro became a sperm donor during medical school, Josh discovered he had been conceived from one of Dr. Shapiro's donations. Together, they share their perspectives from both sides of donor conception.
Speaker: not DNA may be disposition, but it's not destiny. Okay, so Dr. Shapiro, you were medical school when you decided to become a sperm donor. What led you to that decision and what did being a donor kind of mean to you at that time?
Speaker: Or were you even thinking about that? I wasn't thinking about what it meant to me because there wasn't a whole lot of counseling at the time. And frankly, it a financial decision because it was cash.
Speaker: and Yeah. Yeah, 75 bucks a pop. and i was a broke medical student so it was like okay here's some spending money why not yeah yeah for sure did you think about at all just the children or about the families that would exist because of your decision or not even that i mean i i indirectly sort of kind of knew that it was working because it kept taking me back But it was a totally different day and age too. it was fresh samples. They didn't quarantine or freeze.
Speaker: HIV had been identified, but the FDA hadn't come in and said you have to quarantine on the basis of infectious disease yet. And so when someone needed a donation, I carried a beeper or I checked in on my my answering machine, 1986, right? And it was amazing technology. You could use your touch tone phone to do playback.
Speaker: And if there was, we need to set something up, then I'd call them back and say, when, and they would say, show up at the clinic at such and so a time.
Speaker: And they'd get a fresh sample and I'd leave. Yeah. war Or if I was on rotation at Grady Hospital and the clinic was in central suburban Atlanta, I would put the sample unproctored with just my name on it in a paper bag on the Grady bus and it would ride from Grady Hospital to the Emory Clinic.
Speaker: Wow. So much has changed. Very different me. Very different day age, for sure. For sure. So Josh, going to you, when did you first learn that you were donor conceived? And what do you remember about that conversation?
Speaker: Sure. I was 31 years old. It was 2019.
Speaker: My mom called and she was kind of worked up and I didn't know what the topic was going to be. i was a little worried. And she said, you know, she was worried about our relationship and, and the consequences that would have sort of preface before I tell you this, like, I hope you don't, you know, get really angry. And she said, your dad is not your biological father. And then sort of started to explain, you know, back in the eighties, your, your dad, I guess my dad was 48 when I was born. and so. I don't know if he had a procedure or what the deal was, but basically they made the decision to ah to go the route of getting a sperm donation. And they had decided not to tell me. And, you know, if you ask her, well, why didn't you say anything? She's like, well, it was the 80s, right? Which sure I know from ah law firm partners I've talked to means something, you know, profound in every context. And so it's right in wild times. And so basically...
Speaker: um I, you know, I didn't think I'd be angry. I thought, well, you know, okay, I've i've heard weirder news in my life. I'm not sure if I have, but at the time I felt like, oh, this is not so bad. And I thought, I'm not going to get angry. You know, I'm not mad. I can take this in stride, but I did get mad. And it took me a little bit of time to realize that I felt like I should have known earlier. that there were some mysteries, you know, biomedical, whatever, that would this would have shed some light on.
Speaker: um And yeah, just in general, I had to go through a process of adapting to the information. What made it tough is my dad passed away in 2022 of cancer. And so the cancer started coming back in 2020. And so I wanted space and time to process all this information, especially I was pretty well into my adulthood at the time and I didn't really get that luxury because my priority and what I chose to do was to spend as much time as possible with my dad and sort of let bygones be bygones during that period of time. But that was a choice. I think if, if I had felt like there was no consequence, I probably would have taken a lot of space, many, many months, done a lot more reading and research and processing,
Speaker: because it did feel like some kind of a betrayal. And it was kind of even a surprise to me to realize that I felt that way. Josh, I want to go back a little bit. I know you said your mom just randomly called you out of the blue. What was her catalyst for deciding to share this news with you? Was it your dad's health?
Speaker: No. And that's a question everybody asks, and there's not really a clear answer to. I think she just felt like ah she wanted that level of transparency Why she wanted it, I don't know, but it's the kind of thing I think can build over time. What, mean, i know you weren't able to take the time that maybe you would have wanted, but as you were kind of just naturally processing things, what questions did you find yourself asking or what were some of the the things that just kept coming back to you? Yeah. Well, I mean, there's discoveries that come from it. I don't know that i knew what questions to ask. Once I had the information, you know, i got 23andMe done. So I asked my mom, you know, hey, I'm going to get, I told her to pay for it. I was like,
Speaker: you held this for 31 years, you get to pay for the Cadillac version of 23andMe. So he, you know, zelled me $400, you know, made 23andMe rest in peace. But basically, I spit in the tube as quickly as possible. I wanted to know, ah you know, if I had any medical history issues that I needed to be aware of.
Speaker: I just wanted to know the identity of the donor as quickly as possible. And I had friends who had two donor conceived children who were sort of my guides during this process. And they had gone through a lot of the psychology and the reproductive medicine. So they understood a lot about the issue area and they were advising me on, you know, what was a normal reaction and what I was feeling was normal. Uh, and so I got the 23andMe kit, uh, used it, got the results back within a few weeks and, uh, you know, didn't have any major medical flags. I was grateful at the genetic profile results.
Speaker: um But, you know, i was surprised to be 47% Ashkenazi. I was, you know, was raised Christian and never had any faint concept of whether I had any connection to Jewish identity. And so i'm definitely not Jewish.
Speaker: That is not something that is a result of this, you know, having no connection to the tradition in my family and just the genes, you know, 47% of the relevant genes. but it might explain a little bit of, you know, neurotic thinking. So that, I mean, I guess those questions might be what you're referring to kind of these natural questions about identity.
Speaker: um But no, I mean, that my parents didn't have much more to say once they made the disclosure. And once I got the 23andMe information, i had that aspect of it. But then I made the decision to reach out to Danny via the app. They had a messaging feature in the app just to basically say, hello, I'm ready to meet you. and I think that's exactly verbatim what I said. I didn't come up with a much more creative message. So kind of a terrifying message, I think, to send to somebody who I found out later had never gotten such a message before. and Right. I was sitting in a hotel room in Amsterdam and I opened up my emails and it said 23andMe message.
Speaker: And I clicked on it and i like, I am ready to meet you. And I'm like, oh, wow. And I think i I think the first thing I emailed back was, well, this is unexpected.
Speaker: ah And then... And I... yeah I started off kind of coy, which is foolish in retrospect, with like, well, before I... Because I'd been cyber-stocked, which I later learned.
Speaker: But I... um I said, well, before I say too much about myself, can I get a little bit of information about you? At which point, a very clear narrative emerged and Josh identified the highlight features, including the fact that he was a state house representative. And that's how I realized I recognized the name because he number of state house representative in Metro Atlanta.
Speaker: ha I'm thinking, oh, really? And then I sent back a book and went into extraordinary detail for a second message. And then we subsequently arranged to meet in my office, which ironically, one of the, she had retired at that point, but one of my partners in practice as a reproductive endocrinologist had been the doctor who had brokered
Speaker: the donation at that time, 32 years prior. Oh, what a small world. Right. Well, and it is and it isn't. I mean, there weren't that many reproductive endocrinologists in the 1980s. And I was interested in it in the nineteen eighty s though I didn't know for sure that's what I'd do. And she was my advisor, one of my two advisors at Emory Medical School.
Speaker: And right, she and I have had this conversation and I asked her, which I know she took the records. They were destroyed in a fire. So I don't know if there are others for sure, but somewhere embedded in those singed records would have been when Josh's family received the sperm.
Speaker: Gotcha. Gotcha. I think that the key insight about, and Danny and I have become advocates for early disclosure, when we do talks like this, you know, the point we try to stress to professionals in the reproductive medicine space is you know, look at us as an example of of what happens, what can happen, both good and bad, when a disclosure is three decades too late.
Speaker: And, you know, it it I think Danny was caught off guard because he didn't know You know, his, his own mental profile reflected in me. I mean, it was, you know, useful to him to see, you know, in his late fifties, some new information, about, you know, his own genetics that I helped be a mirror for him for. but you know, he also didn't know, up until that age that he had uh, a donor conceived person walking around. that's relevant information. I think for him to know on my side of it, uh, there are key aspects of identity formation. You go to the doctor's office and you write down. your medical history and half of it's wrong every time you have no idea. And you end up being, feeling weird about the waste of hand energy that goes into that as small of a thing that sounds like it's just a dignity issue that you, you feel like you've been told something that's a lie on the basis of which you've built part of your identity. That's a significant thing to be dealing with. And some, some of this stuff is is difficult enough when you're a kid and, You need adequate support and guidance and explanation during key identity formation stages. you know, when you're child, it's developmental stage.
Speaker: So doing some of that out of order in your late twenties or thirties or beyond, you know, that, That's hard. And I think as an adult, you do have more tools, potentially to deal with it. But just the disjunctive nature of it, you know, Danny's quote, well, this is a surprise, right? That it's just, it's something that you don't expect to be having to confront or deal with later on in life, once you have a pretty well established concept of self.
Speaker: Sure, sure. Going, i think it's really funny, you Dr. Shapiro, that you said, well, this is a surprise, especially considering considering that you are a reproductive endocrinologist. And so you have been on both sides of, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, though the, I mean, i was a donor in the eighties, stopped donating in 88. So the youngest possible offspring from that right now would be 37.
Speaker: thirty seven Everyone else would be well into adulthood, potentially have kids of their own. And you know there there was a point where I had put myself on donor sibling registry, right, 2008, 2009, primarily because my kids were at a day school where one of the teachers slash parents was on the cover of the National Enquirer others she Yeah, she had her own she had her own reality TV series briefly. Her kids were both donor conceived and her husband was, i'm frankly, a little humiliated by it.
Speaker: And the whole the whole way that went down went right. But there was kind of a message coming through, which is kids who come from donor conception really do have a right to know who their half siblings are and potentially who the donor is.
Speaker: Sure. Right. And so i thought, you know, I'm curious, partly, but also not a bad idea to put myself out there. So when it was free, I put myself on donor sibling registry and there were no matches.
Speaker: And I'm like, yeah, okay, fine. I forgot about it. And when once they started charging to be registered at donor sibling registry, it's like nobody's matching. So why bother paying for it? And so I, I,
Speaker: I'm not listed there anymore. um That was 2008. So segue to 2019, 11 years goes by. i went on 23andMe because the founder of the network that owns our practice was an angel round investor at 23andMe. And he had suggested we'd have a lot of fun finding out if we're really 100% this or 20% that. And i already kind of knew I was 100% Ashkenazi.
Speaker: But when the 23andMe came back in the fall of 2015, which is when I did it, wasn't thinking about the potential for matching to potential donor offspring.
Speaker: I was thinking about, am I really 100% Ashkenazi? It actually, the original one said 99% and 1% North African. And I was actually very excited about the 1% North African. i was like, oh, some diversity here. Right. But um in subsequent runs of 23andMe before it became a research tool, no longer privately owned, um it did adjust to 100%. And so the North African went away.
Speaker: was Sorry. Right. But um when when i went on Yeah, there was some discussion about whether I should stay on the platform or not.
Speaker: And I, you know, especially with the encouragement of a friend who turns out to have been a mental health professional who takes care of donors and recipients in our practice, actually.
Speaker: Yeah. And she said, well, you know what the literature says. And I said, right, it says that all donor conceived offspring have the right to find their donor if they so desire. And so I decided to stay on and just let it ride.
Speaker: But then was another three years before Josh reached out. So it was out of sight and out of mind. um um But yes, it was quite unexpected.
Speaker: It did lead down ah pretty, for me anyway, a pretty interesting path. Josh referenced it already. The mirroring. Right, yeah. You know, it's identified multiple areas of overlap, some of which I see in my kids as well.
Speaker: um Most of it either hilarious or good. But for me anyway, the one that that struck me was the description of the OCD symptoms, because I'd never been diagnosed.
Speaker: And when I heard the symptom like oh crap, that's me too. And I'd never really dealt with it. And um Josh became the catalyst and the mirror and the window all at once that let me see it, understand it, and pursue resolution to whatever degree you can resolve it.
Speaker: And I did. I got the proper help. And it was transformative, really. So i there's so this is a part of part of this, for me, anyway, is that you know usually the story is about the donor-conceived person finally finding the donor, and then they understand everything or whatever.
Speaker: For me, it went the other way for me. So I hadn't expected that result. I wasn't thinking about it But sure enough, you know, it gave me insight into self.
Speaker: Yeah. And getting into my mid-60s a little bit more. so um But it yeah, it's been a really interesting journey. And it's helped me understand that there's a lot that's genetically pre-programmed behavior, thought process.
Speaker: um How you react to it, of course, varies individually. But the base wiring appears to be genetic. And that not only gave me comfort, it gave me a lot of understanding.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah. Well, and i I feel, I mean, what a beautiful highlight of, again, just like you said, the how this really is just to both sides.
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Speaker: you might be the missing piece in someone's family story. All right, let's get back to the show. For you, Dr. Shapiro, how has this kind of changed maybe or just shaped conversations that you're now having with intended parents?
Speaker: Totally changed it Yeah. um I took the lead, honestly, from Josh because, you know, because he's in the public space. I am too, but in a very, very, very different way.
Speaker: and especially in the current climate i want to make sure that before i start talking about this that i respect whatever boundaries he wants on the conversation but in general terms um it's totally changed the conversation with my patients um some of whom it's not private, obviously we're doing a podcast about it. tell them my story to illustrate the importance of early disclosure so that when they're going through either donor egg or they're intending to use donor sperm, I say to them, look, you may not have a disclosure until much, much further down the road, but your child needs to know as they ask
Speaker: um what their origins are so that when it becomes relevant, If they want to know, which is a key modifier, they would then have the agency to go check.
Speaker: um I am certainly aware of many donor conceived individuals who don't want to meet the donor. Yeah. so That's fine. I get it. Arms length or farther.
Speaker: i Happy to know the name. Stop there. Some want to meet. Meet once. Be done. Some don't want to meet. But you know it becomes an individual choice. But the the way that evolves is the child has to know from the beginning that as we as the mental health professional I referenced before and I have been saying for years, we loved the idea. This is what you say to the kid. We loved the idea of you so much. And either in the case of an egg donor, mommy's eggs weren't working or daddy had a sperm issue and whatever the source.
Speaker: And so we loved the idea of you so much. We couldn't be without you. And so this is what we did to get you. And framed like that, the kid feels loved, wanted, integrated into the family they know.
Speaker: And it just becomes like a commentary on the side of the of the playbook. It doesn't become the central feature. um I think one of the things that maybe Josh can speak to this better than I can.
Speaker: One of the central features of this for people who found out find out is is It's a shock, and it does, at least for a short period of time, become a central feature of their thinking. um And it can be disruptive.
Speaker: And so to ease that and prevent that, early disclosure. Yeah, for sure. mis Truthfulness. Don't have to be overly inclusive with the information with a seven-year-old, but as they age and they can handle the information in increasing detail, you ought share it.
Speaker: Yeah. Josh, can you speak into that just a little bit more? i will say it's made a big difference, you know, in the sense that it gives me more of a, you know a mirror to be reflected in, you know, go that mirror goes both ways. I mean, Danny learned information. i feel like it helped me locate sort of a missing, you know, almost like a leg of a tripod is an analogy I've used before that you, you kind of have this like slightly unstable sense of self that, You're not quite grounded. You don't have your your sense of where did I come from? i mean, there's a reason that since the dawn of time, people have told stories about their own people, their own, you know, their mythology about where the universe came from. It's like a sense of psychic security to know where you and your people and your place comes from.
Speaker: And so it may seem small and there's certainly people who find a way to power through if people have absent parents or you know if you're adopted, there's all kinds of, especially prior to the technology of direct to consumer testing, you know people had to just make do with not knowing, but but in some sense, not knowing is almost more of a foundation or a point of stability than knowing the wrong thing.
Speaker: Because if you don't know, you can at least say, well, there's some things I won't try to understand about myself because I don't have the information to do it. But if you quote unquote, know the wrong thing, then you are, you're misfiring.
Speaker: You're trying to square a circle and there's an inherent tension to that. You think something's true about yourself. That's not. And so disclosure, i think the way to think about it is less Filling a hole that must be filled because plenty of people live without knowing some of that information, but it's more about correcting an incorrect disclosure that exists by default.
Speaker: Mm-hmm. No, I like that. For you, as you were just navigating how you were going through this, what made you decide that you did want to meet your donor? And how has that evolved for you?
Speaker: it was immediate. I mean, I wanted to know who Danny was immediately because... I wanted to just get as much information as possible so that I could have my bearings. I mean, for me, it was a big shock to hear that that mismatch had been happening for me for 31 years and believing something that wasn't true. So I wanted, you know, nobody wants to feel naive or or like the world knows something they don't know. Everybody wants to be let in on the on the secret, on the joke, on whatever it is. And I, yeah, for me, that was, i wanted to know immediately. Now, I think, you know, Danny's right. And some people's experience, for whatever reason, they don't necessarily need to know. And we went to a conference a few months ago where I met a guy who reached out to his donor and his donor had, i guess, been connected with a lot more. a donor conceived person. So unlike Danny, who's only met me and doesn't know if there's anybody else out there for sure, um you know, this person, I guess, had been contacted repeatedly. And the donor conceived person I spoke with said that their donor didn't have much interest in talking more or having much of a relationship at all. And and I understand that too. I mean, one thing Danny and I often say is we just happen to be both extroverted
Speaker: and you know have an interest in this type of dialogue and and the maybe the public benefits that could come from having an open conversation about disclosure and the mental health benefits and the the life benefits that come from that, we're predisposed toward that in a way that maybe some other ah donors and donor conceived persons would not be and and and empirically have not been. So one thing I'd definitely say if I'm talking anybody about this is it's not a one size fits all thing. It's very much The conversation is centered on everyone's agency and autonomy and doing what feels safe and doing what feels comfortable. Dana and I have hit it off. We're friends now. That's great.
Speaker: But, you know, again, it's, I think that's just one of many possible acceptable or recommended outcomes depending on people's profiles. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: Do you, Josh, specifically have any just advice or words of encouragement to other donor conceived persons who are maybe finding out just about their quote unquote parentage, you know, later in life?
Speaker: Yeah, sure. I mean, I think what ends up happening is it's kind of like a princess and a pea situation. This is, you know, people talk about on the message boards for this stuff that they always knew something was off and they had an instinct. In my case, I remember asking my dad,
Speaker: maybe when I was 10, I don't remember the exact age, you know, Hey, it it occurs to me that I don't have a memory of leaving the hospital. So I'm not, I didn't have like a CCTV camera trained on my mom and dad at all times when they were leaving Northside hospital. You know, are you sure that I'm your biological child, both of you? And, you know, and am I, am I your biological child? And i remember my dad, he didn't say yes. He said, sure.
Speaker: which is the kind of thing you say when you're like, oh, that might as well be true. And at the time I didn't clock it as not fully forthcoming, but I think he he gave me sort of a throwaway like, yeah, might as well be, sure, why not?
Speaker: ah and wow And that was enough at the time. I didn't, I guess, question any further, but looking back, at I recognize I had the instinct that something was a little bit off, which is in line with the experiences of so many donor conceived people. And so I think that the problem One of several problems with waiting until later in life for a disclosure is that the psyche has to deal with that splinter somehow.
Speaker: It has to come up with a story for why that splinter exists and why you feel that way, like something's off, which unfortunately means accepting as normal a sense of,
Speaker: conflict or inherent tension that isn't actually normal or correct. And that, that can lead to a number of things. It could lead to internalizing blame. Maybe it's my fault that I'm misperceiving this. Maybe I shouldn't trust my own perceptions. If I feel like something's off, but I have no evidence that it's off, maybe I need to up my anxiety meds or this, that, or the other, right? Like, I think there's, there's a way where you can easily see how just a couple steps removed from that, that splinter, that princess and the pea moment,
Speaker: is is adapting in a way that's a little bit maladaptive. And maybe it's a coping mechanism you have to adopt to get through, but the reality is you would be healthier and happier if you knew why you felt that way.
Speaker: And so what I would say to anybody later in life who had a late disclosure is, you know be gentle with yourself. You probably have decades of accumulated coping mechanisms and thought patterns that are maladaptive in response to feeling responsible for something that was never your fault or feeling like you had to square a circle that wasn't yours to square.
Speaker: So you should do the work, you should be accepting of yourself and do the work. i don't know if it's you know meditation or oolong tea or whatever you need. But yeah, you know incense yoga, right? or Or a good insurance plan with small copays. But yeah, whatever it is you need to do the work of unpacking ways in which you might have maladapted by waiting so long, just just be gentle with yourself because you probably have some of those things that are vestigial to you that don't serve you. But but now that you have this information, you can do the work of unpacking it a little bit.
Speaker: Can I tell that just a little bit? There's an advantage not only to the donor-conceived person, but to the donor the donor recipients, the parents of the donor-conceived child, because the behavior is a reasonably good chance the behavior exhibited in that child will be somewhat unrecognizable to the parents.
Speaker: It's going to more reflective of the donor and the donor's background than either parent's background. Now obviously that can be modified to some degree, but some of the baseline behavior, like there's that's a busy kid, that's a quiet kid, that's a redrawed kid, that's a gregarious kid.
Speaker: If the parents don't have a context for it, but they know what the donor was like, it makes the counseling for the parents a little easier when they're navigating early childhood, adolescence especially.
Speaker: and um And later in life, it's like, yeah yeah, we didn't, that wasn't something we saw, but, you know, we understand it probably was templated from your donor and we admire you and love you and whatever you got, great.
Speaker: Rather than we need to fix that or we need to change that or this scares us or whatever the parental reaction. like Sure. So, you know, it, Openness and information makes it a lot easier for everybody to interrelate and to react appropriately to what they see.
Speaker: DNA may be disposition, but it's not destiny. That's become my new mind. many of my relatives, I see the template.
Speaker: But how it manifests, that's that's individual.
Speaker: Variations on a theme, different flavors of the ice cream. And so ah that's in some ways, that's one of the more important messages for me is that some of the things that we actually think, the thoughts we have, have a genetic underpinning.
Speaker: How we manage those thoughts, yeah, that's socialization and the family that raised you and all of that. But the thoughts themselves might actually have a genetic basis.
Speaker: the words, yeah the the ideas, the concepts, which if you'd asked me this seven years ago, would have said, no, that's all learned. Don't think that anymore. Um, what what do we, we call ourselves what now team nature, Josh and I, right? Because, because so much of the little, the little subtle things are there from the beginning, how you manage them is your own, but right there from the beginning.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah. Well, and again, that just plays into exactly what you said, Josh, you know, having this space maybe would have been helpful or can be helpful to other donor conceived people. So you're not having those, you know, either negative self or why am I acting a certain way or, you know, just not having a full understanding. um And again, yeah, we we say it all the time, early and often, just whether it's donation, whether it's surrogacy, just early and often.
Speaker: um Because it is so important for so many different things. For the intended parent perspective, because yes, I think we go from, you know, mom in the 80s. Well, it's the 80s. You just, you know, there the thoughts of 23andMe and, you know, all of the technology that we have now, it wasn't it wasn't something to think about.
Speaker: to now where you do, you know, maybe have intended parents that are concerned about, well, if I do have this conversation, are they going to not think that I'm their real parent or whatever the insecurity might be? What would you guys say to that?
Speaker: I mean, one thing I would say is don't underestimate the power of a nurturing parent on the psychology of a small child. And I mean, there is not even remotely like people, people will make the mistake of thinking that Danny in any way can replace my nurturing father, my dad, like in any way at all.
Speaker: And or, or their, or their concern and they'll reach out and well, is that kind of weird? You know, almost like there's a threat. And the answer is there is no such an insecurity or threat in my mind. I think of Danny as a friend. I think of him as a friend whose DNA i happen to share 47% of. which makes for some real hijinks if you're writing you know some kind of a sitcom.
Speaker: Sure. Yeah, I mean, it's we we order the same drink if we're out at a dinner. Like, it's just there's funny stuff that happens, that has happened. That's a you know true story. um but But it's in no way threatening to my sense of,
Speaker: who I am in terms of my nurturing family. And it helps in terms of like core genetic self-awareness type stuff that we've been talking about, but it does nothing to interrupt the relationship between me and my dad who passed in 22.
Speaker: So if a nurturing parent is insecure, that this is somehow going to lead to their replacement or they're not going to be as close. I just, I genuinely think for, I mean, and this is the same way that kids very famously accept diversity,
Speaker: in, you know, race, life experience, ableness, everything, the younger they are, and it's easy and obvious. and they're like, okay, you know, why is that such a big deal? You're shaping my reality. I'm accepting it as it is, as long as it comes with an ethic of love and stability, which is crucial to my development, which I guess they don't say in exactly these words at four. But but as long as, you know, the reality that you're handing me is a safe one where I can be nurtured and thrive, the details don't really matter. So much And I think, I think that's, that's the spirit that, that, you know, nurturing parents need to be reminded of is that, that you're their child's, you're, you're your child's entire world, and they're going to take all of their cues about what's normal and not from you. And so it's really your script to write, which is why Danny and other psychiatrists that he works with and that I've come to know, you know, through this experience, talk so much about writing a script for,
Speaker: the kids. And just you heard a minute ago from Danny, the way we talk about this, it actually is not that deep. It doesn't have to be that crazy because a pretty basic explanation that is centered in love and nurturing does the trick. So, you know, here I am a lawyer with no, I stopped taking math and science classes in college, but take it from me.
Speaker: You know, I know what I'm talking about. you know, developmental psychology, one-on-one courtesy of me, but no, I mean, it's, I think, oh I think that there's a lot less to be threatened by than people think right and there are people who who have heard the story they're you know their eyes pop a little bit mostly because of who josh is and the and the fact that i was his constituent still am part of the eye-popping part of the story but when they use family terms like father son we both reject that and um not because we don't feel uh
Speaker: Like he's a nice guy. right Nice guy. Right. And it's very reassuring and validating to see the template out in the world and doing fine.
Speaker: Sure. But it's not the same as the, the, the touching memory of, of mending a skinned knee or the conversations in carpool on the way to school it's not the same sure and um and nothing would ever replace that with my own children and i wouldn't expect that josh you know after 31 years is like it's lost you dont know no like that um it's it's fascinating i think to both of us
Speaker: um For me, validating, reassuring, find all the right nice words that psychologists approve of. um But it doesn't mean anything more than that.
Speaker: And I correct people when they use the family-centered terms. so No, that's not exactly right. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, again, thank you both so much for just your your candor, your vulnerability, um and just being open and honest about this because I think it is so important, especially you know as we are forever in this day and age of all of the technology and everything always advancing. But family still being built in such a wonderful way and making it something that is just
Speaker: Like you said, it's just part, of it's just the reality and it doesn't have to be anything more than that and or overcomplicated by any stretch. I have one last question for the both of you and it's a fun one. um As I stated earlier, you know, coffee and I, um I may be a little codependent. And so um I always love to ask the question, um what has filled your cup lately, literally or figuratively? What has filled your cup?
Speaker: Wow. Reliability, I guess. you know My nutrient-dense superfood with electrolytes and antioxidants right now is um self-awareness is a really great drug and allows for for really valuable self-talk, which honestly, I didn't have before all of this.
Speaker: And so what fills my cup now, knowing that I can self soothe, frankly, wasn't so easy in the past. And, you know, I think I can do it now because instead of, you know, blame and shame over some of the crazy going on in my head, I can say, oh, there it is again. Okay, whatever.
Speaker: Yeah. yeah That's me What about you, Josh? Sure. i would say belief in something bigger than yourself. You know, there's a lot of hopelessness and despair in the world right now. People are exhausted for a variety of reasons. I won't be more specific.
Speaker: But a lot of the solution depends on people believing that if I take this step or I lay this brick as perfectly as it can be laid, then, you know, I won't build the whole wall by myself, but many other people will help me. And so there's sort of a faith in things larger than yourself requires a lot of selflessness and patience and courage, but I see a lot of that. And I think that for those folks who are listening and worried about anything in particular, we can do it together.
Speaker: It sounds trite, but it's trite because it's true. Exactly. It stems from being able to trust yourself. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Oh, I love it. I love it. Well, thank you both so much again, just for, um, for your story, for sharing everything with us and, um, just for continuing to, um, to just spread your experience. Really, this is, um, incredibly amazing. So thank you guys. Thank you.
Speaker: Great to be on.
