November 17, 2025 • 49 mins
Exploring Replacement Children: Insights from Author Rita Ache on Trauma and HealingIn this @SilverDisobedience Perception Dynamics episode, host Dian Griesel discusses an intriguing and sensitive topic with guest Rita Battat Silverman, co-author of 'Replacement Children: The Unconscious Script.' The conversation explores the concept of 'replacement children' -- a term coined in the 1960s to describe children born after the death of a sibling, and the broader implications of this unique experience. Rita shares her personal story and insights from her research, emphasizing the lasting impact on children's mental health and family dynamics. This discussion sheds light on the need for awareness, empathetic support, and effective psychotherapy to address the complex issues surrounding replacement children.
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I’m Dian Griesel and in November of 2017 I began blogging as @SilverDisobedience on my website and @SilverDisobedience on Instagram Facebook and @DianGriesel X Career-wise, I am a perception analyst, counselor, hypnotherapist, author of 16 books and a Wilhelmina model. For 30 years, via owning an investor & public relations firm, while being in private practice, I have helped my clients to achieve greater understanding as to how perceptions impact everything we do whether personally or professionally. A couple of years ago I added a podcast. Episodes are unscripted, with plenty of no-holds-barred revelations from fascinating, accomplished guests living diverse lives. Intimate stories about work, play, psychology, relationships, pop culture, trends, B.S. + more are unpacked through thought-provoking questions that spark honest revelations, pivotal moments, and unguarded insights — stunning even the boldest guests with their own “aha” truths. ✨
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diangriesel/
This episode was recorded in collaboration with The Manhattan Center, New York City, New York
SHOW RUN:
00:00 Introduction to Replacement Children00:40 Defining Replacement Children02:38 Personal Stories and Experiences04:18 The Impact on Family Dynamics10:50 Historical and Famous Cases14:16 Commonalities and Psychological Insights18:54 Challenges and Community Building26:03 Adoption Experiment: A True Story27:10 Nature vs. Nurture: Family Dynamics28:22 Parenting Challenges and Realizations30:16 The Importance of Support and Therapy31:12 Family Dynamics and Societal Structures35:21 Pregnancy and Miscarriage Experiences38:07 Replacement and Rainbow Children48:22 Concluding Thoughts and Reflections
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello, I have a very interestingtopic today.
We're going to be talking about replacement children.
Now I'm not going to get into what that is, but my author
guest will. She is the author of Replacement
Children, The Unconscious Script.
(00:21):
She wrote it along with a psychiatrist, Abigail Brenner.
And if you followed my blog at all, you know, I'm very focused
on the scripts we run that sometimes need a little
tweaking. They need editing.
They need reprogramming. So what is a replacement child,
(00:44):
Rita? Well, first of all, replacement
child is not literal, It's figurative, and that's an
important thing to know. So the reason we use the words
replacement child is because it was coined in the 1960s by some
psychiatrist who studied a very small group of children who were
(01:07):
obviously having a lot of issuesbecause they had been born after
the death of a sibling. So that is how it came about.
And you know, I'm I'm not crazy about the term replacement
child. The other thing is this covers a
lot more than being born after the death of another child after
(01:30):
the loss. It's.
Which I can't imagine anything harder, harder, a parent and all
the emotions that are going on during that time and that
transference that it can occur. But it can happen also in a loss
after a child is born and there's a sibling loss.
(01:51):
It also is if it's like a child having to do double duty because
there's something going on with a sibling and then the family
falls apart. But the other thing that's
really important is not every child born after the death of a
child is a replacement child or adopted after a child.
It depends how it's handled. It's a trauma.
(02:14):
It's a special trauma that happens because the parents are
so scattered. And it's not, it's not blame
because the parents only need help too, but it's what happens
that other traumas that this trauma brings about other issues
for the child. How would how would you explain
(02:37):
what those issues are? Well, for instance, let me just
explain what my story was and how I came about with this
because I was born after I was born 18 months after the death
of a 14 year old brother who hadheart issues, okay.
And, you know, there was always something going on.
(03:00):
Like, you know, of course, my parents were in deep grief.
And my mother would, you know, she had a very hard time.
She was a very good mother. But because of this, and because
there wasn't help at that time, and that's the thing we want to
make people aware. Of.
What's happening? You know, it was always she made
my brother kind of God like, youknow, like a St.
(03:22):
And that happens a lot. And my name is Rita because they
wanted to have the for Robert. And I was always sort of
compare, you know, my mother would say your brother wouldn't
have talked to me like that. Your brother would have brought
home A's. Why are you, you know, so I was
always kind of competing with a ghost.
And I always felt like, what's what's going on here?
(03:43):
But I didn't know you know you're a.
Child trying to navigate it. Right.
So what happened is. It's an interesting
juxtaposition, a child's emotionversus adult grief and grieving.
And, you know, children, babies are programmed to survive, so
they pick up what's going on in the household even though they
(04:05):
can't say anything. And if a mother has a loss, lots
of times she can't connect to the next kid, you know, if she
hasn't really had help. So it sets up a lot of different
problems. So what happened is when one of
my children was in school, I went to lunch with some other
mothers from the class. And one of the mothers was
(04:28):
saying, you know, my daughter isnot my first child.
My first child had leukemia. And when she was six months old,
the doctor said, get pregnant, have another child, You're going
to lose this one, you know, justgo and do it.
So you know the story. I changed it a little bit in the
(04:51):
book because I couldn't find her.
But what happened is she had a child 10 days after the first
one died. Oh my gosh.
And she said it was so confusingthat there was no help, that she
was coming home with a child shedidn't know and didn't really
want to come home with. She wanted to come home with the
other child. And, you know, bingo, it started
(05:12):
to make sense because she was treating this child.
She was always critical. And my mother was quite
critical, but not of the second child.
There was always something goingon.
And matter of fact, we had spoken with other mothers, like,
is this the same father or is this what is going on?
And she was saying, you know, itwas very hard.
She said, I know I'm hard on her.
(05:33):
It's just, you know, I guess it's something I have to work
on. And I was going, Oh my God, you
know, this sounds very familiar.So I brought it up.
You know, sometimes when something happens and you bring
it up, all of a sudden all thesepeople.
The law of awareness. Everyone else.
Is it really? Well, you know, I love to, I
(05:54):
love the saying that when the student is ready, the teacher
will appear. And I mentioned it to somebody
and they go, oh, well, that happened to my cousin.
Oh, this happened to da da, da, da, da.
I'm going, what is this a thing?So I went to the bookstore and
there was nothing on it. And I thought, you know, there's
nothing on it. Even when I look in books about
(06:14):
grief or, you know, anything, there was nothing.
And I thought about it. And every time I would talk to
somebody, it was like, oh, yeah,I wish there was something
because that happened. I lost my twin and it was like,
horrible. And I was always doing double
duty. I said, you know, how come
there's nothing on it? It took me years.
(06:34):
But after speaking to people andafter speaking to my friend
Abigail, who's my Co writer, shehad never heard of it.
You know, she said, I don't knowwhat you're talking about.
So we have to write this becauseshe's written books.
I never went out to write a book.
But there's another saying that,you know, I always said, why
didn't somebody do something? And then I realized I'm someone.
(06:56):
So that's how I got started withthis.
And then Abigail said, let me like, explore it.
And then she came back like a couple of months later.
She said, oh, my God, this isn'twhy.
Why do therapists not get this? And she said, you know, what
happens? You go to a therapist, and the
therapist wants to know what's happening now.
Nobody says what's happening in your family, what was happening
(07:20):
when you were born because, you know, parents are different for
each child depending on what happens.
Oh, yeah. And that's the other thing that
we want to make therapists realize that lots of times this
is the root of the problems. And if you don't get to the
root, you're not really going tosolve the problem.
You're just putting a Band-Aid over a wound.
(07:42):
And so that's how this got started.
It's also the child who is living with a sibling who has
physical, mental, emotional issues.
And this can happen later in life.
That we have so many stories in the book.
The people were just coming out of the woodwork.
I was wondering, where am I going to get stories?
(08:02):
I know all these stories are written by the people who lived
it or you know, I interviewed them and they were very generous
and it made me really understandmy story more because it was on
the job, learning. So.
And then I met because of course, when all this was going
(08:23):
on, when I was finding out aboutreplacement children with the
woman who had lost her daughter,there was no Internet.
There was nothing that I could look up.
I could only go to the bookstoreand then became friends with
this woman who wrote her story called Replacement Child.
You see a wonderful book. Her name is Judy Mandel and it's
(08:44):
a true story. How in the 50s her parents were
living by the airport and a plane fell on their home in
Newark, NJ, killed her seven-year old sister and maimed
her two year old sister. And Judy was born to replace the
seven-year old. So, you know, it just, it just
became my world became inundatedwith people calling me through
(09:09):
other people who had said, you know, I always wondered about
this. I had like this and this and
this happened in my family. And I was responsible.
And I'm a perfectionist and I'm like crazy because I feel I have
to do everything right. And this so explains everything.
Well, in any family, there are always the dynamics of children.
You know, they talk about, you know, the first child, the last
(09:30):
child, the middle child, you know, no matter how many there
are, you're either middle or beginning or end.
And you know, that is a dynamic within itself and come and
certainly there's always generalizations in the world,
but generalizations exist for usto try to form some form of
framework. And there's the generalizations
(09:50):
of, you know, what are the pressures on that first child or
what that then become their personality versus that last
child that's baby and whatever. So and then you add the factor
of death of a child or as you said a child that maybe didn't
die or is has got some severe needs or has something that
(10:14):
needs to be taken care of. And so much of the parents
attention is towards that child because it just has to be.
And then the other child feels like the Either well could go
two ways. They have to be the savior of
the families or they rebel, because why is everything going
to that? They need the attention.
That's it. So we get attention negatively
(10:36):
or positively. Right, right.
So I mean, it's been so interesting because each story,
of course, it's on the spectrum and each story is different, but
there's so many common denominators.
One of the one of the stories that we also did, most of them
were present day stories, but wealso looked into famous people's
(10:59):
stories. And Princess Diana's is one of
the like, you can follow the dots.
I mean, when you read her story,you understand what happened to
her, that she was the wrong child when she was born, she was
the wrong wife when she married Charles.
What happened there is she had two older.
(11:21):
First of all, this was an aristocratic family that Diana
was born into and her parents were 18 years apart in age and
sort of married because, you know, both of them came from
higher up families and that was the thing to do.
But they really needed a boy in this family to carry on the
name. This was the big deal.
(11:42):
OK, so they had two girls and then they had a son.
He lived 10 hours. Oh my.
And you know, it was horrible. And the mother was never allowed
to hold him or see him and, of course, was in deep grief and
was pressured to have another child.
(12:04):
So Diana was her 4th pregnancy. And, you know, everybody
expected a boy. So when Diana was born, it was
huge disappointment. So she was born wrong to begin
with. That was the message for her.
And to the point where the father sent the mother off to
different doctors to find out what's wrong with you.
(12:24):
Why can't you have a son? Oh, my gosh.
And the marriage was rocky to begin with.
And Diana, in her biography, talks about like, you know, I
made things worse for them. So when they do, what a load of
guilt? Well, a load.
Of guilt. So when the mother ran off with
another man when she was 7, of course, you know, she was
(12:47):
blaming herself. But to backtrack, they didn't
have a name for her for a week. Because you know who was
expecting a girl. Finally, a boy is born to this
family three years after Diana. His name is Charles.
OK, this follows off a little thing here.
(13:07):
The mother and father are fighting.
The mother leaves with another man and is denied.
Really. The children, you know, she
wanted custody. It was a big thing.
And Diana and her brother were much younger than the older 2
girls who were in boarding school, so they kind of took
care of each other. And she said we used to go to
(13:29):
the dead child's grave and talk about how neither of us would
have been here if it wasn't for him.
Oh my goodness. So and then she ends up kind of
taking care of her brother Charles, who cries at night for
the mother when they go to visithim, when they go to visit the
mother there on the train together, they take care of each
(13:49):
other. So she also felt less than she
always said, you know, her siblings did well in school.
She never did. But she was a wonderful pianist,
and she wanted to be a ballerina, but she was 5 feet,
10 1/2 inches. So they said, no, you can teach.
She didn't want to teach. She wanted to shine somewhere.
(14:09):
And she never could find that sweet spot where she could
shine. You said there were
commonalities in people that youuncovered writing this book.
What do you think some of those commonalities were?
I think lower self esteem, but on the plus side, I feel like
there was a lot of drive to do things and prove yourself, you
(14:32):
know. I mean, so many of the people
that I interviewed had a tough time, but they were the movers
and shakers. It was like, you know, I needed
to do something. This wasn't accepted in my
family, but what the hell, I'm going to do it.
And they did it. Yeah.
So I meant, like amazing people with amazing stories.
Through this, a lot of them had to learn to get out of certain
(14:56):
modes, such as perfectionism. That was a big one.
That's not one of my things thatI wish I had a little more of
it. But perfectionism, that
everything had to be done right because the other child was so
needy, OK, if they were still alive or are, you know, or the
other child was perfect or the family was in such grief that
(15:17):
somebody had to be the hero. And that was the main thing that
I kept seeing over and over again.
And also people with a lot of empathy, You know, these were
people who were doing social work and psychology and they had
20 animals. And, you know, I saw that also
(15:39):
wanting to take care of things in a different way.
So it's not all, you know, gloomand doom.
It's like, yes, it's hard and it's a trauma, but it's
something that needs to be recognized.
So like teachers and therapists can understand where a child is
coming from and get to the root.Right.
(16:01):
You know, one of the things in in any counseling session, I
always say you don't have to dwell on it, but let's under,
you know, let's, let's spend even if it's 15 minutes to try
to understand how did you perceive your family dynamic and
your role within the family? Because you can be in a very
normal household, but you could have, you know, you know, a
(16:28):
brother or sister that's, you know, the wild 1.
So you're going to, you know, that you can tell is frustrating
the parents. So you're going to be the
peacekeeper or the other ones getting all that attention
because they're getting better grades.
So you're going to be that rebel.
So I think those family dynamicsquestions on the most elementary
level for anyone. Right, but a lot interesting.
(16:52):
Don't do that. A lot of therapists don't go
there and that's what they need to starting with what was
happening in the family when youmade your appearance, if you
were adopted or you know, and asI said, not every adopted child
or child born into a family likethis is the family needs to be
aware. And that's what we try to do,
(17:13):
you know, because and also any like even a miscarriage, a
miscarriage is a significant loss to women and does not get
the attention lots of times it deserves.
People will say you're young, you can have another child.
Why are you so upset? You know, you have two kids.
I mean, that's devastating to somebody.
And then they may be very nervous about the next child
(17:35):
they have, like, I lost the pregnancy, what now?
It was this child going to be normal?
Right. You know, so there's a lot of
elements to it that I discoveredafter talking to people and
interviewing people and see how needed this is, how just the
knowledge, the awareness. I, I can, I can see the, the
(18:00):
need on so many different levels.
And you reminded me of somethingas you talk about, you know, the
different dynamics within the family like that.
I remember when I was pregnant for the second time and bursting
out in tears in the middle of the meeting, a big meeting and I
was probably seven months pregnant and somebody said
(18:22):
something. And I remember the only thing I
said when they were like, what'swrong?
And they said, well, you just made me wonder, am I going to
want love this second child likeI love my first one?
And of course that kid was handed to me and I loved him.
You you realize how love expands.
It doesn't contract exactly. And you know, but that dynamic
(18:45):
of those emotions that get bought into it, what were what
are, what is something that surprised you in your research?
You know, what surprised me was how many people once you said
replacement child and said what it was said, Oh my God, you
know, I'm relieved to hear this.You know, it's a community that
(19:09):
there was like finally a community.
I think it's sort of like ADHD and being on the spectrum for
somebody who is not Asperger's but autistic, somebody who's
dyslexic. OK.
When I was going to school, there was nothing, you know,
nobody really even knew those words.
(19:31):
Then suddenly, I think it was a DDADHD was the first one that,
you know, it was like, hey, there's this thing and and now
there's research. There's people who can help
others with it. There's a community of I'm not
alone, I'm not crazy, I'm not lazy, I'm not stupid.
There's a community and that's the whole thing.
(19:52):
I feel like a community. Matter of fact, we started Judy
and I and another woman who's a psychoanalyst who's also a
replacement child, started Replacement Child Forum and with
just different references and resources and people could write
their stories. You said you didn't like the
(20:13):
word replacement child. What would you change it to if
you were going to retitle your? Book I have wanted to retitle it
and I can't. We put replacement child because
you can find it if you're looking in the big web out
there. It's sort of like the that other
(20:34):
child in the family, maybe name it something like that.
I think I would keep replacementchild and instead of I'd see it
definitely is a script. You're handed something that
you're doing differently unconsciously because of
circumstance. But I think I might put
something that it's a it's a matter of circumstance, you
(20:55):
know, a matter of circumstance. So people understand because
especially parents get very noseout of joy.
Like I didn't replace that child, right?
And it's not you haven't replaced the child, it's just
that they're fitting in. You know, also if a child is
born after the death of another child and people aren't open
(21:16):
about it, somebody that is a replacement child that this
happened to express this. And I thought this was such a
good way of saying it. It's like you're in a book club
and you've been given the second-half of the book, OK,
everybody else has the whole book and you're supposed to make
a report on it and you're supposed to have a back story.
Well, that's an interesting story is being made-up because
(21:37):
you really don't know so. That's, that's a very
interesting visual. Yeah.
I personally, personal opinion, I really dislike the labeling
and the grouping that has gone on, especially in the past, you
know, like words get tossed around, although those people
(22:01):
are toxic or this one's narcissist or you know, everyone
seems to have ADHD now or they've got some form of
something. And so I'm not a fan of those
words, but I certainly understand the value in using a
phrase or a concept to find community or commonality.
(22:24):
Yeah, that's I know if you can find another one.
I'm no, I don't, I don't have another one for you.
It's just, you know, it's an interesting, it's an interesting
concept because it's almost like, you know, like family
dynamics, you know, and death inchildren, you know, that's very
(22:44):
clinical. But you could also say, I mean,
I recently finished a course at University of Toronto ON
basically how children transfer things during how they develop
different dissociative behaviorsas a result of divorce.
(23:06):
So possibly, you know, whether it's the parent they're assigned
to live with or the one they don't get to live with and the
dynamics that occur, which in a way that marriage died and now
this kid is navigating the adultemotions.
You know, who should they love? Who do they have to take care
(23:29):
of? How do they take care of one?
They used to love them both. They think they still love them
both. How do you get through those
different dynamics? And it's very similar in a
situation like this, because it's still a child trying to
navigate adult emotions. Right.
With their own right and findingthat merger and where it fits,
(23:51):
and in the best of circumstances, any family has
dynamics. Right well the first story in
our book was so well written by this gal who her 8 year old
sister was hit by a car and the father was the one who said, oh
you can play for a few minutes more and carried that guilt.
(24:13):
So when Shelly was born, he tried to make her into the
sister like, you know, and and she was so opposite like the
sisters love ballet and she hated ballet.
The sister like classical music.And she said she always was
trying. She always felt like she was her
and that she was supposed to be her and she never could.
(24:34):
And she said that she became a perfectionist anything little
disappointment. She goes crazy if she's not able
to do it. And she said only after we
interviewed her did she take this to her therapist and
started to work on the root of that.
Well, that's such an interestingdisclosure and story because,
(24:54):
you know, I've often said to people when when somebody will
say, well, there's no differencebetween boys and girls, I'm
like, Oh my God, you have not had a child and you have not
been around boys and girls. I mean, our daughter, you know,
could see pink across the airport where somebody else's
daughter might love blue. Our son never met a Barbie doll
that he didn't want to pick up and make a sword, you know, and
(25:19):
it's this, it's every person's personality.
And when you, when you've actually observed children and
just kind of let them be, you realize what fascinates 1 is
completely different than what fascinates another.
Those personalities, you know, whether you call it nature or
nurture, I think they're both incredibly strong.
(25:39):
I could never decide which I think is more weighted.
Right. And if anything, I'd probably
say nature, because somebody comes into the world one way and
the rest of the people have to figure out how to nurture that
or not. There's a documentary called 3
Identical Strangers. Oh, about the.
Triplets. Triplets that were the horrible
(26:01):
story because they this adoptionagency was doing an experiment
and took the three and gave 1 toa poor family 1 to a middle
class family and went to anotherfamily who was very wealthy.
Oh my gosh. And it's a true story and they
find each other by accident. One one goes to the university
and doesn't go back the next year and people kept coming up
(26:23):
to this other kid saying, Hey, we thought you weren't coming
back and he's going I what I'm this is my first year and they
introduced him to the second one.
OK, it goes viral and you know, I mean, you need to see this.
And a third one says, Oh my God,I I'm.
There I am. And it's so interesting because
(26:44):
they had so much in common and yet you could see where.
And so that was very interesting.
It's a horrible, I mean, it's horrible what happened to them.
But it's interesting because, you know, they had a lot of the
same taste and, and differences.Very interesting.
(27:05):
It was very interesting. It's fascinating, those nature
things. The other day I was just with my
younger brother and I'm looking at him and we're talking and I'm
thinking, my gosh, he reminds meso much of my older brother.
And they're, you know, a lot of years apart and, you know, my
older, our older brother was pretty much out of the house by
(27:28):
the time our younger brother. So they didn't spend that much
time together. It's not like it's mimicking.
It's just that nature of what happens in genetics, the family
dynamic, everything else that develops.
You can see this with adopted children, you know, if they like
kind of find their bio family, lots of times there's a feeling
(27:51):
of like, wow, we do the same thing.
We have a dog named the same, you know, so it's it's very
interesting, but we have a lot of stories also about adoption.
I mean, sometimes it's, you know, just perfectly fine, but
the problems lies if they are trying to replace a child or
(28:14):
have an idea of, you know, my child would be like this.
Why are you like that? You know, because again, nature
versus nature. Yeah.
But even, you know, it's funny when I used to say to everyone,
oh, you should have kids, I saidthat when I was younger.
Now I can count the amount of times I've said that to people.
I think a lot of people shouldn't have I.
(28:35):
Agree I. Agree and I that might be the
wrong thing to say, but I reallydo think that, you know, because
it is something you've got to accept.
I mean, I can remember, you know, just, you know, with our
daughter thinking she's going towear this because I think it's
cute and you know her taking herlittle plastic scissors and
(28:55):
cutting it to pieces because shedidn't think it was cute or she
thought it needed a little modification, you know, and that
just, you know, that's the nature of the beast.
It's the same thing. And you know, our son, this same
thing, couldn't get a pair of jeans on.
That Kitty wanted to wear sweatpants, you know, until he
(29:16):
absolutely couldn't wear them anymore, you know, because
school had started. But those different dynamics and
you think you're going to control this.
And then you realize when that kid arrives, they are so unique.
So taking that uniqueness and trying and trying to make them
into someone else. Yeah, he's.
Painful. Right, right.
(29:38):
It's, it's, you know, what challenge is, is that child
going to have because the parentneeds, the parents needs come
through so strongly and the child wants to balance it out,
you know, also for their safety,if they're a baby, you know,
they need to get what they need as a baby, as an infant.
So they will adjust to what the parent needs.
(30:02):
And that's where the script comes in.
That's where the road changes that the child should be able to
be their own person. And when forced not to be, you
know, how did they come back to square 1?
I mean, I, I think whether it's in this or other things going on
in society right now, we're seeing so much where I just want
(30:25):
to grab certain children and just grab them and say you're
just great exactly the way you. Are I agree with you 100 and.
You know, there is nothing wrongwith you.
You are in the right body, you are perfect.
You know, this is great how you are and let's just take you from
here. Who you are, you know who you
(30:46):
are. Don't let somebody else get in
the way there. Yeah.
But the problem is lots of timesthey don't realize that they're
being influenced or having to work a certain way because it's
to keep the peace. Yeah.
You know, this kind of brings itback to who are you?
You know what, what do you want?Not what is it that you're doing
(31:08):
that somebody else is forcing you to do?
Or you feel safer doing it that way?
What do you think you've learnedabout family dynamics from
interviewing? You know, hierarchies within
family dynamics, the interplay. It's like I've learned so much
from in so many different ways. I feel like most families have
(31:31):
something to cope with. You know, it's not like there's
a perfect family, but I feel like awareness is missing from
so many families in so many different ways, not just this.
And, you know, we have a societythat is very difficult.
I feel like like in Denmark and Sweden, they teach children.
(31:53):
This is part of the school curriculum, how to be kind, how
to have empathy for each other. You know, I feel like American
families are kind of on your own.
You have an issue, you have a problem.
Maybe somebody will get you to atherapist.
Maybe somebody will be there foryou.
You know, we don't have a structure in our society that is
(32:15):
really, how do I say it like more than helpful, But you know,
it's like where these other countries do.
Well, I do think, I personally think that's a large
responsibility for parents. It is.
And, you know, if you choose to have children, it's a
responsibility and a big one. And it lasts your whole life.
(32:39):
And it doesn't change. And I know, Pete, you know, I
know my mother was worried about, you know, me at 93 when
she died. She was still worried about, you
know, you know, any one of us. And so I just think the worry,
the concern is omnipresent once you have a child and it's up to
(33:01):
that parent to nurture the childas best they.
Can a lot of people don't know how, you know, we should do more
with educating kids, even in high school what how to
discipline correctly, all right,how to talk to a child, not, you
know, you don't know what their family did or how they, you
(33:21):
know, So there needs to be some structure that it really teaches
people young, OK, what it is to have a child, OK, that it's a
lifelong commitment and what to do with a child to, you know, to
make it more caring, more comfortable and secure in
themselves. So I really think that we're
(33:42):
missing out on in this country. I mean, I feel like high school,
lots of it is a waste. You know, the kids are sitting
there saying, when the hell I mean, I was, I think like when I
get out of here, I'm going to travel.
I'm not going to look back. You know, it would be nice for
kids to first of all, know what's out there.
I had no idea what I wanted to do when I grew up.
(34:02):
You know, I have really no idea.So, but it would be nice to have
things that go back to family things because so many families
are fractured and people don't know.
I mean, if you've been in a divorced home or a home with a
parent missing because they diedor you're in a single family
home or whatever, you need to know, you need to know basic
(34:25):
ways of dealing with life and with children that we don't
have. So I would have classes in that.
How do you? How do you fine resolution for
that? What do you, what do you
suggest? What do you suggest to parents?
Let's say while you were workingon this book, what would you
have said to them if they were trying to find coping
(34:46):
mechanisms? First of all, I would have well,
you see, this book is actually for parents, but it's really the
target is for the child, the individuals who have been in
this situation. But I would tell anybody who has
had a loss or is having a lot ofissues, get a good therapist, a
lot of really bad therapist out there.
(35:08):
OK, get a good therapist and getsome support because that's
that's what you need. You need support from someone
who knows what they're doing. If you're having a very hard
time, if you've had a horrible loss, you need that.
And then, you know, there's no right time to have a baby.
You know, I mean, if somebody has a horrible loss and they
(35:30):
they just have to do, then nobody should say put it off.
It's an individual thing. But at that point, they should
be also getting help. They should be getting support
and they should be understandingthat, yes, grieve this child,
but this new child that's comingin, don't put the same
expectations on that child. Yeah, well, I think that's
(35:51):
important. Yeah, I think anyone who's a
parent would say probably the biggest challenge is a parenting
which we all recognize and then adapt, is that each, each one is
different. You know, you're different than
anyone in your family. You know, you're just like,
(36:11):
we're different. You know you because you marvel
and you say, wait a second. We both made that kid and we
both made this kid, but they're different.
Is traumatized and going througha rough time.
It's very hard sometimes to be objective and to understand what
you're doing and understand whatthe next step is.
Yes, and lots of times you need somebody to help you with that
(36:31):
next step. I wholeheartedly agree.
And, and I think you make great points about, you know, finding
that good therapist because there are plenty of not good
therapist. And the new trends right now in
psychology are really frightening to me that, oh, I'm
going to, I'm you're going to pay me and I'm going to share my
experience with you so you, you know, so you can bond.
(36:56):
I'm like, Oh my gosh. I mean, and this is actually
getting written up in PsychologyToday.
It's a regular new column kind of thing.
I'm like, you've got to be kidding me.
Right. I don't want to bond with a
therapist. I want to be one step ahead of
me and help guide me. And someone who I'm going to pay
to have them tell me my their problems, I'm like, Oh my God.
(37:16):
But it's, it's, it's a real thing now.
And there's people who are very publicly saying this is the way
to go. Yeah.
And you know what, do you heard that one?
Yeah. Big one now, big one now in.
Do you think, would you encourage support kind of
(37:37):
groups? Oh yes, definitely.
Yeah, well, that's what Replacement Child Forum was too,
support. And, you know, they could ask us
anything. They, I mean, people, we had
letters that were, Oh my God, you know, thank you.
I was so looking for something like this and I didn't even know
(37:57):
what to call it, you know? So I, I, I feel very proud of
that. How do you from that because it
is fantastic. How does how do you think that
that child that was in that we'll call that the replacement
child, How do you think their personality evolves and what
(38:18):
they learn to cope with as an adult who now understands a
little more of the family dynamic?
Well, first of all, you have to understand that it's a spectrum,
that everybody has had very different circumstances, but you
know, there are common denominators of feeling that
they have to do more or something else was put upon them
that they're different than their friend next door.
(38:41):
So it's so individual. But I think that the biggest
take away for them would be findthe route.
Where did this come from? And, and what did it do to the
family? How did it?
It's very complex, but then you start to understand, like it
really made me have much more understanding for my mother and
(39:02):
much more sympathy when I realized like, Oh my God, and
this is a horrible thing. And then, you know, 18 months
after a loss like this, and thenyou're pregnant and for nine
months of it and. Your hormones are all over the
place. Yeah, all over the place.
And then you have like an infantto cope with it and it's a lot,
It's a lot. So it's.
(39:25):
Do you have children? I have.
You do? Did you start to understand your
mother more when you had children?
What happened is what happened is when I was pregnant, it was I
hope it's a boy. I hope it's a boy.
I hope it's a boy. I hope it's a boy, you know,
like I didn't realize, like, because I still, you know,
(39:46):
didn't have this knowledge. And when it was a boy, then I it
was OK for me to have the girl. And so I think when my daughter
came along, it was a lot, you know, it was fine, but the
pressure was off, you know, and I'm going, what is this?
Is it because? Of I don't know, I mean, this is
so why is the boy held up like this?
(40:07):
You know, we're we don't have a castle that we have to.
Yeah. So it was really a lot of a lot
of pressure and. But I didn't understand because,
you know, I would have happily had 10 girls.
It would have been fine. It was like I wanted a girl.
I mean, I wanted one, a beach, which I got, but you know.
It is funny when you're pregnanthow many people will just walk
(40:29):
up to and randomly say, well youhope it's a boy or a girl.
And I just look at them and say I'm 40 years old.
I'm just hoping it's healthy. And then it was, I'm 44.
I hope it's healthy. That's all I'm hoping for.
I don't care how it comes out, just please be healthy.
I know. And you know the hormones that
are. Are raging.
(40:50):
Yeah, you reminded me of a storywhen you said, you know, that
happened to you when you were pregnant.
You started crying. We went to see I was 8 weeks
pregnant. I know because like by the next
week I was throwing up so much. I went and I've been able to go
anywhere but we went to see Annie Broadway show and we knew
somebody in the orchestra and weknew the the whole story that
(41:13):
the dog had been, you know, a rescue dog and all of this
they're fine. OK, so we're sitting there and
this is so not like and they nothing is happening really.
The dog comes on and Annie comeson all right.
This in the middle of a Broadwayshow.
I burst into tears. I can't stop crying.
I have picturesque and I knew this was crazy.
(41:36):
And he said, talk, if he hadn't been rescued, he would.
And there's so many orphan children, real orphan.
And he's looking at me like, youknow, And afterward I was
laughing about it. I said, well, if you want to
divorce me to help, please, I understand.
But he was like so crazy. And I'm going, I don't know
(41:57):
where this is coming from, but Iwas like, I couldn't stop at the
woman next to me. Nothing had happened.
This was like, you know? It's so relatable.
It really is. I mean, I remember our our son's
name is Steele and the whole time I was pregnant and Steele
was my husband's grandmother's maiden name, last name.
(42:22):
So we removed the E and just made him steel like heavy metal.
But the entire time I was pregnant, I don't dream at all,
but I would wake up or I don't recall a single dream.
I should say more correctly, theentire time I was pregnant, I
would wake up and say, if this is a boy, we cannot name him
Slate. It is so easy to have Slate
(42:43):
fracture into tons of pieces. And my good sport husband would
look at me and say, Diane, if it's a boy, the name's Steele,
not Slave. So you know.
Hormone. You know, it's Yeah, exactly.
You know, this just getting backto when somebody has a
miscarriage, so many people likebrush it off and they don't
(43:06):
realize that also. I mean, first of all, usually
you're attached by that time anyway and you know, the
hormones are in play big time. So it really hits the nail on
the head really hard if somebodymakes an off comment like, oh,
you can have more. You weren't even that pregnant,
(43:29):
I mean. Right, all those things people
say. Right, right.
Did you, did you interview people with that where they had
a mother that had multiple miscarriages?
You know, we have so many stories in the book and we have
so many other stories that we couldn't put in the book because
people were calling. I mean I.
Yeah, I'm sure they really came out.
(43:50):
That's why I said even it's not,you know, we talk about.
After the babies, which is a thing now that they talk about
the baby born after the death ofanother or a miscarriage,
miscarriage. And again, that's, you know,
it's a group of people who support each other.
But the people that we interviewed, a lot of them were
(44:11):
like so nervous with the next pregnancy that they couldn't
enjoy the pregnancy. You know, they said like, you
know, we already lost and peopledon't understand and we had so
many horrible remarks and that came up a lot.
A lot of the remarks were more painful than, you know, having
to go through the pregnancy again.
(44:31):
Well, it is the challenge of life.
What other people say without a filter?
Without. It is.
It is. Yeah, that's very, that's very
interesting to think about that.So, yeah, well, that's it.
They've gone from replacement children to rainbow children.
(44:55):
Yeah. That's an interesting transition
and phrase. Now, does a rainbow child feel
like they are the rainbow after I?
Haven't interviewed any of them but but remember that a child
born after the death, a child born or adopted after the death
of another is not a replacement child automatically.
(45:18):
Oh no, I understand what happens.
That this is, you know, maybe after they're born and the
parents can relax a little, theycan let that child be.
Be. Right.
I did actually, I did talk to one who said that and the, and a
parent, both of these two different cases, the parents
were like, you know, helicopter parents and the kids, you know,
(45:43):
because they were so afraid. Like we've had one horrible
experience and you know, we havePTSD and this is how it's coming
out. So they really need to get that
under control. Yes.
And, and, and it is important, as you keep pointing out, we're
not, we're not making generalizations here that this
(46:04):
is everyone. And.
We're, you know, and certainly not dualities, either you are or
you're not because of this or that.
So that's a very boxed in closedway of thinking.
Yeah, it's very individual to the child, to the child that
could be that. That child after a death that
doesn't even notice anything because that's just not what
(46:25):
they notice. They're just doing their own
then they're not replacing. Children, you know, that the
parents are able to let them be them.
Yeah. Themselves.
So yeah. What would you say today are the
most important factors that someone should consider going
(46:48):
forward with this kind of, let'ssay, research in this area?
Because when you started to write this book, you said you
really didn't find much researchon it.
There was very, yeah. Or historic history.
Kane and Kane, who coined replacement shop the the ward
started it, but there really, there really isn't there really
(47:11):
wasn't. And that's why I I found these
two women, Judy Mandel and Christina Shalinsky, who were
replacement children that we found each other kind of through
the Internet and we became friends and then formed this
group. And now there's some of a few
other books that are really goodthat are coming out on it, But
it's just, you know, it's, it hasn't been studied like, like
(47:37):
ADHD, you know, it's not, it's not something, this is something
you have to talk to people, findthe common denominators and go
from there. And then what we want to do is
just let people understand themselves better, Like go to
the root, you know, find a good therapist and say, this is what
was happening. This is why what I do in my
life, I married 10 times. I don't like getting wrong
(48:00):
relationships when you have the root, you can write things that
have been wrong, but if you justare covering it with a Band-Aid
because you don't know where it started from, you're going to
just be like covering recoveringwounds and not healing them
right. So that's.
(48:22):
That's quite a closing statementbecause it boggles my mind how
fast these hours go. Thank you for inviting.
Me, Oh my gosh, Rita, this has been a fascinating conversation.
You're you're a wealth of knowledge and you know, have
also taken your personal experience and tied it into all
that knowledge. So you've got the book and the
(48:44):
experience you'll all in one. Thank you.
Yeah. Really, it was a pleasure
speaking with you. I've been speaking with Rita
Batach. She's the co-author with Abigail
Brennan of a really intriguing book called Replacement
Children, the Unconscious Script.
And there'll be links to the book below and all kinds of
(49:05):
information about this and I highly recommend you give it a
read. It's shares a lot of insightful
life changing in life changing information for anybody who
wants to take the time to learn a little more about themselves,
others and others they love. Thank you very much, Rita.
(49:27):
Thank you very much. I'm Diane Griselle.
This has been the The Silver Disobedience Perception Dynamics
podcast we're recording here in Manhattan Center TV too.
It's a great place and I look forward to seeing you on the
next episode. Thanks for joining me.
Hello, I have a very interestingtopic today.
We're going to be talking about replacement children.
Now I'm not going to get into what that is, but my author
guest will. She is the author of Replacement
Children, The Unconscious Script.
(00:21):
She wrote it along with a psychiatrist, Abigail Brenner.
And if you followed my blog at all, you know, I'm very focused
on the scripts we run that sometimes need a little
tweaking. They need editing.
They need reprogramming. So what is a replacement child,
(00:44):
Rita? Well, first of all, replacement
child is not literal, It's figurative, and that's an
important thing to know. So the reason we use the words
replacement child is because it was coined in the 1960s by some
psychiatrist who studied a very small group of children who were
(01:07):
obviously having a lot of issuesbecause they had been born after
the death of a sibling. So that is how it came about.
And you know, I'm I'm not crazy about the term replacement
child. The other thing is this covers a
lot more than being born after the death of another child after
(01:30):
the loss. It's.
Which I can't imagine anything harder, harder, a parent and all
the emotions that are going on during that time and that
transference that it can occur. But it can happen also in a loss
after a child is born and there's a sibling loss.
(01:51):
It also is if it's like a child having to do double duty because
there's something going on with a sibling and then the family
falls apart. But the other thing that's
really important is not every child born after the death of a
child is a replacement child or adopted after a child.
It depends how it's handled. It's a trauma.
(02:14):
It's a special trauma that happens because the parents are
so scattered. And it's not, it's not blame
because the parents only need help too, but it's what happens
that other traumas that this trauma brings about other issues
for the child. How would how would you explain
(02:37):
what those issues are? Well, for instance, let me just
explain what my story was and how I came about with this
because I was born after I was born 18 months after the death
of a 14 year old brother who hadheart issues, okay.
And, you know, there was always something going on.
(03:00):
Like, you know, of course, my parents were in deep grief.
And my mother would, you know, she had a very hard time.
She was a very good mother. But because of this, and because
there wasn't help at that time, and that's the thing we want to
make people aware. Of.
What's happening? You know, it was always she made
my brother kind of God like, youknow, like a St.
(03:22):
And that happens a lot. And my name is Rita because they
wanted to have the for Robert. And I was always sort of
compare, you know, my mother would say your brother wouldn't
have talked to me like that. Your brother would have brought
home A's. Why are you, you know, so I was
always kind of competing with a ghost.
And I always felt like, what's what's going on here?
(03:43):
But I didn't know you know you're a.
Child trying to navigate it. Right.
So what happened is. It's an interesting
juxtaposition, a child's emotionversus adult grief and grieving.
And, you know, children, babies are programmed to survive, so
they pick up what's going on in the household even though they
(04:05):
can't say anything. And if a mother has a loss, lots
of times she can't connect to the next kid, you know, if she
hasn't really had help. So it sets up a lot of different
problems. So what happened is when one of
my children was in school, I went to lunch with some other
mothers from the class. And one of the mothers was
(04:28):
saying, you know, my daughter isnot my first child.
My first child had leukemia. And when she was six months old,
the doctor said, get pregnant, have another child, You're going
to lose this one, you know, justgo and do it.
So you know the story. I changed it a little bit in the
(04:51):
book because I couldn't find her.
But what happened is she had a child 10 days after the first
one died. Oh my gosh.
And she said it was so confusingthat there was no help, that she
was coming home with a child shedidn't know and didn't really
want to come home with. She wanted to come home with the
other child. And, you know, bingo, it started
(05:12):
to make sense because she was treating this child.
She was always critical. And my mother was quite
critical, but not of the second child.
There was always something goingon.
And matter of fact, we had spoken with other mothers, like,
is this the same father or is this what is going on?
And she was saying, you know, itwas very hard.
She said, I know I'm hard on her.
(05:33):
It's just, you know, I guess it's something I have to work
on. And I was going, Oh my God, you
know, this sounds very familiar.So I brought it up.
You know, sometimes when something happens and you bring
it up, all of a sudden all thesepeople.
The law of awareness. Everyone else.
Is it really? Well, you know, I love to, I
(05:54):
love the saying that when the student is ready, the teacher
will appear. And I mentioned it to somebody
and they go, oh, well, that happened to my cousin.
Oh, this happened to da da, da, da, da.
I'm going, what is this a thing?So I went to the bookstore and
there was nothing on it. And I thought, you know, there's
nothing on it. Even when I look in books about
(06:14):
grief or, you know, anything, there was nothing.
And I thought about it. And every time I would talk to
somebody, it was like, oh, yeah,I wish there was something
because that happened. I lost my twin and it was like,
horrible. And I was always doing double
duty. I said, you know, how come
there's nothing on it? It took me years.
(06:34):
But after speaking to people andafter speaking to my friend
Abigail, who's my Co writer, shehad never heard of it.
You know, she said, I don't knowwhat you're talking about.
So we have to write this becauseshe's written books.
I never went out to write a book.
But there's another saying that,you know, I always said, why
didn't somebody do something? And then I realized I'm someone.
(06:56):
So that's how I got started withthis.
And then Abigail said, let me like, explore it.
And then she came back like a couple of months later.
She said, oh, my God, this isn'twhy.
Why do therapists not get this? And she said, you know, what
happens? You go to a therapist, and the
therapist wants to know what's happening now.
Nobody says what's happening in your family, what was happening
(07:20):
when you were born because, you know, parents are different for
each child depending on what happens.
Oh, yeah. And that's the other thing that
we want to make therapists realize that lots of times this
is the root of the problems. And if you don't get to the
root, you're not really going tosolve the problem.
You're just putting a Band-Aid over a wound.
(07:42):
And so that's how this got started.
It's also the child who is living with a sibling who has
physical, mental, emotional issues.
And this can happen later in life.
That we have so many stories in the book.
The people were just coming out of the woodwork.
I was wondering, where am I going to get stories?
(08:02):
I know all these stories are written by the people who lived
it or you know, I interviewed them and they were very generous
and it made me really understandmy story more because it was on
the job, learning. So.
And then I met because of course, when all this was going
(08:23):
on, when I was finding out aboutreplacement children with the
woman who had lost her daughter,there was no Internet.
There was nothing that I could look up.
I could only go to the bookstoreand then became friends with
this woman who wrote her story called Replacement Child.
You see a wonderful book. Her name is Judy Mandel and it's
(08:44):
a true story. How in the 50s her parents were
living by the airport and a plane fell on their home in
Newark, NJ, killed her seven-year old sister and maimed
her two year old sister. And Judy was born to replace the
seven-year old. So, you know, it just, it just
became my world became inundatedwith people calling me through
(09:09):
other people who had said, you know, I always wondered about
this. I had like this and this and
this happened in my family. And I was responsible.
And I'm a perfectionist and I'm like crazy because I feel I have
to do everything right. And this so explains everything.
Well, in any family, there are always the dynamics of children.
You know, they talk about, you know, the first child, the last
(09:30):
child, the middle child, you know, no matter how many there
are, you're either middle or beginning or end.
And you know, that is a dynamic within itself and come and
certainly there's always generalizations in the world,
but generalizations exist for usto try to form some form of
framework. And there's the generalizations
(09:50):
of, you know, what are the pressures on that first child or
what that then become their personality versus that last
child that's baby and whatever. So and then you add the factor
of death of a child or as you said a child that maybe didn't
die or is has got some severe needs or has something that
(10:14):
needs to be taken care of. And so much of the parents
attention is towards that child because it just has to be.
And then the other child feels like the Either well could go
two ways. They have to be the savior of
the families or they rebel, because why is everything going
to that? They need the attention.
That's it. So we get attention negatively
(10:36):
or positively. Right, right.
So I mean, it's been so interesting because each story,
of course, it's on the spectrum and each story is different, but
there's so many common denominators.
One of the one of the stories that we also did, most of them
were present day stories, but wealso looked into famous people's
(10:59):
stories. And Princess Diana's is one of
the like, you can follow the dots.
I mean, when you read her story,you understand what happened to
her, that she was the wrong child when she was born, she was
the wrong wife when she married Charles.
What happened there is she had two older.
(11:21):
First of all, this was an aristocratic family that Diana
was born into and her parents were 18 years apart in age and
sort of married because, you know, both of them came from
higher up families and that was the thing to do.
But they really needed a boy in this family to carry on the
name. This was the big deal.
(11:42):
OK, so they had two girls and then they had a son.
He lived 10 hours. Oh my.
And you know, it was horrible. And the mother was never allowed
to hold him or see him and, of course, was in deep grief and
was pressured to have another child.
(12:04):
So Diana was her 4th pregnancy. And, you know, everybody
expected a boy. So when Diana was born, it was
huge disappointment. So she was born wrong to begin
with. That was the message for her.
And to the point where the father sent the mother off to
different doctors to find out what's wrong with you.
(12:24):
Why can't you have a son? Oh, my gosh.
And the marriage was rocky to begin with.
And Diana, in her biography, talks about like, you know, I
made things worse for them. So when they do, what a load of
guilt? Well, a load.
Of guilt. So when the mother ran off with
another man when she was 7, of course, you know, she was
(12:47):
blaming herself. But to backtrack, they didn't
have a name for her for a week. Because you know who was
expecting a girl. Finally, a boy is born to this
family three years after Diana. His name is Charles.
OK, this follows off a little thing here.
(13:07):
The mother and father are fighting.
The mother leaves with another man and is denied.
Really. The children, you know, she
wanted custody. It was a big thing.
And Diana and her brother were much younger than the older 2
girls who were in boarding school, so they kind of took
care of each other. And she said we used to go to
(13:29):
the dead child's grave and talk about how neither of us would
have been here if it wasn't for him.
Oh my goodness. So and then she ends up kind of
taking care of her brother Charles, who cries at night for
the mother when they go to visithim, when they go to visit the
mother there on the train together, they take care of each
(13:49):
other. So she also felt less than she
always said, you know, her siblings did well in school.
She never did. But she was a wonderful pianist,
and she wanted to be a ballerina, but she was 5 feet,
10 1/2 inches. So they said, no, you can teach.
She didn't want to teach. She wanted to shine somewhere.
(14:09):
And she never could find that sweet spot where she could
shine. You said there were
commonalities in people that youuncovered writing this book.
What do you think some of those commonalities were?
I think lower self esteem, but on the plus side, I feel like
there was a lot of drive to do things and prove yourself, you
(14:32):
know. I mean, so many of the people
that I interviewed had a tough time, but they were the movers
and shakers. It was like, you know, I needed
to do something. This wasn't accepted in my
family, but what the hell, I'm going to do it.
And they did it. Yeah.
So I meant, like amazing people with amazing stories.
Through this, a lot of them had to learn to get out of certain
(14:56):
modes, such as perfectionism. That was a big one.
That's not one of my things thatI wish I had a little more of
it. But perfectionism, that
everything had to be done right because the other child was so
needy, OK, if they were still alive or are, you know, or the
other child was perfect or the family was in such grief that
(15:17):
somebody had to be the hero. And that was the main thing that
I kept seeing over and over again.
And also people with a lot of empathy, You know, these were
people who were doing social work and psychology and they had
20 animals. And, you know, I saw that also
(15:39):
wanting to take care of things in a different way.
So it's not all, you know, gloomand doom.
It's like, yes, it's hard and it's a trauma, but it's
something that needs to be recognized.
So like teachers and therapists can understand where a child is
coming from and get to the root.Right.
(16:01):
You know, one of the things in in any counseling session, I
always say you don't have to dwell on it, but let's under,
you know, let's, let's spend even if it's 15 minutes to try
to understand how did you perceive your family dynamic and
your role within the family? Because you can be in a very
normal household, but you could have, you know, you know, a
(16:28):
brother or sister that's, you know, the wild 1.
So you're going to, you know, that you can tell is frustrating
the parents. So you're going to be the
peacekeeper or the other ones getting all that attention
because they're getting better grades.
So you're going to be that rebel.
So I think those family dynamicsquestions on the most elementary
level for anyone. Right, but a lot interesting.
(16:52):
Don't do that. A lot of therapists don't go
there and that's what they need to starting with what was
happening in the family when youmade your appearance, if you
were adopted or you know, and asI said, not every adopted child
or child born into a family likethis is the family needs to be
aware. And that's what we try to do,
(17:13):
you know, because and also any like even a miscarriage, a
miscarriage is a significant loss to women and does not get
the attention lots of times it deserves.
People will say you're young, you can have another child.
Why are you so upset? You know, you have two kids.
I mean, that's devastating to somebody.
And then they may be very nervous about the next child
(17:35):
they have, like, I lost the pregnancy, what now?
It was this child going to be normal?
Right. You know, so there's a lot of
elements to it that I discoveredafter talking to people and
interviewing people and see how needed this is, how just the
knowledge, the awareness. I, I can, I can see the, the
(18:00):
need on so many different levels.
And you reminded me of somethingas you talk about, you know, the
different dynamics within the family like that.
I remember when I was pregnant for the second time and bursting
out in tears in the middle of the meeting, a big meeting and I
was probably seven months pregnant and somebody said
(18:22):
something. And I remember the only thing I
said when they were like, what'swrong?
And they said, well, you just made me wonder, am I going to
want love this second child likeI love my first one?
And of course that kid was handed to me and I loved him.
You you realize how love expands.
It doesn't contract exactly. And you know, but that dynamic
(18:45):
of those emotions that get bought into it, what were what
are, what is something that surprised you in your research?
You know, what surprised me was how many people once you said
replacement child and said what it was said, Oh my God, you
know, I'm relieved to hear this.You know, it's a community that
(19:09):
there was like finally a community.
I think it's sort of like ADHD and being on the spectrum for
somebody who is not Asperger's but autistic, somebody who's
dyslexic. OK.
When I was going to school, there was nothing, you know,
nobody really even knew those words.
(19:31):
Then suddenly, I think it was a DDADHD was the first one that,
you know, it was like, hey, there's this thing and and now
there's research. There's people who can help
others with it. There's a community of I'm not
alone, I'm not crazy, I'm not lazy, I'm not stupid.
There's a community and that's the whole thing.
(19:52):
I feel like a community. Matter of fact, we started Judy
and I and another woman who's a psychoanalyst who's also a
replacement child, started Replacement Child Forum and with
just different references and resources and people could write
their stories. You said you didn't like the
(20:13):
word replacement child. What would you change it to if
you were going to retitle your? Book I have wanted to retitle it
and I can't. We put replacement child because
you can find it if you're looking in the big web out
there. It's sort of like the that other
(20:34):
child in the family, maybe name it something like that.
I think I would keep replacementchild and instead of I'd see it
definitely is a script. You're handed something that
you're doing differently unconsciously because of
circumstance. But I think I might put
something that it's a it's a matter of circumstance, you
(20:55):
know, a matter of circumstance. So people understand because
especially parents get very noseout of joy.
Like I didn't replace that child, right?
And it's not you haven't replaced the child, it's just
that they're fitting in. You know, also if a child is
born after the death of another child and people aren't open
(21:16):
about it, somebody that is a replacement child that this
happened to express this. And I thought this was such a
good way of saying it. It's like you're in a book club
and you've been given the second-half of the book, OK,
everybody else has the whole book and you're supposed to make
a report on it and you're supposed to have a back story.
Well, that's an interesting story is being made-up because
(21:37):
you really don't know so. That's, that's a very
interesting visual. Yeah.
I personally, personal opinion, I really dislike the labeling
and the grouping that has gone on, especially in the past, you
know, like words get tossed around, although those people
(22:01):
are toxic or this one's narcissist or you know, everyone
seems to have ADHD now or they've got some form of
something. And so I'm not a fan of those
words, but I certainly understand the value in using a
phrase or a concept to find community or commonality.
(22:24):
Yeah, that's I know if you can find another one.
I'm no, I don't, I don't have another one for you.
It's just, you know, it's an interesting, it's an interesting
concept because it's almost like, you know, like family
dynamics, you know, and death inchildren, you know, that's very
(22:44):
clinical. But you could also say, I mean,
I recently finished a course at University of Toronto ON
basically how children transfer things during how they develop
different dissociative behaviorsas a result of divorce.
(23:06):
So possibly, you know, whether it's the parent they're assigned
to live with or the one they don't get to live with and the
dynamics that occur, which in a way that marriage died and now
this kid is navigating the adultemotions.
You know, who should they love? Who do they have to take care
(23:29):
of? How do they take care of one?
They used to love them both. They think they still love them
both. How do you get through those
different dynamics? And it's very similar in a
situation like this, because it's still a child trying to
navigate adult emotions. Right.
With their own right and findingthat merger and where it fits,
(23:51):
and in the best of circumstances, any family has
dynamics. Right well the first story in
our book was so well written by this gal who her 8 year old
sister was hit by a car and the father was the one who said, oh
you can play for a few minutes more and carried that guilt.
(24:13):
So when Shelly was born, he tried to make her into the
sister like, you know, and and she was so opposite like the
sisters love ballet and she hated ballet.
The sister like classical music.And she said she always was
trying. She always felt like she was her
and that she was supposed to be her and she never could.
(24:34):
And she said that she became a perfectionist anything little
disappointment. She goes crazy if she's not able
to do it. And she said only after we
interviewed her did she take this to her therapist and
started to work on the root of that.
Well, that's such an interestingdisclosure and story because,
(24:54):
you know, I've often said to people when when somebody will
say, well, there's no differencebetween boys and girls, I'm
like, Oh my God, you have not had a child and you have not
been around boys and girls. I mean, our daughter, you know,
could see pink across the airport where somebody else's
daughter might love blue. Our son never met a Barbie doll
that he didn't want to pick up and make a sword, you know, and
(25:19):
it's this, it's every person's personality.
And when you, when you've actually observed children and
just kind of let them be, you realize what fascinates 1 is
completely different than what fascinates another.
Those personalities, you know, whether you call it nature or
nurture, I think they're both incredibly strong.
(25:39):
I could never decide which I think is more weighted.
Right. And if anything, I'd probably
say nature, because somebody comes into the world one way and
the rest of the people have to figure out how to nurture that
or not. There's a documentary called 3
Identical Strangers. Oh, about the.
Triplets. Triplets that were the horrible
(26:01):
story because they this adoptionagency was doing an experiment
and took the three and gave 1 toa poor family 1 to a middle
class family and went to anotherfamily who was very wealthy.
Oh my gosh. And it's a true story and they
find each other by accident. One one goes to the university
and doesn't go back the next year and people kept coming up
(26:23):
to this other kid saying, Hey, we thought you weren't coming
back and he's going I what I'm this is my first year and they
introduced him to the second one.
OK, it goes viral and you know, I mean, you need to see this.
And a third one says, Oh my God,I I'm.
There I am. And it's so interesting because
(26:44):
they had so much in common and yet you could see where.
And so that was very interesting.
It's a horrible, I mean, it's horrible what happened to them.
But it's interesting because, you know, they had a lot of the
same taste and, and differences.Very interesting.
(27:05):
It was very interesting. It's fascinating, those nature
things. The other day I was just with my
younger brother and I'm looking at him and we're talking and I'm
thinking, my gosh, he reminds meso much of my older brother.
And they're, you know, a lot of years apart and, you know, my
older, our older brother was pretty much out of the house by
(27:28):
the time our younger brother. So they didn't spend that much
time together. It's not like it's mimicking.
It's just that nature of what happens in genetics, the family
dynamic, everything else that develops.
You can see this with adopted children, you know, if they like
kind of find their bio family, lots of times there's a feeling
(27:51):
of like, wow, we do the same thing.
We have a dog named the same, you know, so it's it's very
interesting, but we have a lot of stories also about adoption.
I mean, sometimes it's, you know, just perfectly fine, but
the problems lies if they are trying to replace a child or
(28:14):
have an idea of, you know, my child would be like this.
Why are you like that? You know, because again, nature
versus nature. Yeah.
But even, you know, it's funny when I used to say to everyone,
oh, you should have kids, I saidthat when I was younger.
Now I can count the amount of times I've said that to people.
I think a lot of people shouldn't have I.
(28:35):
Agree I. Agree and I that might be the
wrong thing to say, but I reallydo think that, you know, because
it is something you've got to accept.
I mean, I can remember, you know, just, you know, with our
daughter thinking she's going towear this because I think it's
cute and you know her taking herlittle plastic scissors and
(28:55):
cutting it to pieces because shedidn't think it was cute or she
thought it needed a little modification, you know, and that
just, you know, that's the nature of the beast.
It's the same thing. And you know, our son, this same
thing, couldn't get a pair of jeans on.
That Kitty wanted to wear sweatpants, you know, until he
(29:16):
absolutely couldn't wear them anymore, you know, because
school had started. But those different dynamics and
you think you're going to control this.
And then you realize when that kid arrives, they are so unique.
So taking that uniqueness and trying and trying to make them
into someone else. Yeah, he's.
Painful. Right, right.
(29:38):
It's, it's, you know, what challenge is, is that child
going to have because the parentneeds, the parents needs come
through so strongly and the child wants to balance it out,
you know, also for their safety,if they're a baby, you know,
they need to get what they need as a baby, as an infant.
So they will adjust to what the parent needs.
(30:02):
And that's where the script comes in.
That's where the road changes that the child should be able to
be their own person. And when forced not to be, you
know, how did they come back to square 1?
I mean, I, I think whether it's in this or other things going on
in society right now, we're seeing so much where I just want
(30:25):
to grab certain children and just grab them and say you're
just great exactly the way you. Are I agree with you 100 and.
You know, there is nothing wrongwith you.
You are in the right body, you are perfect.
You know, this is great how you are and let's just take you from
here. Who you are, you know who you
(30:46):
are. Don't let somebody else get in
the way there. Yeah.
But the problem is lots of timesthey don't realize that they're
being influenced or having to work a certain way because it's
to keep the peace. Yeah.
You know, this kind of brings itback to who are you?
You know what, what do you want?Not what is it that you're doing
(31:08):
that somebody else is forcing you to do?
Or you feel safer doing it that way?
What do you think you've learnedabout family dynamics from
interviewing? You know, hierarchies within
family dynamics, the interplay. It's like I've learned so much
from in so many different ways. I feel like most families have
(31:31):
something to cope with. You know, it's not like there's
a perfect family, but I feel like awareness is missing from
so many families in so many different ways, not just this.
And, you know, we have a societythat is very difficult.
I feel like like in Denmark and Sweden, they teach children.
(31:53):
This is part of the school curriculum, how to be kind, how
to have empathy for each other. You know, I feel like American
families are kind of on your own.
You have an issue, you have a problem.
Maybe somebody will get you to atherapist.
Maybe somebody will be there foryou.
You know, we don't have a structure in our society that is
(32:15):
really, how do I say it like more than helpful, But you know,
it's like where these other countries do.
Well, I do think, I personally think that's a large
responsibility for parents. It is.
And, you know, if you choose to have children, it's a
responsibility and a big one. And it lasts your whole life.
(32:39):
And it doesn't change. And I know, Pete, you know, I
know my mother was worried about, you know, me at 93 when
she died. She was still worried about, you
know, you know, any one of us. And so I just think the worry,
the concern is omnipresent once you have a child and it's up to
(33:01):
that parent to nurture the childas best they.
Can a lot of people don't know how, you know, we should do more
with educating kids, even in high school what how to
discipline correctly, all right,how to talk to a child, not, you
know, you don't know what their family did or how they, you
(33:21):
know, So there needs to be some structure that it really teaches
people young, OK, what it is to have a child, OK, that it's a
lifelong commitment and what to do with a child to, you know, to
make it more caring, more comfortable and secure in
themselves. So I really think that we're
(33:42):
missing out on in this country. I mean, I feel like high school,
lots of it is a waste. You know, the kids are sitting
there saying, when the hell I mean, I was, I think like when I
get out of here, I'm going to travel.
I'm not going to look back. You know, it would be nice for
kids to first of all, know what's out there.
I had no idea what I wanted to do when I grew up.
(34:02):
You know, I have really no idea.So, but it would be nice to have
things that go back to family things because so many families
are fractured and people don't know.
I mean, if you've been in a divorced home or a home with a
parent missing because they diedor you're in a single family
home or whatever, you need to know, you need to know basic
(34:25):
ways of dealing with life and with children that we don't
have. So I would have classes in that.
How do you? How do you fine resolution for
that? What do you, what do you
suggest? What do you suggest to parents?
Let's say while you were workingon this book, what would you
have said to them if they were trying to find coping
(34:46):
mechanisms? First of all, I would have well,
you see, this book is actually for parents, but it's really the
target is for the child, the individuals who have been in
this situation. But I would tell anybody who has
had a loss or is having a lot ofissues, get a good therapist, a
lot of really bad therapist out there.
(35:08):
OK, get a good therapist and getsome support because that's
that's what you need. You need support from someone
who knows what they're doing. If you're having a very hard
time, if you've had a horrible loss, you need that.
And then, you know, there's no right time to have a baby.
You know, I mean, if somebody has a horrible loss and they
(35:30):
they just have to do, then nobody should say put it off.
It's an individual thing. But at that point, they should
be also getting help. They should be getting support
and they should be understandingthat, yes, grieve this child,
but this new child that's comingin, don't put the same
expectations on that child. Yeah, well, I think that's
(35:51):
important. Yeah, I think anyone who's a
parent would say probably the biggest challenge is a parenting
which we all recognize and then adapt, is that each, each one is
different. You know, you're different than
anyone in your family. You know, you're just like,
(36:11):
we're different. You know you because you marvel
and you say, wait a second. We both made that kid and we
both made this kid, but they're different.
Is traumatized and going througha rough time.
It's very hard sometimes to be objective and to understand what
you're doing and understand whatthe next step is.
Yes, and lots of times you need somebody to help you with that
(36:31):
next step. I wholeheartedly agree.
And, and I think you make great points about, you know, finding
that good therapist because there are plenty of not good
therapist. And the new trends right now in
psychology are really frightening to me that, oh, I'm
going to, I'm you're going to pay me and I'm going to share my
experience with you so you, you know, so you can bond.
(36:56):
I'm like, Oh my gosh. I mean, and this is actually
getting written up in PsychologyToday.
It's a regular new column kind of thing.
I'm like, you've got to be kidding me.
Right. I don't want to bond with a
therapist. I want to be one step ahead of
me and help guide me. And someone who I'm going to pay
to have them tell me my their problems, I'm like, Oh my God.
(37:16):
But it's, it's, it's a real thing now.
And there's people who are very publicly saying this is the way
to go. Yeah.
And you know what, do you heard that one?
Yeah. Big one now, big one now in.
Do you think, would you encourage support kind of
(37:37):
groups? Oh yes, definitely.
Yeah, well, that's what Replacement Child Forum was too,
support. And, you know, they could ask us
anything. They, I mean, people, we had
letters that were, Oh my God, you know, thank you.
I was so looking for something like this and I didn't even know
(37:57):
what to call it, you know? So I, I, I feel very proud of
that. How do you from that because it
is fantastic. How does how do you think that
that child that was in that we'll call that the replacement
child, How do you think their personality evolves and what
(38:18):
they learn to cope with as an adult who now understands a
little more of the family dynamic?
Well, first of all, you have to understand that it's a spectrum,
that everybody has had very different circumstances, but you
know, there are common denominators of feeling that
they have to do more or something else was put upon them
that they're different than their friend next door.
(38:41):
So it's so individual. But I think that the biggest
take away for them would be findthe route.
Where did this come from? And, and what did it do to the
family? How did it?
It's very complex, but then you start to understand, like it
really made me have much more understanding for my mother and
(39:02):
much more sympathy when I realized like, Oh my God, and
this is a horrible thing. And then, you know, 18 months
after a loss like this, and thenyou're pregnant and for nine
months of it and. Your hormones are all over the
place. Yeah, all over the place.
And then you have like an infantto cope with it and it's a lot,
It's a lot. So it's.
(39:25):
Do you have children? I have.
You do? Did you start to understand your
mother more when you had children?
What happened is what happened is when I was pregnant, it was I
hope it's a boy. I hope it's a boy.
I hope it's a boy. I hope it's a boy, you know,
like I didn't realize, like, because I still, you know,
(39:46):
didn't have this knowledge. And when it was a boy, then I it
was OK for me to have the girl. And so I think when my daughter
came along, it was a lot, you know, it was fine, but the
pressure was off, you know, and I'm going, what is this?
Is it because? Of I don't know, I mean, this is
so why is the boy held up like this?
(40:07):
You know, we're we don't have a castle that we have to.
Yeah. So it was really a lot of a lot
of pressure and. But I didn't understand because,
you know, I would have happily had 10 girls.
It would have been fine. It was like I wanted a girl.
I mean, I wanted one, a beach, which I got, but you know.
It is funny when you're pregnanthow many people will just walk
(40:29):
up to and randomly say, well youhope it's a boy or a girl.
And I just look at them and say I'm 40 years old.
I'm just hoping it's healthy. And then it was, I'm 44.
I hope it's healthy. That's all I'm hoping for.
I don't care how it comes out, just please be healthy.
I know. And you know the hormones that
are. Are raging.
(40:50):
Yeah, you reminded me of a storywhen you said, you know, that
happened to you when you were pregnant.
You started crying. We went to see I was 8 weeks
pregnant. I know because like by the next
week I was throwing up so much. I went and I've been able to go
anywhere but we went to see Annie Broadway show and we knew
somebody in the orchestra and weknew the the whole story that
(41:13):
the dog had been, you know, a rescue dog and all of this
they're fine. OK, so we're sitting there and
this is so not like and they nothing is happening really.
The dog comes on and Annie comeson all right.
This in the middle of a Broadwayshow.
I burst into tears. I can't stop crying.
I have picturesque and I knew this was crazy.
(41:36):
And he said, talk, if he hadn't been rescued, he would.
And there's so many orphan children, real orphan.
And he's looking at me like, youknow, And afterward I was
laughing about it. I said, well, if you want to
divorce me to help, please, I understand.
But he was like so crazy. And I'm going, I don't know
(41:57):
where this is coming from, but Iwas like, I couldn't stop at the
woman next to me. Nothing had happened.
This was like, you know? It's so relatable.
It really is. I mean, I remember our our son's
name is Steele and the whole time I was pregnant and Steele
was my husband's grandmother's maiden name, last name.
(42:22):
So we removed the E and just made him steel like heavy metal.
But the entire time I was pregnant, I don't dream at all,
but I would wake up or I don't recall a single dream.
I should say more correctly, theentire time I was pregnant, I
would wake up and say, if this is a boy, we cannot name him
Slate. It is so easy to have Slate
(42:43):
fracture into tons of pieces. And my good sport husband would
look at me and say, Diane, if it's a boy, the name's Steele,
not Slave. So you know.
Hormone. You know, it's Yeah, exactly.
You know, this just getting backto when somebody has a
miscarriage, so many people likebrush it off and they don't
(43:06):
realize that also. I mean, first of all, usually
you're attached by that time anyway and you know, the
hormones are in play big time. So it really hits the nail on
the head really hard if somebodymakes an off comment like, oh,
you can have more. You weren't even that pregnant,
(43:29):
I mean. Right, all those things people
say. Right, right.
Did you, did you interview people with that where they had
a mother that had multiple miscarriages?
You know, we have so many stories in the book and we have
so many other stories that we couldn't put in the book because
people were calling. I mean I.
Yeah, I'm sure they really came out.
(43:50):
That's why I said even it's not,you know, we talk about.
After the babies, which is a thing now that they talk about
the baby born after the death ofanother or a miscarriage,
miscarriage. And again, that's, you know,
it's a group of people who support each other.
But the people that we interviewed, a lot of them were
(44:11):
like so nervous with the next pregnancy that they couldn't
enjoy the pregnancy. You know, they said like, you
know, we already lost and peopledon't understand and we had so
many horrible remarks and that came up a lot.
A lot of the remarks were more painful than, you know, having
to go through the pregnancy again.
(44:31):
Well, it is the challenge of life.
What other people say without a filter?
Without. It is.
It is. Yeah, that's very, that's very
interesting to think about that.So, yeah, well, that's it.
They've gone from replacement children to rainbow children.
(44:55):
Yeah. That's an interesting transition
and phrase. Now, does a rainbow child feel
like they are the rainbow after I?
Haven't interviewed any of them but but remember that a child
born after the death, a child born or adopted after the death
of another is not a replacement child automatically.
(45:18):
Oh no, I understand what happens.
That this is, you know, maybe after they're born and the
parents can relax a little, theycan let that child be.
Be. Right.
I did actually, I did talk to one who said that and the, and a
parent, both of these two different cases, the parents
were like, you know, helicopter parents and the kids, you know,
(45:43):
because they were so afraid. Like we've had one horrible
experience and you know, we havePTSD and this is how it's coming
out. So they really need to get that
under control. Yes.
And, and, and it is important, as you keep pointing out, we're
not, we're not making generalizations here that this
(46:04):
is everyone. And.
We're, you know, and certainly not dualities, either you are or
you're not because of this or that.
So that's a very boxed in closedway of thinking.
Yeah, it's very individual to the child, to the child that
could be that. That child after a death that
doesn't even notice anything because that's just not what
(46:25):
they notice. They're just doing their own
then they're not replacing. Children, you know, that the
parents are able to let them be them.
Yeah. Themselves.
So yeah. What would you say today are the
most important factors that someone should consider going
(46:48):
forward with this kind of, let'ssay, research in this area?
Because when you started to write this book, you said you
really didn't find much researchon it.
There was very, yeah. Or historic history.
Kane and Kane, who coined replacement shop the the ward
started it, but there really, there really isn't there really
(47:11):
wasn't. And that's why I I found these
two women, Judy Mandel and Christina Shalinsky, who were
replacement children that we found each other kind of through
the Internet and we became friends and then formed this
group. And now there's some of a few
other books that are really goodthat are coming out on it, But
it's just, you know, it's, it hasn't been studied like, like
(47:37):
ADHD, you know, it's not, it's not something, this is something
you have to talk to people, findthe common denominators and go
from there. And then what we want to do is
just let people understand themselves better, Like go to
the root, you know, find a good therapist and say, this is what
was happening. This is why what I do in my
life, I married 10 times. I don't like getting wrong
(48:00):
relationships when you have the root, you can write things that
have been wrong, but if you justare covering it with a Band-Aid
because you don't know where it started from, you're going to
just be like covering recoveringwounds and not healing them
right. So that's.
(48:22):
That's quite a closing statementbecause it boggles my mind how
fast these hours go. Thank you for inviting.
Me, Oh my gosh, Rita, this has been a fascinating conversation.
You're you're a wealth of knowledge and you know, have
also taken your personal experience and tied it into all
that knowledge. So you've got the book and the
(48:44):
experience you'll all in one. Thank you.
Yeah. Really, it was a pleasure
speaking with you. I've been speaking with Rita
Batach. She's the co-author with Abigail
Brennan of a really intriguing book called Replacement
Children, the Unconscious Script.
And there'll be links to the book below and all kinds of
(49:05):
information about this and I highly recommend you give it a
read. It's shares a lot of insightful
life changing in life changing information for anybody who
wants to take the time to learn a little more about themselves,
others and others they love. Thank you very much, Rita.
(49:27):
Thank you very much. I'm Diane Griselle.
This has been the The Silver Disobedience Perception Dynamics
podcast we're recording here in Manhattan Center TV too.
It's a great place and I look forward to seeing you on the
next episode. Thanks for joining me.
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