Dozens of people who grew up around Philadelphia learned decades later
they shared the same biological father, a pioneering infertility doctor.
Transcript
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Last week, we began telling you an exclusive story about a long-held secret. It’s about dozens of people who learned late in life that the dads who raised them were not their biological fathers. Turns out they were all fathered by the same man, a pioneering infertility specialist. Instead of becoming consumed with anger and bitterness, these half-siblings did something unexpected. They came together and bonded. They’ve even had reunions. In our final episode, NPR’s Frank Langfitt explains how these strangers formed a family.
FRANK LANGFITT, BYLINE: Brina is one of the offspring of Dr. Charles Charny. Like some other siblings, she asked NPR not to use her full name to protect the privacy of some family members. Brina is a retired college professor. She says when her half-brothers and sisters first saw one another, many connected over shared physical traits. She explained at a sibling lunch last year in New York.
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BRINA: You know, like Peggy (ph) and Paul (ph) and, I guess, also Larry (ph). There’s a few who have, like, really high cheekbones, and then you have the Frankenstein forehead. A lot of us have, like, these huge foreheads.
LANGFITT: Some also connected over the profession they shared with the father they never knew – medicine. Their biological father, Dr. Charles Charny, was a renowned urologist who lived in Philadelphia. Gil Brodsky, a doctor himself, talked about it at a sibling reunion this year in Florida.
GIL BRODSKY: We’ve got, you know…
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Right.
BRODSKY: …Thirteen docs among us. And none of us – of the 13 of us – grew up in a family where either parent was a doctor. It’s one of the interesting mysteries of the family.
LANGFITT: Like their biological father, many of the sibs excelled academically. Gil studied medicine at Harvard, as did his half-sibling, Scott (ph). When Gil attended the sibling get-together in 2018, he was surprised to run into Scott. He shared the story in an earlier phone call.
BRODSKY: When we went to my first reunion, Scott said, I know you. I said, huh? He says, yeah, we were in medical school. I was a year behind you. We were friends in Vanderbilt Hall. So we talked about who our various friends were. And then he said, who’d you go out with? And there were a few that we had in common.
LANGFITT: In addition to Harvard, other Charny sibs, as they refer to themselves, attended MIT, Yale, Penn and Johns Hopkins.
BRODSKY: We’re a very distinguished family. We’ve got X number of doctors and authors and heads of academic departments and things like that. And it’s like, wow, that’s my family.
LANGFITT: As more half-siblings popped up on DNA websites, Gil and others served as ambassadors, helping newcomers grapple with the revelation.
BRODSKY: It wasn’t like, hey, I got to tell you this – something, fella. We try to be sensitive about it, and there’s no shame. You know, we’re proud to be who we are.
LANGFITT: But first contact can be tricky. How do you tell someone their father isn’t who they think he is? Joe Lubeck is a Philadelphia neurologist. When he popped up on a website as a half-sibling, Gil contacted him. Joe knew he’d been conceived with the help of a sperm donor but did not yet know who that donor was. Before the two spoke, Joe found an old photo of Gil online. The resemblance was striking.
JOE LUBECK: It looked like my college yearbook picture. I couldn’t believe it. And I showed this to my wife, and it was, like, holy [expletive].
LANGFITT: When Joe got on the line with Gil, Joe was on edge.
LUBECK: I got angry because I thought that Gil was going to tell me that his father, the one that raised him, that he had the privilege of growing up in the same household with, was my sperm donor. And I was actually relieved when he told me otherwise.
LANGFITT: Why?
LUBECK: Well, there was nothing that Gil had that I was really deprived of.
LANGFITT: Gil explained to Joe that he wasn’t alone. He was part of something much larger. After hearing this, Joe says he went from trepidation to excitement. But some conversations with siblings backfired. Brina recalls reaching out to a half-sister after seeing her listed as a close relative on a DNA site. Before she spoke with Brina, the woman had no idea the man who had raised her wasn’t her biological father.
BRINA: She was very angry. My other siblings told me that I’d better lawyer up, that I’m going to get sued. And I’m like, what can I be sued for?
LANGFITT: What was she angry about?
BRINA: That I told her she was donor conceived. She had four cousins on the phone drilling me and trying to poke holes in my story to figure out where I was not telling the truth.
LANGFITT: Brina says the episode underscores just how difficult it is to share a revelation like this with a stranger.
BRINA: She’s absolutely correct. I do not know. At the time I’m talking to someone, I don’t know who they are, what’s happening in their life, whether or not this is a good moment to talk or not.
LANGFITT: Diane, who also asked that her full name not be used, is an author and entrepreneur in Boston. She says other half-siblings rejected this idea of a new family as well.
DIANE: We have 10 that really don’t want anything to do with this. They are angry at their parents. They don’t like us. They don’t want to engage.
LANGFITT: But for those raised as only children, the discovery of so many half-siblings has been a wonderful surprise. Larry Brook (ph) is a retired CPA. He’s 81.
LARRY BROOK: There are negatives to being an only child. The biggest negative is you have nobody to talk to. You have nobody to play with. I wanted siblings growing up much more than some. I mean, I always wanted a sister. I now have 30.
LANGFITT: The sibling reunions have now gone on for a decade. At January’s mini reunion in Fort Lauderdale, the siblings seemed like old friends or brothers and sisters. One day, the siblings and their spouses shared lunch on a terrace. After lunch, Dena Harris, an OBGYN, caught up with me by an artificial waterfall next to the hotel pool. She reflected on how the reunions and relationships have changed over the years.
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DENA HARRIS: Now, it’s evolving into a different kind of meeting where we just want to have fun with each other. That’s all. So – and you could see we really do like each other. We get along really well. It’s very bizarre.
LANGFITT: The Charny sibs have had time to ponder the meaning behind their extraordinary experience. Diane frames it like this.
DIANE: At the end of the day, this entire story is about – what is family?
LANGFITT: Diane now sees parenthood and family as defined by love and nurture, not biology.
DIANE: I have no questions about who my father was. My father was not my sperm donor. My father was the guy who taught me how to ride a bike and who took me out for Chinese food on Sundays. That’s my dad.
LANGFITT: Brina draws a broader lesson.
BRINA: My entire life, the way that I’ve coped with things that are difficult or challenging is to look at it and say how can I make this work as something positive in my life? I’m a big believer that we have choices in how we may look at things. And if one way of thinking about something isn’t working, you have a choice.
LANGFITT: A choice to take a potential catastrophe and turn it into something affirming and meaningful. Frank Langfitt, NPR News, Fort Lauderdale.
CHANG: Frank interviewed 18 family members over the past year for this story. You can hear a full version of this tale on The Sunday Story on NPR’s Up First podcast.
(SOUNDBITE OF MARCOS VALLE, ET AL. SONG, “GOTTA LOVE AGAIN”)
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