August 21, 2018 • 40 mins
Host Baratunde Thurston leads an intimate conversation with musician Melissa Etheridge and documentary filmmaker Sara Lamm to explore what it means to be “family.” Is family something we are born into? Is it something we create? Both women have very different stories and experiences. Melissa, with four children from two different women and sperm donors, talks about “creating” her family, how the stories we’ve been told could be limiting us, and her view that “… family is love. It’s the bond we create. And blood is another story.” This is juxtaposed with Sara’s experience, finding out at age 29 that her “father” was not her biological father, thus commencing her search for her biological family. Where do we draw the line on “family”? When you understand an expanded view of what family is, how does that change you and everyone around you? What rights do those who are adopted or from sperm donors have to biological information? How should you respond to relatives that reach out to you? We get real, raw and uncensored as our guests share their personal stories with us. You can see Melissa on the “Yes I Am” 25th anniversary tour and cruise with her in 2019. Go to MelissaEtherige.com for tickets and details. Sara Lamm has offered our listeners an extended clip of her film. Go to thankyouforcomingmovie.com/spit to check it out Spit is an iHeartRadio podcast with 23andMe. Enjoy this episode? Subscribe, rate and review Spit on iTunes. And be sure to tell your friends all about it. Find out more about our host Baratunde Thurston at Baratunde.com or sign up for his text messages at 202-902-7949 and #spitpodcast.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
I'm Baritun Day Thurston and this is Spit and I
Heart Radio podcast with twenty three and me. This is
the podcast that explores how DNA is changing our lives
and the world around us. Today, we're exploring what does
it mean to be family? Family's family? You can make
family Famili's love. That's the bond we have and blood
is a whole other story. I am joined by multiple
(00:26):
Grammy Award winning rock star and activist Melissa Ethridge. Melissa
is in between two types of DNA related stories. Looking backwards,
she uncovered amazing and alarming facts about her ancestors. Looking forward,
Melissa is the mother of four children conceived by two
different sperm donors, neither of whom is named Brad Pitt
by the way, but we'll get back to that. Also,
(00:47):
we have documentary filmmaker Sarah Lamb now at age twenty nine.
Sarah discovered that she was conceived by a sperm donor,
and in her film Thank You for Coming, she goes
looking for him. Her genealogical to active journey takes her
from Hawaii to North Carolina, chasing non existing medical records
and forging a bond with a possible sister. So Melissa,
(01:08):
welcome and Sarah welcome. Thank you so much. Hi, it
is really great to have you both in the studio.
And I was standing Sarah earlier. I will say it
for our listeners. We Sarah are in a recording session
with Melissa. It's just the best looking ones I've had
a long time. Both of you. You're just beautiful. So
(01:33):
I have to get this out of the way, Sarah.
Can I just say to both of you thank you
for coming? And I know Melissa that you write amazing lyrics,
but I have to get hand it to you on
a sperm donor movie, Sarah. To call it thank you
for coming is incredible, well played. So Melissa and Sarah,
we're gonna talk a bit about biological family. Melissa, you
(01:55):
thought your ancestors were just average poor wife faulk. Yeah,
that's exactly exact, you know, migrant farmer poor. I mean
they were, they were very, very poor. But you also
have in this story through your genealogical detective saga, business success,
a love affair, lavery right. There are all these elements
that were not shared with you that we're so you
(02:16):
were filling in a blank. You didn't know existed and
over wrote that story. Can you share a bit about
how you were able to integrate this new story of
your family history into the story of yourself. I think
the greatest thing that it did for me was to
really loosen up that solid oh this is who I
(02:36):
am and this is where I come from, that we
are raised with and and then you start to realize, oh, well,
that's just a story that two people told me. You
know that that that really that that wasn't uh brought
down from the ages. I mean, I believe there are
some families that are raised and with such history that
you're not surprised when you like the royal family, Yeah, yeah,
(02:57):
they they've got that down. But you know the is
that we're just trying to stay alive. You know, they're there.
And and then you you could you could see that
there were marriages that weren't uh you know, the family
didn't agree with. So you could see people didn't talk
about I didn't know my family came from Catholic limbs.
I mean that that blew my mind because you know,
I just again just you know, white Protestant sort of
(03:21):
what was what I was surrounded with. You know, so
for a couple of generations. But boy, once you get
back there, you start to realize. And I think it
didn't mean that anything was any different about my childhood.
It just meant that, oh, the stories that we tell
are are limiting us, and that, my goodness, your story
(03:41):
could be anything. So why limit yourself by a story?
Why not create the story you want to create right now?
And and on the subject of creating a new story,
I'm gonna stick with you because you have these children,
and you have created them, you know, in a very
technical sense, which you exercised even more choy uh in
some ways than what the average parent is able to do. Yeah,
(04:06):
so you have two sets of children from two different
sperm donors. And from what I heard on the internet,
which always is al, I'm bringing it to the studio
so you can lay it out for me and the
people I heard you had a chance to have Brad,
which seems to me followed me for the for my
(04:26):
whole Because when that's the very first thing we're gonna
google right now, you might tell us what the story
is once. I think at first I joked about it
someone because he was he was been, he was a
friend of mine before he made them with Louise. He
was just this this guy that hung out with a
lot of us young Hollywood folks in the you know,
(04:48):
late eighties, and we were all trying to make it
and he was from the Midwest, and we got a long,
real well and he liked my first album and it
was fine. And I think I once his star went boom, people, well,
who's Brad Pitt to you? I said, I don't know
the father of my children. I thought that was funny.
You know, that's a funny little laugh. And I think
at one point we both worked out the same gym
and I said, do you think I don't think so.
(05:12):
I think that'd be weird because he wanted children so bad,
he really did that. I was looking for someone who
would say, Okay, here's here's the missing piece that you need.
And my first baby mama, my first my first wife,
call it mark it up historic anyway, she was adopted,
(05:37):
so she really wanted her children to know who their
father was, who everybody was, and that that was important
to her. So we needed to have a donor that
that would at least say, yeah, that was me. But
didn't really want to because I didn't want anyone else
to raise them. It wasn't that I wanted another parent.
So when David and Jan Crosby when they were in
my life, we were we were in Hawaii visiting them
(05:59):
and had just had their baby, and we were we
were knew that we were looking for this, and and
Chance said, well what about David and we kind of
talked about it. That's perfect. He has so many children
that he doesn't that he didn't know, but but it
makes my my two oldest children, makes their lives there
When people say, oh, tell me about your family, they're like, oh, really,
you want to know this because it's a long story.
(06:21):
But they do know. They do know who their fathers.
And and then the other two with the second baby
Mama that they um, she we didn't want another sort
of parental It wasn't. And it's funny because you know,
they're eleven year old twins and they don't think about
dad at all. It is not. They are so clear that, oh, yeah,
(06:44):
I was a donor and he was you know, Swedish,
blonde hair, blue eye. They just know that and it's fine.
They're not looking for that. They've got so many parents,
they've got two sets of parents and you know, and
they're they're full with that, So it's it's I mean
that might change later, but not now. Sarah. Hearing that,
does it make you think about how the introduction of
(07:05):
that information about your biological father being a donor, if
that had been brought to you sooner, like say when
you were eleven or six, how do you from if
you're raised with that, then you're like, Okay, I get it.
There's there's an ingredient, there's a physical ingredient that needs
to be there to create a life. And and then
(07:25):
there's the man who raised you. Then there's the person
who raises you. And I think if you've raised with that,
it's not an issue. But man to pull that on you,
you know, and and not to know you? Oh that
that that must be hard. Yeah, I think you're right now, Sarah.
When you were twenty nine, your father, the man who
raised you, told you that he wasn't your biological father,
(07:46):
that you didn't share DNA. And I remember this line
from your film really clearly. You said, to have one
story ripped from you and nothing put in its place
is not a good feeling. Can you share with us
more d tales of what that not good? Feeling entailed.
Was it lost, anger, sadness, confusure, Yeah, I think it was.
(08:07):
I think it was some of all of that. I
think um from the very outset. I think one of
the things that I always knew is that anything could
happen in the future. I never dreamed that anything could
happen in the past time travel like editing of your past. Absolutely,
it was like it was a full turning upside down
of what I thought I knew, and things that I
(08:28):
thought were solid were no longer so solid. And because
the people who were using sperm donors in the nineteen seventies,
and there were a lot more of them than people realized,
but all the doctors were telling them never to tell anyone,
never to tell the offspring, and certainly never to tell
their relatives. So my mother didn't tell her sisters, with
whom she was very close, not like she told almost nobody.
(08:50):
Was that a sense of shame or like a legal imposition.
I think it was a combination of things. The main
thing was that the doctors told them not to, and
we do what and we do what doctors said, And
so for me, it was like one of those moments
the stereotype of like your knees go out and you
have to sit down. That's what happened when my dad
(09:11):
told me. And I even had this out of body
moment where I thought, like, oh, I'm doing that thing
that they do in movies where I have to go
and sit down because I'm gonna, you know, fall over otherwise.
And then it just became wait a minute. My dad
has told me that he's not biologically related to me,
but the system is saying that I don't have access
to that information. And so it was like, I'm going
(09:32):
to tell you the story that I'm not your dad,
but are not your biological father, but you have no
way of knowing who is who. You can't fill in
that blank right And for me, that did bring up
some anger because I really felt and still feel, that
my genetic information is mine and that that's information that
I that every human being has a right to have,
(09:55):
even when it's attached to another person, even when it's
attached to another person. Fascinating eating as I've gone out
and talk to people, there are a lot of people
in my position, and especially people who are taking DNA
tests now and getting big surprises, and it's like everything
is a more posh moment, right, I mean, it's really,
it's really happening a lot. And I'm on a lot
of the Facebook groups for people who are donor conceived,
(10:16):
and it's like every day somebody is showing up who's saying, like,
I just got my results back and it turns out
I've got fifteen half siblings And what do I do? Folks?
How does this all work? So, you know, as I've
been absorbing not just my own story but the story
of other people, I really have started to feel strongly
that it's so important to tell people, tell kids their
(10:36):
authentic story as much as possible from the get go.
And so is do you think the withholding of that,
first of all, in your donor conceived circles and the
parents of the donor conceived, is there a movement to
share that earlier? Is there a trend in that direction
or is there are parents feeling protective of their pride.
(10:57):
I think it really depends. And in the lesbian community,
it's very opens. There's no shame involved here, there's not
the old this, And I think I think we're going
through this on a worldwide thing, this sort of blood,
the idea of blood and family and mine and my
tribe and how that's being blown apart by stuff like this.
(11:20):
So the truth is, you know, families, family you you
you can make family, families love. That's the bond we have.
And blood is a whole nother story. It's interesting, it's great,
but it is it. It's a whole thing. And I
think the LGBT community can absolutely relate to that because
very often we've had to make our own families. Anyway,
we've we were shunned from our families. So we we
(11:41):
have that and we're fine with that, and I think
it's hopefully it will it will reach out to other
families who are having you know, fertilization troubles or whatever
that might be, that it's okay that there's there's no
shame in this. We're creating life and loving life. Now,
is there any additional mystery from a practical perspective where
(12:02):
you're just trying to explain, like your second two kids,
they have certain behaviors and you can't blame it on
Crosby exactly. That's funny. You have no idea thank you yet?
Um you know, I having four children that I know
of is is the It really taught me that human
(12:24):
beings come into this world with their own thing. You know,
I I My two sets are they're fully biologically related
to each other, and they couldn't. The four of them
are so different. And you know, you you, you just you,
you be a parent to that child, you know in
the moment, and and they're each of them are going
(12:46):
to be very different. Thank you a beautiful moment there, Sarah.
There's a pursuit in your film. There's a hunt uh
right that the hunt for? Is this my sister? When
you when you find out this woman je enough for
who looks a bit like you, has a build similar
to yours, like you're you are using your observational powers
(13:08):
to kind of hope for a genetic connection with this
other person. And with so many new tools for genetic discovery, databases,
social media, Google, how has the search for family changed
since the film? Has this film? I assume you made
this over in a period of time and now we're
in this moment in time. But what is what are people?
(13:31):
Is there a protocol now? Is there a playlist? Is
there a playbook? I think it's I think it's in
motion right now. I think people are really developing it.
Um one of the things that I get asked a
lot as I take out the film and screen it
is like, what kind of letter did you write to
your bio dat to say like, hello, it's me. Um,
how do you how do you construct something like that? Um?
(13:52):
And one of the things that I frequently find myself
saying is that Number one, you have to like front
load it with all your best characterists. You have to
was I own a really cute dog, and um, you
have to make yourself seem really likable and that you're
not looking for something. And then and and also it's
a very kind of hands off, like I would like
(14:13):
contact if you would like contact, and we can do
that in whatever way feels mutually. UM, like that will work. Um.
That being said, though, I think I would love to
take this moment to say, if there are any sperm
donors out there or egg donors who are you know,
approached by your offspring. Um, warmth and compassion goes a
(14:35):
long way. Um. And I think it can be it
can be really hard for offspring when they reach out
and they get a wall. UM. And and I I
have a friend who reached out and she just got
a letter from the lawyer. Right, So you can imagine
what that what might might feel like. And and that's
sort of the both end of genetic genetic relationship and
(14:58):
family relationship. As we can bring comback, we can bring
our warmth and our compassion to all of those kinds
of relationships to the degree that we can, I think, um,
and that would be my encouragement for all the parties,
and you know, for the parents, for the offspring, for
the the bio parents. Yeah, there's a level of you
want people to assume the best and to to resist
(15:22):
the least, and and to be as compassionate as possible.
You know, I had a it wasn't quite a genetic story,
but I was reconnected with family that I had long
been separated from through no choice of my own. And
it was because of a message on social media. Someone
popped up saying they were my cousin, and I was like, really,
let's see, And then she had the receipts. They were photographs.
(15:42):
It's like, oh my goodness. And it took me a
while to process it, and so I sat on it,
you know, for months, because you're just living your life.
You're like liking your friends baby pictures and you're playing
some stupid game, and you're yelling at the news on
your computer screen, and up pops some message saying you
have a family you didn't know about that doesn't fit
into the everyday flow of life. And so I just
(16:02):
needed some time to sit with And I didn't mean
to disrespect, but I need to create that space so
that I could respond with compassion and not defensiveness. And
we are able to get to a point where we
have an open channel now and it's much more interesting
and kind of lovely, but it's awkward on both sides. Yeah,
And I had a great friend who said to me,
as I was sort of embarking on this journey and
(16:23):
had made contact with some biorelatives, she said, you know,
you get to decide. There's no prescribed way that this
has to look, and you get to decide, in concert
with the other people, how is this going to go?
And you're right, some some people need more time than others,
and you have I think you have to be respectful
of that, especially if you want the relationship to eventually develop. Right,
(16:45):
do you find yourself in those in this community who
have some gaps in their knowledge of the family tree?
Just sizing up everybody trying to get spit from everybody. No,
it's interesting. Yeah. I mean I have seen like films
where people there's one donor conceived coumentary um where the
girls like looking around going like is that my bio dad?
Is that my biodat? I had it limited to all
(17:08):
the um the medical students at the University of North
Carolina for from like a little window. So I had
I literally printed out all their class the yearbook photos.
And I actually the very first thing I did after
I found out that I was donor conceived, as I
had a party and I put them all up on
the wall. I blew up all the pictures I had
red yarn connecting them. Well. Well, I had my friends
(17:31):
come over and guess who it was. I put up
a picture of me, a picture of myself as a baby,
and I had them, you know, nominate who was the
bio dad? Right? No one was writing new friends, all right,
but you can find some new friends with your DNA
relative search. And I think about my other experience in
(17:51):
this topic of family definitions. It only occurred to me,
in thinking about talking to the two of you, that
I share a different part of this story, and that
the woman who was my sister is technically my half sister,
but I never called her that growing up. You know,
I knew we had different dads. That wasn't withheld from us.
But she was my sister and she's always has been
and always will be my sister. But scientifically we share
(18:14):
like D n A and so that that language and
how we define based on blood, as you talked about
Melissa versus love is a spectrum. And in in the
film Sarah, you confronted in in a way your own father,
the one the man who raised you, and asked him
to take a paternity test two just rule out for
(18:38):
the final measure maybe you're my bio dad. And how
how did he respond to that and how did you
know you You seemed torn about it in the film.
I assume you really were, and tell us more about
what it's like to approach someone who is family based
on love and experience, but you're also doing this side
(19:00):
scientific inquir to technically define family and you kind of
need them to go through a process. Well, I say
in the film, and it's still the word that comes
to mind. It just feels really rude. I mean, like
what a thing to ask your parents to take up tests.
You know that I I felt I mean and rude.
Probably if I dug underneath that there would be other words,
(19:21):
you know, like um, fear. You know, there would be
other things there um And And for his part, I
think he was incredibly generous to agree to do it.
And I find myself reflecting on that as a real
moment of parenting. You know, where he was really willing
to go with me on that journey, even if it
(19:42):
wasn't a journey that he would necessarily have you chosen,
but because he felt like I needed it, he was
willing to go there, which is a very fatherly thing,
Which is a very fatherly thing to do right, And
I think, um, what's very interesting to me about this
whole process is that we are closer now than we
(20:03):
were before we started. That's great to hear because that
I think people listening wouldn't assume that you know, here
you are looking for your bio dad, and how does
that make your actual dad you feel like and it's
called a rift or something. So the fact that this
wasn't a split, it was actually that's what happens when
you show up open hearted and honest and meet someone
(20:26):
else's being open hearted and honest. Right, you've you've come
closer together. Yes, absolutely, I feel like we're gonna get
so many good songs out of this. We've already touched
on one of the main themes. I think it's actually
not a segment of the interview with underlies the whole
(20:46):
premise of this gathering, which is, you know, the definition
of family and the definition of a relative. Now, Melissa,
you've created this family, which in so many ways is
a modern model of family. Right, you were raising two
sets of children. You are in your second marriage, right,
third marriage? Okay, the first one, it's hard to say
(21:08):
because they didn't allow us to get married into. Actually
that's my first marriage, third long term relationship. The first
two head children, so it's very common. Right, So, so
you're in this You've created this family that is very
different from the way we had been defining it. But
I have the same problems that exactly. So let's talk
(21:28):
about your family problems. Too much internet? You know, oh
my god, where's the WiFi? So so what when you
are processing this idea of the genetic relationships and the
genealogy and the love and the choices and the experiences,
how do you define family. You know what, Again, it
(21:51):
comes down to story. I find that you give your
children the story to which to frame their life. And
if you give them a story that's loving, that yeah,
there's I'm obviously not a guy, so I don't have
that you know ingredient to create you. But there was one,
(22:12):
and that's that's fine. And now we're getting on with life. Now,
this is my life, this is what I did. This
is my story, This is my father's story, this is
and this is your you know other mother's story, and
this and these are the stories that surround you, and
these are this is how you got here. This is
what I hope you do in life. You keep putting
them down. And the funniest thing is, if you were
(22:34):
to look at all four of my children, you would
swear I'm I'm blood related to them. Because when you
raise a baby and you sit that baby in your
lap day after day, year after year, and you smile
at them, and what they learned to smile your smile,
they learned to see. And I tell people that all
the time, my children have my smile, they have my laugh.
(22:58):
I am in them, even though it's not of the blood,
it is because of that that closeness, the stories that
they we have the same sort of sense of humor.
So there's no I I rarely ever think about, oh,
I'm not blood related to me at all. That that's
not They are so much children. They mean the way
(23:19):
my children. Yeah, there's this incredible book that I just
read by Carl Zimmer, who's a science writer. She has
her mother's laugh. It is a beautiful title, um and
it is a thick tone. But one of the things
that he says is that we have to expand our
notion of what heredity is, and that yes, it includes genes,
(23:39):
and it includes culture, it includes technology, it includes the microbiome.
And then I would add it includes the inner generational
stories of trauma and resilience that we carry from our
from our families, and from our culture. And I think
that that, to me is really when we talk about inheritance.
That's sort of where I'm finding myself thinking more and
(24:02):
more these days. Do you, Sarah, I think that it
is appropriate or even essential to invite your DNA cousins
to the family reunion. There are too many of them.
It would cost too much money. Do I have to
write all these people too? No? I think you know,
(24:27):
and actually I have a I have a good friend
who is a donor conceived person who has you know,
I think I already mentioned him. He has twenty half siblings.
They it started out there was there was one and
he had him over for brunch, and then there was
two and they went out, you know, and then there's three.
Now there's twenty. And I can tell that it's like
(24:48):
it's starting to feel now it's kind of like throw
up a Facebook page. Everybody can just say hi to
each other. You know, how are you supposed to relate
to all of these folks who all of a sudden
have that half sibling relationship that you were just talking about,
but in your case it means something totally different. Um,
then when you find out that there are twenty of them,
you know, this is this is interesting when when we
(25:09):
use the sperm donor to to get you know, and
it's all anonymous, and they don't they don't know whoever
they had. Only I think, I think I really have
lost I don't remember, but they have like four half
siblings that we don't know anything about yet. They gave
me the opportunity then to buy the rest of him out.
So I was financially able to do that so that
(25:31):
they wouldn't have thirty half siblings. You know, so I
actually bought the whole thing, and so he's he's bought it.
He's off the market now, and he's so there's no
more half siblings. Isn't that interesting that they actually give
you that option and you wanted to I did, Yeah,
I did. Just that's interesting. Just yea. To me, it
was a protection. See, we take this fearful sort of
(25:54):
sort of stance. They're gonna want something from it, and
it's a weird Americans sort of you know, the other
person who wants to rights. There is a there is
a kind of boundary dance that has to be in
place too. I mean, that's the that's the complex part
of that fascinating because we're taking physicality and love and
(26:14):
science and business and law and we're putting it all
to a blender and religion that's spirituality, and in that
mix is family. And so you were able to make
a choice that defined a boundary around your future family. Right,
You're not going to have any surprises popping up in
(26:36):
a database or your kids, won't you know, twenty years
and oh hey, I'm your cousin. Yeah, you're not, my mama,
I have the receipt, Yo. How do you both think
about the balancing and the ethics associated with whose choices
(26:58):
or whose desires have some sort of priority or how
they interact with each other. This is so it's revolutionary
what's happening because this pushes all the boundaries all at once,
and it comes down to individual rights and what are
each human being's individual rights? And it redefines those and
(27:21):
we will be forced to in this and that that's
a good thing because it it goes beyond nationality, It
goes beyond you know, the the tribalism that I was
talking about. You know, it now moves us into every
human being on this earth has certain inalienable rights, you know,
certain rights, and how are we going to define that
(27:43):
when it comes to everything else? And when does that start?
Does that started in the egg? It's the age old
thing and we are forced to come to these conclusions
and figure that out. And that's I think it's amazing.
It's fascinating, isn't it. And it's fascinating. I had I
had a friend say to me the other day, you
know there are donor conceived people who say, I absolutely
(28:04):
have the right to know my biological heritage, and I
think I would probably count myself. I mean, I would
definitely count myself as one of those people. And he
said to me, what, you know, it's not like everybody
else conceive the old fashioned way it gets to have
much of a say and how they're conceived, right, I mean,
you know so, And that sort of blew my thinking
(28:24):
open to start to think about, Okay, well, how how
do each one of us come into this world and
what right to information do we really have about whether
it was in the doctor's office or behind the bleachers,
you know wherever, right, I mean, but like we'll have
GPS records in the future, right, we'll literally know where
(28:45):
can the child is entitled to? And yet I wanted it.
I wanted it so badly and I'm so happy that
I have the information that I have. It changed, it
really changed my sense of self. So I have to
acknowledge it for me that that's true. Yeah, I find
(29:06):
that I don't have answers either. I'm here mostly to ask.
But I think there are different models of rights and
ownership around this sort of genetic material, and so in
some cultures, I can imagine a much more communal stance, right.
It was like, that's actually not yours decision to make.
We all make it together as a tribe or as
a family, or as a village or as a city.
(29:28):
In some you know, massive cases, and in some societies,
like children have no rights at all, Right, Like your
parents don't want you to know. You don't know. A
good college friend of mine, you know, still wasn't able
to find out information about his mother because his mother's
relatives are like, you're I know, you think you're grown
forty year old, but you're still the child, and we
(29:49):
just don't it's not our business to tell So we're
not going to tell you. Wow. Uh. And so it's
a different line in that community, in that block, in
that area of Brooklyn in this case. So I am
as well fascinated, but I don't think there's a clean
Well you're remind you're reminding me. I'm sorry, you're reminding
me of a woman who just came up to me
the other day. I was at a genealogical conference. They're
(30:11):
all these genealogy conferences all over America. They're amazing, and
a woman came up to me and said, my brother
donated sperm. I have all of these offspring, but they're
contacting me and my brother doesn't want me to be
in contact with them. So here' she is the aunts,
he's the you know, he's the biological father. But like,
(30:33):
how does all of that parts? Right? Like that's fascinating
And she was quite anguish because she felt like she
wanted to And then you hear about the grandparents who
don't know that they're uh sons, sons or daughters have donated,
and then they feel this loss that they've been left
out of this grandchildren knowledge, you know. I mean, it's
just it's just pushing the bounds of everything. We're all
(30:58):
going to get awkward Facebook messages. Is whatever it's gonna happen. Well,
that's the other thing. It's sort of normalizing that these
questions are coming up and that this is part of
our lives. Is it gonna and is it going to
stop donations? I mean, are people going to go I
don't want this to I doubt it will stop it
because I think there is there's a need and there's
(31:22):
a possibility, right, and there's money. There's a need, there's
an ability, and there's money that's gonna happen, but it
should shade the rules and the norms. You know, what
is acceptable. How do we engage What amount of genetic
stuff do we share? As you think about your own
families in the case of in your own life or
(31:43):
how you're raising your children, both of you, the genetic
information they've inherited and the health concerns that go along
with both of those, how does that layer come into
the family definition and rights to know and what you
think should be passed them on. Well, I know that
the company that we went through for the donation was
really thorough and and he had to fill out major
(32:05):
stuff and show major stuff and show health show, give
lots and lots of information. It was comforting to know, Okay,
all this information is here if I need this, and
it was you know, it was there. So we were
able to feel comfortable that if anything in the future
(32:25):
comes up, you know, we will have access to the information.
And what do you see in Sarah, what are you thinking?
In my case, my donor was I don't think was
hardly vetted at all. He was he was hand picked
by the doctor in charge and he he was like,
you know, you kind of look like the family father,
and I was lucky that he was incredibly handsome. I
(32:47):
have a picture of him as a as a young man,
and he was very handsome. I think he was quite
dashing in his own way, and that attracted that the
eye of the doctor in charge. Um, and to my understanding,
that was all the vetting that was that was done well.
And that's the history of sperm donation is that it
(33:08):
was that. I think the earliest was in the late
eighteen hundreds, and it was the most handsome. One of
the medical students was sort of nominated. They knocked the
woman out. They never told her. The doctor in charge
did it without the permission of the couple. Oh, I write.
So it's interesting when you think about history and how
(33:30):
these things just come from horrible play. If you go
back far enough, everything's terrible. It's right, hard, but is important, Right,
it's important to how the information and the DNA testing
is hopefully helping that more and more. Yeah, when I
realized I was going to have children that I wasn't
(33:51):
biologically related to, it was very simple just to say, well,
that doesn't matter. And when you crossed that line, you realize, oh,
I've just expanded my idea of what family as and
that changes me, and that changes everyone around me. And
I would just like to put up there if there's
anyone out there who is thinking of having children, who
(34:13):
who can't have children, who are are at this uh,
this threshold of okay, I need to move forward into
adoption or or surrogacy or or whatever donation, whatever it is.
Two don't give a moment to being to thinking over
they're They're not biologically related to me. It has nothing
to do with being a parent, It really doesn't. And
(34:35):
I would really want to say that that my life
is just as full as can be, has been for
the last twenty one years, and uh never once have
I ever ever regretted it. If these mics weren't so
vigorously attached to the arms, I would say you should
drop it. It's physically impossible to drop the mica, like
(34:57):
you have to rip it out of the table and
jump up in down um, and I would take too
much time. Right, So what do you all think of
the now possible extended family reunion now that we have
more genetic family members than we ever knew about. Well, well,
actually I come from a place my own personal experience
is you know, my My father had seven brothers and sisters,
(35:18):
you know, my mother had a couple, and so I
had a deep sense of family through them, and I
knew my immediate you know there there brothers, the cousins.
That's sort of that was right there. Once I got famous.
Oh boy, it's amazing how much family I had. So
(35:39):
so I I've already gone through this sort of sense
of Okay, where do I end with If there's family
that I've never met but that that yeah, maybe they're
the second maybe they're related to the second cousin on
the side of the you know, very possibly, that could
be very possible. But I don't feel connected. I don't.
I mean, and they are blood to me, yet I
don't feel like like I have to go connect with them.
(36:02):
So I can imagine that even if you do find
out your blood related to strangers, I don't think there
is an obligation, you know, in oneself to do that.
So I definitely cut it off. My father came from St. Louis,
and I remember I had a meet and Greek before
the show. There's like sixty people that were Okay, this
(36:23):
is this is a little difficult. Let's let's let's change yeah,
I'll add on to that. That is what it sounds like,
is that family is becoming even more of a choice. Yeah,
and there's nothing there's a that's a beautiful if we understand.
I mean its corny as it sounds that there's this energy,
there's this love that creates connection family. I mean we
(36:45):
can go biologically, we can scientifically go that every time
you touch someone, there that DNA is actually those the
atoms are with you forever, and those atoms that vibrate
even if you're a hundred miles away, they still vibrate
on that person. So I'm related to about three billion people, okay,
(37:05):
because I've you know, shaking hands with a lot of people.
So family, what is family? It's that's our story, it's
your definition. That's that's awesome. And we are technically nine
point five you know, every human and shares that amount
of DNA with every other human. So the parts of
difference that we're focusing on, our zero point five percent,
(37:27):
that's where choice comes in. And you can say that
to any situation in the world right now. Seriously, we
are we gotta start seeing how much we are are related,
that we are together and you're I'm just being reminded
that we did the that you shared your twenty three
and me genome with me earlier today. What were the
results you didn't see? Okay, So my main takeaway is
(37:51):
that I have more neander tall German. It sounds more refined.
I have more Neandertal than you. But that was interesting too,
And I pause and I just thought, oh my gosh,
that's so interesting. There are these like Neandertals that were
in northern Europe and the I mean, I all of
(38:11):
a sudden got they go back to that far on
the Yeah, and you can look at and a lot
of interesting stuff those genes and what they make, and
you have to go back into history. And this is
going to change history when you start realizing that. I mean,
I'm getting all geeky because I get all, you know,
alternative archaeology and stuff. But the um, the the Neanderthal
(38:33):
and the Homo sapien and how that divided off and
how did that happen because we slaughtered them. Yeah, it's
sort of our history. It's the way we do things
that we're all that, we really are all. I would
like to thank my guests. Melissa Average. You can find
(38:55):
her currently on tour. She's doing the Yes I Am
twenty five and Averse tour and in ten she's got
a cruise comes seven days of music and talk. That's right.
If everyone do that, we'll see how much we're related.
That everybody spit and then get on the boat. Come on,
you might be on the boat with your family. And
(39:16):
I'd like to thank Sarah Lamb who has offered us
uh and offered you a very special extended clip of
her film Thank You for Coming. You can find that
at thank You for Coming movie dot com. Slash spit,
I want to dig in more on today's topics and guests.
Check our show notes and if you enjoyed the episode,
share it with a friend, all your friends, and be
(39:38):
sure to leave a review. If you want to hear
more surprising stories about how we're all related, search and
follow Spit on I Heart Radio or subscribe wherever you
listen to. Podcast Spit is an I Heeart radio podcast
with twenty three and me. I'm Baritone Day Thurston. You
can find out more about me at Baritone day dot
com or sign up from a text message is just
hit me up at two O two and I know
(40:00):
to seven nine four nine put hashtag spit podcasts in
your message. I know where you came from.
I'm Baritun Day Thurston and this is Spit and I
Heart Radio podcast with twenty three and me. This is
the podcast that explores how DNA is changing our lives
and the world around us. Today, we're exploring what does
it mean to be family? Family's family? You can make
family Famili's love. That's the bond we have and blood
is a whole other story. I am joined by multiple
(00:26):
Grammy Award winning rock star and activist Melissa Ethridge. Melissa
is in between two types of DNA related stories. Looking backwards,
she uncovered amazing and alarming facts about her ancestors. Looking forward,
Melissa is the mother of four children conceived by two
different sperm donors, neither of whom is named Brad Pitt
by the way, but we'll get back to that. Also,
(00:47):
we have documentary filmmaker Sarah Lamb now at age twenty nine.
Sarah discovered that she was conceived by a sperm donor,
and in her film Thank You for Coming, she goes
looking for him. Her genealogical to active journey takes her
from Hawaii to North Carolina, chasing non existing medical records
and forging a bond with a possible sister. So Melissa,
(01:08):
welcome and Sarah welcome. Thank you so much. Hi, it
is really great to have you both in the studio.
And I was standing Sarah earlier. I will say it
for our listeners. We Sarah are in a recording session
with Melissa. It's just the best looking ones I've had
a long time. Both of you. You're just beautiful. So
(01:33):
I have to get this out of the way, Sarah.
Can I just say to both of you thank you
for coming? And I know Melissa that you write amazing lyrics,
but I have to get hand it to you on
a sperm donor movie, Sarah. To call it thank you
for coming is incredible, well played. So Melissa and Sarah,
we're gonna talk a bit about biological family. Melissa, you
(01:55):
thought your ancestors were just average poor wife faulk. Yeah,
that's exactly exact, you know, migrant farmer poor. I mean
they were, they were very, very poor. But you also
have in this story through your genealogical detective saga, business success,
a love affair, lavery right. There are all these elements
that were not shared with you that we're so you
(02:16):
were filling in a blank. You didn't know existed and
over wrote that story. Can you share a bit about
how you were able to integrate this new story of
your family history into the story of yourself. I think
the greatest thing that it did for me was to
really loosen up that solid oh this is who I
(02:36):
am and this is where I come from, that we
are raised with and and then you start to realize, oh, well,
that's just a story that two people told me. You
know that that that really that that wasn't uh brought
down from the ages. I mean, I believe there are
some families that are raised and with such history that
you're not surprised when you like the royal family, Yeah, yeah,
(02:57):
they they've got that down. But you know the is
that we're just trying to stay alive. You know, they're there.
And and then you you could you could see that
there were marriages that weren't uh you know, the family
didn't agree with. So you could see people didn't talk
about I didn't know my family came from Catholic limbs.
I mean that that blew my mind because you know,
I just again just you know, white Protestant sort of
(03:21):
what was what I was surrounded with. You know, so
for a couple of generations. But boy, once you get
back there, you start to realize. And I think it
didn't mean that anything was any different about my childhood.
It just meant that, oh, the stories that we tell
are are limiting us, and that, my goodness, your story
(03:41):
could be anything. So why limit yourself by a story?
Why not create the story you want to create right now?
And and on the subject of creating a new story,
I'm gonna stick with you because you have these children,
and you have created them, you know, in a very
technical sense, which you exercised even more choy uh in
some ways than what the average parent is able to do. Yeah,
(04:06):
so you have two sets of children from two different
sperm donors. And from what I heard on the internet,
which always is al, I'm bringing it to the studio
so you can lay it out for me and the
people I heard you had a chance to have Brad,
which seems to me followed me for the for my
(04:26):
whole Because when that's the very first thing we're gonna
google right now, you might tell us what the story
is once. I think at first I joked about it
someone because he was he was been, he was a
friend of mine before he made them with Louise. He
was just this this guy that hung out with a
lot of us young Hollywood folks in the you know,
(04:48):
late eighties, and we were all trying to make it
and he was from the Midwest, and we got a long,
real well and he liked my first album and it
was fine. And I think I once his star went boom, people, well,
who's Brad Pitt to you? I said, I don't know
the father of my children. I thought that was funny.
You know, that's a funny little laugh. And I think
at one point we both worked out the same gym
and I said, do you think I don't think so.
(05:12):
I think that'd be weird because he wanted children so bad,
he really did that. I was looking for someone who
would say, Okay, here's here's the missing piece that you need.
And my first baby mama, my first my first wife,
call it mark it up historic anyway, she was adopted,
(05:37):
so she really wanted her children to know who their
father was, who everybody was, and that that was important
to her. So we needed to have a donor that
that would at least say, yeah, that was me. But
didn't really want to because I didn't want anyone else
to raise them. It wasn't that I wanted another parent.
So when David and Jan Crosby when they were in
my life, we were we were in Hawaii visiting them
(05:59):
and had just had their baby, and we were we
were knew that we were looking for this, and and
Chance said, well what about David and we kind of
talked about it. That's perfect. He has so many children
that he doesn't that he didn't know, but but it
makes my my two oldest children, makes their lives there
When people say, oh, tell me about your family, they're like, oh, really,
you want to know this because it's a long story.
(06:21):
But they do know. They do know who their fathers.
And and then the other two with the second baby
Mama that they um, she we didn't want another sort
of parental It wasn't. And it's funny because you know,
they're eleven year old twins and they don't think about
dad at all. It is not. They are so clear that, oh, yeah,
(06:44):
I was a donor and he was you know, Swedish,
blonde hair, blue eye. They just know that and it's fine.
They're not looking for that. They've got so many parents,
they've got two sets of parents and you know, and
they're they're full with that, So it's it's I mean
that might change later, but not now. Sarah. Hearing that,
does it make you think about how the introduction of
(07:05):
that information about your biological father being a donor, if
that had been brought to you sooner, like say when
you were eleven or six, how do you from if
you're raised with that, then you're like, Okay, I get it.
There's there's an ingredient, there's a physical ingredient that needs
to be there to create a life. And and then
(07:25):
there's the man who raised you. Then there's the person
who raises you. And I think if you've raised with that,
it's not an issue. But man to pull that on you,
you know, and and not to know you? Oh that
that that must be hard. Yeah, I think you're right now, Sarah.
When you were twenty nine, your father, the man who
raised you, told you that he wasn't your biological father,
(07:46):
that you didn't share DNA. And I remember this line
from your film really clearly. You said, to have one
story ripped from you and nothing put in its place
is not a good feeling. Can you share with us
more d tales of what that not good? Feeling entailed.
Was it lost, anger, sadness, confusure, Yeah, I think it was.
(08:07):
I think it was some of all of that. I
think um from the very outset. I think one of
the things that I always knew is that anything could
happen in the future. I never dreamed that anything could
happen in the past time travel like editing of your past. Absolutely,
it was like it was a full turning upside down
of what I thought I knew, and things that I
(08:28):
thought were solid were no longer so solid. And because
the people who were using sperm donors in the nineteen seventies,
and there were a lot more of them than people realized,
but all the doctors were telling them never to tell anyone,
never to tell the offspring, and certainly never to tell
their relatives. So my mother didn't tell her sisters, with
whom she was very close, not like she told almost nobody.
(08:50):
Was that a sense of shame or like a legal imposition.
I think it was a combination of things. The main
thing was that the doctors told them not to, and
we do what and we do what doctors said, And
so for me, it was like one of those moments
the stereotype of like your knees go out and you
have to sit down. That's what happened when my dad
(09:11):
told me. And I even had this out of body
moment where I thought, like, oh, I'm doing that thing
that they do in movies where I have to go
and sit down because I'm gonna, you know, fall over otherwise.
And then it just became wait a minute. My dad
has told me that he's not biologically related to me,
but the system is saying that I don't have access
to that information. And so it was like, I'm going
(09:32):
to tell you the story that I'm not your dad,
but are not your biological father, but you have no
way of knowing who is who. You can't fill in
that blank right And for me, that did bring up
some anger because I really felt and still feel, that
my genetic information is mine and that that's information that
I that every human being has a right to have,
(09:55):
even when it's attached to another person, even when it's
attached to another person. Fascinating eating as I've gone out
and talk to people, there are a lot of people
in my position, and especially people who are taking DNA
tests now and getting big surprises, and it's like everything
is a more posh moment, right, I mean, it's really,
it's really happening a lot. And I'm on a lot
of the Facebook groups for people who are donor conceived,
(10:16):
and it's like every day somebody is showing up who's saying, like,
I just got my results back and it turns out
I've got fifteen half siblings And what do I do? Folks?
How does this all work? So, you know, as I've
been absorbing not just my own story but the story
of other people, I really have started to feel strongly
that it's so important to tell people, tell kids their
(10:36):
authentic story as much as possible from the get go.
And so is do you think the withholding of that,
first of all, in your donor conceived circles and the
parents of the donor conceived, is there a movement to
share that earlier? Is there a trend in that direction
or is there are parents feeling protective of their pride.
(10:57):
I think it really depends. And in the lesbian community,
it's very opens. There's no shame involved here, there's not
the old this, And I think I think we're going
through this on a worldwide thing, this sort of blood,
the idea of blood and family and mine and my
tribe and how that's being blown apart by stuff like this.
(11:20):
So the truth is, you know, families, family you you
you can make family, families love. That's the bond we have.
And blood is a whole nother story. It's interesting, it's great,
but it is it. It's a whole thing. And I
think the LGBT community can absolutely relate to that because
very often we've had to make our own families. Anyway,
we've we were shunned from our families. So we we
(11:41):
have that and we're fine with that, and I think
it's hopefully it will it will reach out to other
families who are having you know, fertilization troubles or whatever
that might be, that it's okay that there's there's no
shame in this. We're creating life and loving life. Now,
is there any additional mystery from a practical perspective where
(12:02):
you're just trying to explain, like your second two kids,
they have certain behaviors and you can't blame it on
Crosby exactly. That's funny. You have no idea thank you yet?
Um you know, I having four children that I know
of is is the It really taught me that human
(12:24):
beings come into this world with their own thing. You know,
I I My two sets are they're fully biologically related
to each other, and they couldn't. The four of them
are so different. And you know, you you, you just you,
you be a parent to that child, you know in
the moment, and and they're each of them are going
(12:46):
to be very different. Thank you a beautiful moment there, Sarah.
There's a pursuit in your film. There's a hunt uh
right that the hunt for? Is this my sister? When
you when you find out this woman je enough for
who looks a bit like you, has a build similar
to yours, like you're you are using your observational powers
(13:08):
to kind of hope for a genetic connection with this
other person. And with so many new tools for genetic discovery, databases,
social media, Google, how has the search for family changed
since the film? Has this film? I assume you made
this over in a period of time and now we're
in this moment in time. But what is what are people?
(13:31):
Is there a protocol now? Is there a playlist? Is
there a playbook? I think it's I think it's in
motion right now. I think people are really developing it.
Um one of the things that I get asked a
lot as I take out the film and screen it
is like, what kind of letter did you write to
your bio dat to say like, hello, it's me. Um,
how do you how do you construct something like that? Um?
(13:52):
And one of the things that I frequently find myself
saying is that Number one, you have to like front
load it with all your best characterists. You have to
was I own a really cute dog, and um, you
have to make yourself seem really likable and that you're
not looking for something. And then and and also it's
a very kind of hands off, like I would like
(14:13):
contact if you would like contact, and we can do
that in whatever way feels mutually. UM, like that will work. Um.
That being said, though, I think I would love to
take this moment to say, if there are any sperm
donors out there or egg donors who are you know,
approached by your offspring. Um, warmth and compassion goes a
(14:35):
long way. Um. And I think it can be it
can be really hard for offspring when they reach out
and they get a wall. UM. And and I I
have a friend who reached out and she just got
a letter from the lawyer. Right, So you can imagine
what that what might might feel like. And and that's
sort of the both end of genetic genetic relationship and
(14:58):
family relationship. As we can bring comback, we can bring
our warmth and our compassion to all of those kinds
of relationships to the degree that we can, I think, um,
and that would be my encouragement for all the parties,
and you know, for the parents, for the offspring, for
the the bio parents. Yeah, there's a level of you
want people to assume the best and to to resist
(15:22):
the least, and and to be as compassionate as possible.
You know, I had a it wasn't quite a genetic story,
but I was reconnected with family that I had long
been separated from through no choice of my own. And
it was because of a message on social media. Someone
popped up saying they were my cousin, and I was like, really,
let's see, And then she had the receipts. They were photographs.
(15:42):
It's like, oh my goodness. And it took me a
while to process it, and so I sat on it,
you know, for months, because you're just living your life.
You're like liking your friends baby pictures and you're playing
some stupid game, and you're yelling at the news on
your computer screen, and up pops some message saying you
have a family you didn't know about that doesn't fit
into the everyday flow of life. And so I just
(16:02):
needed some time to sit with And I didn't mean
to disrespect, but I need to create that space so
that I could respond with compassion and not defensiveness. And
we are able to get to a point where we
have an open channel now and it's much more interesting
and kind of lovely, but it's awkward on both sides. Yeah,
And I had a great friend who said to me,
as I was sort of embarking on this journey and
(16:23):
had made contact with some biorelatives, she said, you know,
you get to decide. There's no prescribed way that this
has to look, and you get to decide, in concert
with the other people, how is this going to go?
And you're right, some some people need more time than others,
and you have I think you have to be respectful
of that, especially if you want the relationship to eventually develop. Right,
(16:45):
do you find yourself in those in this community who
have some gaps in their knowledge of the family tree?
Just sizing up everybody trying to get spit from everybody. No,
it's interesting. Yeah. I mean I have seen like films
where people there's one donor conceived coumentary um where the
girls like looking around going like is that my bio dad?
Is that my biodat? I had it limited to all
(17:08):
the um the medical students at the University of North
Carolina for from like a little window. So I had
I literally printed out all their class the yearbook photos.
And I actually the very first thing I did after
I found out that I was donor conceived, as I
had a party and I put them all up on
the wall. I blew up all the pictures I had
red yarn connecting them. Well. Well, I had my friends
(17:31):
come over and guess who it was. I put up
a picture of me, a picture of myself as a baby,
and I had them, you know, nominate who was the
bio dad? Right? No one was writing new friends, all right,
but you can find some new friends with your DNA
relative search. And I think about my other experience in
(17:51):
this topic of family definitions. It only occurred to me,
in thinking about talking to the two of you, that
I share a different part of this story, and that
the woman who was my sister is technically my half sister,
but I never called her that growing up. You know,
I knew we had different dads. That wasn't withheld from us.
But she was my sister and she's always has been
and always will be my sister. But scientifically we share
(18:14):
like D n A and so that that language and
how we define based on blood, as you talked about
Melissa versus love is a spectrum. And in in the
film Sarah, you confronted in in a way your own father,
the one the man who raised you, and asked him
to take a paternity test two just rule out for
(18:38):
the final measure maybe you're my bio dad. And how
how did he respond to that and how did you
know you You seemed torn about it in the film.
I assume you really were, and tell us more about
what it's like to approach someone who is family based
on love and experience, but you're also doing this side
(19:00):
scientific inquir to technically define family and you kind of
need them to go through a process. Well, I say
in the film, and it's still the word that comes
to mind. It just feels really rude. I mean, like
what a thing to ask your parents to take up tests.
You know that I I felt I mean and rude.
Probably if I dug underneath that there would be other words,
(19:21):
you know, like um, fear. You know, there would be
other things there um And And for his part, I
think he was incredibly generous to agree to do it.
And I find myself reflecting on that as a real
moment of parenting. You know, where he was really willing
to go with me on that journey, even if it
(19:42):
wasn't a journey that he would necessarily have you chosen,
but because he felt like I needed it, he was
willing to go there, which is a very fatherly thing,
Which is a very fatherly thing to do right, And
I think, um, what's very interesting to me about this
whole process is that we are closer now than we
(20:03):
were before we started. That's great to hear because that
I think people listening wouldn't assume that you know, here
you are looking for your bio dad, and how does
that make your actual dad you feel like and it's
called a rift or something. So the fact that this
wasn't a split, it was actually that's what happens when
you show up open hearted and honest and meet someone
(20:26):
else's being open hearted and honest. Right, you've you've come
closer together. Yes, absolutely, I feel like we're gonna get
so many good songs out of this. We've already touched
on one of the main themes. I think it's actually
not a segment of the interview with underlies the whole
(20:46):
premise of this gathering, which is, you know, the definition
of family and the definition of a relative. Now, Melissa,
you've created this family, which in so many ways is
a modern model of family. Right, you were raising two
sets of children. You are in your second marriage, right,
third marriage? Okay, the first one, it's hard to say
(21:08):
because they didn't allow us to get married into. Actually
that's my first marriage, third long term relationship. The first
two head children, so it's very common. Right, So, so
you're in this You've created this family that is very
different from the way we had been defining it. But
I have the same problems that exactly. So let's talk
(21:28):
about your family problems. Too much internet? You know, oh
my god, where's the WiFi? So so what when you
are processing this idea of the genetic relationships and the
genealogy and the love and the choices and the experiences,
how do you define family. You know what, Again, it
(21:51):
comes down to story. I find that you give your
children the story to which to frame their life. And
if you give them a story that's loving, that yeah,
there's I'm obviously not a guy, so I don't have
that you know ingredient to create you. But there was one,
(22:12):
and that's that's fine. And now we're getting on with life. Now,
this is my life, this is what I did. This
is my story, This is my father's story, this is
and this is your you know other mother's story, and
this and these are the stories that surround you, and
these are this is how you got here. This is
what I hope you do in life. You keep putting
them down. And the funniest thing is, if you were
(22:34):
to look at all four of my children, you would
swear I'm I'm blood related to them. Because when you
raise a baby and you sit that baby in your
lap day after day, year after year, and you smile
at them, and what they learned to smile your smile,
they learned to see. And I tell people that all
the time, my children have my smile, they have my laugh.
(22:58):
I am in them, even though it's not of the blood,
it is because of that that closeness, the stories that
they we have the same sort of sense of humor.
So there's no I I rarely ever think about, oh,
I'm not blood related to me at all. That that's
not They are so much children. They mean the way
(23:19):
my children. Yeah, there's this incredible book that I just
read by Carl Zimmer, who's a science writer. She has
her mother's laugh. It is a beautiful title, um and
it is a thick tone. But one of the things
that he says is that we have to expand our
notion of what heredity is, and that yes, it includes genes,
(23:39):
and it includes culture, it includes technology, it includes the microbiome.
And then I would add it includes the inner generational
stories of trauma and resilience that we carry from our
from our families, and from our culture. And I think
that that, to me is really when we talk about inheritance.
That's sort of where I'm finding myself thinking more and
(24:02):
more these days. Do you, Sarah, I think that it
is appropriate or even essential to invite your DNA cousins
to the family reunion. There are too many of them.
It would cost too much money. Do I have to
write all these people too? No? I think you know,
(24:27):
and actually I have a I have a good friend
who is a donor conceived person who has you know,
I think I already mentioned him. He has twenty half siblings.
They it started out there was there was one and
he had him over for brunch, and then there was
two and they went out, you know, and then there's three.
Now there's twenty. And I can tell that it's like
(24:48):
it's starting to feel now it's kind of like throw
up a Facebook page. Everybody can just say hi to
each other. You know, how are you supposed to relate
to all of these folks who all of a sudden
have that half sibling relationship that you were just talking about,
but in your case it means something totally different. Um,
then when you find out that there are twenty of them,
you know, this is this is interesting when when we
(25:09):
use the sperm donor to to get you know, and
it's all anonymous, and they don't they don't know whoever
they had. Only I think, I think I really have
lost I don't remember, but they have like four half
siblings that we don't know anything about yet. They gave
me the opportunity then to buy the rest of him out.
So I was financially able to do that so that
(25:31):
they wouldn't have thirty half siblings. You know, so I
actually bought the whole thing, and so he's he's bought it.
He's off the market now, and he's so there's no
more half siblings. Isn't that interesting that they actually give
you that option and you wanted to I did, Yeah,
I did. Just that's interesting. Just yea. To me, it
was a protection. See, we take this fearful sort of
(25:54):
sort of stance. They're gonna want something from it, and
it's a weird Americans sort of you know, the other
person who wants to rights. There is a there is
a kind of boundary dance that has to be in
place too. I mean, that's the that's the complex part
of that fascinating because we're taking physicality and love and
(26:14):
science and business and law and we're putting it all
to a blender and religion that's spirituality, and in that
mix is family. And so you were able to make
a choice that defined a boundary around your future family. Right,
You're not going to have any surprises popping up in
(26:36):
a database or your kids, won't you know, twenty years
and oh hey, I'm your cousin. Yeah, you're not, my mama,
I have the receipt, Yo. How do you both think
about the balancing and the ethics associated with whose choices
(26:58):
or whose desires have some sort of priority or how
they interact with each other. This is so it's revolutionary
what's happening because this pushes all the boundaries all at once,
and it comes down to individual rights and what are
each human being's individual rights? And it redefines those and
(27:21):
we will be forced to in this and that that's
a good thing because it it goes beyond nationality, It
goes beyond you know, the the tribalism that I was
talking about. You know, it now moves us into every
human being on this earth has certain inalienable rights, you know,
certain rights, and how are we going to define that
(27:43):
when it comes to everything else? And when does that start?
Does that started in the egg? It's the age old
thing and we are forced to come to these conclusions
and figure that out. And that's I think it's amazing.
It's fascinating, isn't it. And it's fascinating. I had I
had a friend say to me the other day, you
know there are donor conceived people who say, I absolutely
(28:04):
have the right to know my biological heritage, and I
think I would probably count myself. I mean, I would
definitely count myself as one of those people. And he
said to me, what, you know, it's not like everybody
else conceive the old fashioned way it gets to have
much of a say and how they're conceived, right, I mean,
you know so, And that sort of blew my thinking
(28:24):
open to start to think about, Okay, well, how how
do each one of us come into this world and
what right to information do we really have about whether
it was in the doctor's office or behind the bleachers,
you know wherever, right, I mean, but like we'll have
GPS records in the future, right, we'll literally know where
(28:45):
can the child is entitled to? And yet I wanted it.
I wanted it so badly and I'm so happy that
I have the information that I have. It changed, it
really changed my sense of self. So I have to
acknowledge it for me that that's true. Yeah, I find
(29:06):
that I don't have answers either. I'm here mostly to ask.
But I think there are different models of rights and
ownership around this sort of genetic material, and so in
some cultures, I can imagine a much more communal stance, right.
It was like, that's actually not yours decision to make.
We all make it together as a tribe or as
a family, or as a village or as a city.
(29:28):
In some you know, massive cases, and in some societies,
like children have no rights at all, Right, Like your
parents don't want you to know. You don't know. A
good college friend of mine, you know, still wasn't able
to find out information about his mother because his mother's
relatives are like, you're I know, you think you're grown
forty year old, but you're still the child, and we
(29:49):
just don't it's not our business to tell So we're
not going to tell you. Wow. Uh. And so it's
a different line in that community, in that block, in
that area of Brooklyn in this case. So I am
as well fascinated, but I don't think there's a clean
Well you're remind you're reminding me. I'm sorry, you're reminding
me of a woman who just came up to me
the other day. I was at a genealogical conference. They're
(30:11):
all these genealogy conferences all over America. They're amazing, and
a woman came up to me and said, my brother
donated sperm. I have all of these offspring, but they're
contacting me and my brother doesn't want me to be
in contact with them. So here' she is the aunts,
he's the you know, he's the biological father. But like,
(30:33):
how does all of that parts? Right? Like that's fascinating
And she was quite anguish because she felt like she
wanted to And then you hear about the grandparents who
don't know that they're uh sons, sons or daughters have donated,
and then they feel this loss that they've been left
out of this grandchildren knowledge, you know. I mean, it's
just it's just pushing the bounds of everything. We're all
(30:58):
going to get awkward Facebook messages. Is whatever it's gonna happen. Well,
that's the other thing. It's sort of normalizing that these
questions are coming up and that this is part of
our lives. Is it gonna and is it going to
stop donations? I mean, are people going to go I
don't want this to I doubt it will stop it
because I think there is there's a need and there's
(31:22):
a possibility, right, and there's money. There's a need, there's
an ability, and there's money that's gonna happen, but it
should shade the rules and the norms. You know, what
is acceptable. How do we engage What amount of genetic
stuff do we share? As you think about your own
families in the case of in your own life or
(31:43):
how you're raising your children, both of you, the genetic
information they've inherited and the health concerns that go along
with both of those, how does that layer come into
the family definition and rights to know and what you
think should be passed them on. Well, I know that
the company that we went through for the donation was
really thorough and and he had to fill out major
(32:05):
stuff and show major stuff and show health show, give
lots and lots of information. It was comforting to know, Okay,
all this information is here if I need this, and
it was you know, it was there. So we were
able to feel comfortable that if anything in the future
(32:25):
comes up, you know, we will have access to the information.
And what do you see in Sarah, what are you thinking?
In my case, my donor was I don't think was
hardly vetted at all. He was he was hand picked
by the doctor in charge and he he was like,
you know, you kind of look like the family father,
and I was lucky that he was incredibly handsome. I
(32:47):
have a picture of him as a as a young man,
and he was very handsome. I think he was quite
dashing in his own way, and that attracted that the
eye of the doctor in charge. Um, and to my understanding,
that was all the vetting that was that was done well.
And that's the history of sperm donation is that it
(33:08):
was that. I think the earliest was in the late
eighteen hundreds, and it was the most handsome. One of
the medical students was sort of nominated. They knocked the
woman out. They never told her. The doctor in charge
did it without the permission of the couple. Oh, I write.
So it's interesting when you think about history and how
(33:30):
these things just come from horrible play. If you go
back far enough, everything's terrible. It's right, hard, but is important, Right,
it's important to how the information and the DNA testing
is hopefully helping that more and more. Yeah, when I
realized I was going to have children that I wasn't
(33:51):
biologically related to, it was very simple just to say, well,
that doesn't matter. And when you crossed that line, you realize, oh,
I've just expanded my idea of what family as and
that changes me, and that changes everyone around me. And
I would just like to put up there if there's
anyone out there who is thinking of having children, who
(34:13):
who can't have children, who are are at this uh,
this threshold of okay, I need to move forward into
adoption or or surrogacy or or whatever donation, whatever it is.
Two don't give a moment to being to thinking over
they're They're not biologically related to me. It has nothing
to do with being a parent, It really doesn't. And
(34:35):
I would really want to say that that my life
is just as full as can be, has been for
the last twenty one years, and uh never once have
I ever ever regretted it. If these mics weren't so
vigorously attached to the arms, I would say you should
drop it. It's physically impossible to drop the mica, like
(34:57):
you have to rip it out of the table and
jump up in down um, and I would take too
much time. Right, So what do you all think of
the now possible extended family reunion now that we have
more genetic family members than we ever knew about. Well, well,
actually I come from a place my own personal experience
is you know, my My father had seven brothers and sisters,
(35:18):
you know, my mother had a couple, and so I
had a deep sense of family through them, and I
knew my immediate you know there there brothers, the cousins.
That's sort of that was right there. Once I got famous.
Oh boy, it's amazing how much family I had. So
(35:39):
so I I've already gone through this sort of sense
of Okay, where do I end with If there's family
that I've never met but that that yeah, maybe they're
the second maybe they're related to the second cousin on
the side of the you know, very possibly, that could
be very possible. But I don't feel connected. I don't.
I mean, and they are blood to me, yet I
don't feel like like I have to go connect with them.
(36:02):
So I can imagine that even if you do find
out your blood related to strangers, I don't think there
is an obligation, you know, in oneself to do that.
So I definitely cut it off. My father came from St. Louis,
and I remember I had a meet and Greek before
the show. There's like sixty people that were Okay, this
(36:23):
is this is a little difficult. Let's let's let's change yeah,
I'll add on to that. That is what it sounds like,
is that family is becoming even more of a choice. Yeah,
and there's nothing there's a that's a beautiful if we understand.
I mean its corny as it sounds that there's this energy,
there's this love that creates connection family. I mean we
(36:45):
can go biologically, we can scientifically go that every time
you touch someone, there that DNA is actually those the
atoms are with you forever, and those atoms that vibrate
even if you're a hundred miles away, they still vibrate
on that person. So I'm related to about three billion people, okay,
(37:05):
because I've you know, shaking hands with a lot of people.
So family, what is family? It's that's our story, it's
your definition. That's that's awesome. And we are technically nine
point five you know, every human and shares that amount
of DNA with every other human. So the parts of
difference that we're focusing on, our zero point five percent,
(37:27):
that's where choice comes in. And you can say that
to any situation in the world right now. Seriously, we
are we gotta start seeing how much we are are related,
that we are together and you're I'm just being reminded
that we did the that you shared your twenty three
and me genome with me earlier today. What were the
results you didn't see? Okay, So my main takeaway is
(37:51):
that I have more neander tall German. It sounds more refined.
I have more Neandertal than you. But that was interesting too,
And I pause and I just thought, oh my gosh,
that's so interesting. There are these like Neandertals that were
in northern Europe and the I mean, I all of
(38:11):
a sudden got they go back to that far on
the Yeah, and you can look at and a lot
of interesting stuff those genes and what they make, and
you have to go back into history. And this is
going to change history when you start realizing that. I mean,
I'm getting all geeky because I get all, you know,
alternative archaeology and stuff. But the um, the the Neanderthal
(38:33):
and the Homo sapien and how that divided off and
how did that happen because we slaughtered them. Yeah, it's
sort of our history. It's the way we do things
that we're all that, we really are all. I would
like to thank my guests. Melissa Average. You can find
(38:55):
her currently on tour. She's doing the Yes I Am
twenty five and Averse tour and in ten she's got
a cruise comes seven days of music and talk. That's right.
If everyone do that, we'll see how much we're related.
That everybody spit and then get on the boat. Come on,
you might be on the boat with your family. And
(39:16):
I'd like to thank Sarah Lamb who has offered us
uh and offered you a very special extended clip of
her film Thank You for Coming. You can find that
at thank You for Coming movie dot com. Slash spit,
I want to dig in more on today's topics and guests.
Check our show notes and if you enjoyed the episode,
share it with a friend, all your friends, and be
(39:38):
sure to leave a review. If you want to hear
more surprising stories about how we're all related, search and
follow Spit on I Heart Radio or subscribe wherever you
listen to. Podcast Spit is an I Heeart radio podcast
with twenty three and me. I'm Baritone Day Thurston. You
can find out more about me at Baritone day dot
com or sign up from a text message is just
hit me up at two O two and I know
(40:00):
to seven nine four nine put hashtag spit podcasts in
your message. I know where you came from.
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