Defining Family Through Biology and Choice

Take your flexibility beyond the mat PayPal Pay nothing at checkout. Then enjoy a flexible monthly payment plan that works for you. W no sign up or late fees. Find yours then, and an easy way to pay. With PayPal. Download the PayPal app to get started. sububject to approval. pay mononthly consonsumer loans made by Webank. available through PayPaling N ML nine one zero four fivety seven. Learn more at payPal d. com slash pay Monthly. And we're live on match dayay as Doug reaches for a buffalo wing. He's got it. Oh and he's gone for a can of Pepsy too. What a finish There's no doubt about it. It just tastes better. Match days deserve Psy Welcome to this month's episode of Answer us Back where we feature your opinions, listener, about the questions recent and long past in Answer Me this. But before we get to your emails, actually, something I have feedback on, Helen. And that is, you may recall in episode three hundred and ninety two. the last festive edition of season one, two thousand seven to twenty twenty one. You say I may recall, but I don't Oh Well, wait, you don't know I'm going to say. I say it, you'll be like, o Oh ye, I do remember that I talked about my dislike of Elf on the shelf. Elf Cop. Right. Actually, I hadn't even heard of Elf on the shelf when we recorded it, but then I found out what it was in the course of making the show and voiced my obvious displeasure for this consumerist monstrosity. And now you have children of ellf in age Yes And I have changed my ways. Really because you want an elf cop in the house. What happened is my nine year old Harvey accompanied me to the supermarket the other day And basically to stop him being a massive bell end because it's not his favorite place, Morrisons I said If you're good, at the end of this trip, you can choose something to buy, right? I mean, within reason He then got very excited when he saw the he calls it a naughty elf. That's what kids his age call it. It's not even. I think they're a rip off elf on the shelf copycat products now And he was like, I want one of these. And I was like Okay ye, I was looked at the price tag and it was like four quids. I was like, allright, fine well if it keeps quiet. And he was like, Do you know what it does? And We've had the Santa chat. so I was like, Yeah, it's an elf model that you move around the house in different positions. And he looked at me like No it does it on its own. I was thinking's That's so interesting. like we're very clear on Santa, but moving elves Definitely a thing. Okaykay fine. And he gave me the look as if to say I think he knows really, but he was like, I'm going to play this game with you It moves by itself. He wants to believe. Yeah, exactly. And actually it's been super fun the laugh of Tw young children coming downstairs of a morning in their pajamas to witness their toy taking a shit is worth its RRP. Do you have like twenty four scenarios in mind or do you improvise each night? We improvise each night and that's genuinely part of the fun as well. I'm a bit worried that by the twentieth of December he'll want a full mis en seine. You know he'll want a diorama at the moment he's settling for It has its hands on a different cupboard or it's relaxing on the picture frame. It's not being that naughty is the thing at the moment. Yeah. It's not like full flower all over the floor. Not yet. Little crashed toy plane. But like I say, positioned on the toilet, clearly trying to take a poo, that's naughty enough for them big ripple of laughter. I was like, well this is actually quite nice. There's a nicer way to start the day than I don't want to pull on my shoes. Yeah, they can save that for the second thing to do in the day. Exactly right, yes. justust a little thing that makes life a little bit more fun likeike my Gyatonic advent calendar, which I'm also enjoying very much at this time of year Breakfast time. I do open the door at breakfast time. I don't consume it until the evening. Okay It's quite moderate because they alternate the tonic in the gin. Oh really? It's a pairing calendar. So actually it's only every two days that you get a gin and tonic Jesus would be livid. Well, here's some exciting news for you, Ollie. courtesy of Laura, who says, as you discussed in answering this episode four hundred seven Please see my attached photo of a mixed box of stock. I was shocked. She was shock stocked becausecause Oie you were yearning after A mixed box of stock cubes. what Laura has sent is those little oxo stock pots where it's like a little G. Yes, yeah, a little tub of gelatin. something that the elf on the shelf could use as a footpath That sort of size. In rich beef and succulent chicken flavours. So what she sent is a picture of I mean, they're calling it Does it say a variety pack? Does it say variety? it say a variety pack? I mean, it's not a variety pack, is it It's two. I'd say you need three for true variety Correct As we discussed in the episode that she's referring to,Questionnaire Lindsay suggested a whole rainbow of stocks that could go into a variety pack I don't think two beef two chicken counts as variety. That's I mean it's a conservative coalition, is' what it is, isn't it? Well, keep on searching Laura, Perhaps Joy will await you at some other time But for now, Oie Man cannot rest on this stock variy pack. No, but it's interesting is it because we had feedback after that discussion saying o, no, my wife works in the catering industry and they'd do that because they'd lose money. Well, here's the proof It is possible And mayaybe an indication that someone from OxO is ans me this listen Well, they've not drreamed big enough. No, exactly. Not drreamed as big as Ollly m. That's a good start though. They need to dream as big as Cliff Richard. Did you see this meme last Christmas No, I'm fine for Cliff Richard Memes, I guess. Well, he has a Christmas gravy as revealed to Woman's Weekly in december twenty twenty four Cliff's Christmas gravy I'm not making this up. No, why would you I wouldn't be able to. He fries onions with dried mixed herbs until it goes soft's a decent It's a reasonable start it gets weird. Classic opener. Trumbles eight Oxo stock cubes over the mix Mmm, too beef Two chicken Tw vegetable Two lamb Do you think he's experimented to get the perfect proportion? He's like, no, two, two, two, that's the best. You want three lamb, You don't want no beef? He then adds boiling water and this this is the finale, which is impressive Okay, I'm scared. Yeah, you should be teaspoon each of Teriarchy source Soy sauce. and Worcestershirece Okay, that's a salty conoper. That is a salty mix, isn't it? Okay, Cliff. I mean, happy it's working for you. Do you think if Oxo though said, we want to do the Cliff Variety pack with your face on it so that people can buy it withith all the ingredients ready portioned. he'd be like, yeah, I'll do that. I think he would. I think it's nice when celebrities offer a recipe to these things that is clearly clearly their. They actually do. Be I remember like when I used to be a secretary at BBC News that people would send in stuff all the time asking for recipes for a charity book and there were just these standard ones you send back it's always like for a grilled chicken salad something boring like that. But Cliff's gravy sounds genuine. and I remember last year as well, something went viral when the author Nicholas Sparks, who wrote the notebook was interviewed and he was making like a chicken salad while the interviewer was there. and It had do you know, like chicken, a bit of celery, mayonnaise, and sixteen packets of splendor That is at least fifteen and a half too many packets of splendor to have in a house. More recent feedback now in answer me this four hundred one two, so last episode we were discussing Angela and her multiple namesakes who sometometimes inadvertently, sometimes perhaps deliberately, send Sam to her Gmail address Well, it's not spam. It just feels like spam to her, but to them, it's like relevant banking information and stuff. Margaret has been in touch, and can I say this is just a sort of tiny tip of the iceberg. People related hard to this scenario. Oh yeah. She says, My name isn't especially common, but during the pandemic, I received several completed math homework assignments to my email address. The class was studying quadratic equations M. So I pretty much she has the same name as a math teacher I guess. My maths teacher at school didn't have the same name as anybody But he did look exactly like Matthew Corbett from the Sooty Show Wow. likeike exactly the same. Are you sure he wasn't? Certain he wasn't because prerecocious Ollie Man put together an awards spoof show and gave him an award for looking like him and he was not happy. Well, maybe because he was trying to stay undercover. He was like, I'm just trying to keep the fame part of my life separate from my maths passion. Maybe they were separated at birth and it was his secret twin and he was angry that he' Daniel Fenton has also been in touch, who says, The most consistent mixed up text or emails I get are occasional business loan offers addressed to a dentist with the same name as me, who happens to live about an hour down the road from me in Florida. As in Angela's email was the hot thing. The home of these email mistakes. The home of mislaid emails I've never been to dentist Daniel Fenton, but I wonder if it was just a data scrape from various websites and my phone number got associated with his dental practice for some reason. Maybe I wonder what happens if you take out a business loan in somebody else's name. Oh my God. I mean, I suppose it's fraud, but if they contacted you, could you say you just thought it was you who was taking out the loan? I supposed it's fraud, but because no one told me not to, it just did it. so you can't prosecute me by. They sound like a legitimate loan service Yes, sure Daniel says, however, the most bizarre time I have come across my own name was after a ten hour flight from the US back to London I jumped on the tube and decided to listen to Ollie's excellent podcast The Modern Man to keep me alert. Oh there you go, that's better than being told that people are listening to be put to sleep. Well, it didn't work. Though the chat was stimulating, it was no match for the rhythmic movement of the train and lack of sleep which lulled me into a doze. I mean, well done going to sleep on the Northern line, if it was. I've never been able to even hear what I'm listening to on there. Yeah. The podcast kept playing and continued on to Alex Fox's sex advice section, during which she was discussing pubic lice becoming more prevalent these days consequence of more men having beards. Wow. Thanks for that, Daniel Fenton. What a great way to introduce a new audience to what I do on that show. She cited research by Dr. Daniel Fenton, which immediately jolted me awake. So we were quoting one of his namesakes on my show, That's weird Yes, also, Daniel Fenton, our correspondent points out, why do my namesakes have doctorates Yeah, Daniel Fenton does seem to be a doctorory name. Here in Britain I see there is a Daniel Fenton who is a principal psychodynamics psychotherraapist also a gynecologist Daniel Fenton who I presume is the one that Alexox is quoting. There is also an actor Daniel Fenton, with three acting credits on IMDB, although notot particularly exciting roles. One was a voiceover for a video game then a twenty year gap in his career But maybe he'll get his real boost in his career playing dentist and gynecologist. That's right. I mean, at that rate, you know, it could be in his seventies that he gets his really big role You know, sometimes it happens that way for actice Do you hear that Sounds like breakfast is ready becausecause Quakers coming in hot with morning nutrition one hundred percent whole grain oats and a good source of fiber to fuel the rhythm of your morning and kickstart your day. And that sounds absolutely delicious. Fuel to start whatever's next. Quaker, official sponsor of FIFA World Cup twenty six This summer, Prime V videoide takes you back before legally blonde, before law school, and into the world of Elle Woods in high school. Set in nineteen ninety five, this Gemini vegetarian knows exactly who she is until her family moves from Bela Air to Seattle. packed with iconic fashion, nineties nostalgia, and a throwback soundtrack, Elle proves one thing Law school was hard. High school was harder. From the world of legally blonde, watch L, a new original series only on Prime video. Watch now Now in answer this four hundred and eleven, you may recall Charlie from Canberra's email about how their mother had just found out. that she had dozens of half brothers and half sisters because late in life she discovered she was a product Hundreds Hundreds had at least six hundreds. The product of a multiple sperm donor scandal Bertold Weisner was the progenitor as we said it in the show, but David has been in touch to say it's pronounced Visner. Bertold Visner. I'm sorry, David. Well, you should be sorry because It was his dad biologically. Wow, shit. Yeah, Davids is one of the Viesner slash Barton spawn and it was he says Barry and I who identified Him as our dononor. Barry was the documentarian you discussed, wasn't it? Yes. Wow Well, David, I'm sorry for the misnomer Nice to know that the people at the eye of the storm are listen to the show. not I hope we did it some justice. That story. I mean, it's such a brain fuck. It extraordinary. It was. Brianne has been in touch with her experience of being the product of sperm donation. She says, I learned almost exactly two years ago the too ripe age of forty that I also exist because of sperm donation. I'd known something was up with my family for decades, as we had the fairly typical instability of donor conceived families who choose to lie about the important things for too long and figuring something out around blood types busted the case wide open Oh gosh. I learned my family's infertility journey did not conclude in the way I was told, and yes, they made up a story about how I was conceived and told me a child Okay, I did not need to know about my parents getting it on in a tent, whether or not my existence resulted from said tent Tst or if it was even a real trist or a fully fictionalized one I mean Things have changed. We do talk more openly about this stuff, as we said when we discussed this in the episode. Yeah hopefully. And I'm not forgiving the way parents talk to their children about their conception I see how in the eighties and nineties. Choices were made. Exactly. There was probably just a decision. The best advice is say this line and stick with it, even if down the road, it's created all sorts of problems for people. I think in the twentieth century, particularly people were extremely comfortable with lying to their loved ones. like when say someone's wife got a cancer diagnosis and they' be like, well, don't tell her. Yes, yeah, yeah yeah She's the last one who gets to know. Yeah. But then Also, I mean, as we talked about in the episode, the laws have changed around sperm donation and adoption. And so with all this stuff, you have to be clearer because if you're not, the kid's going to find out anyway and then it's worse Byway, Brianne continues. Because of this, in late twenty twenty three, I embarked on the journey that Charlie's mum did. I truly hoped I wouldn't end up in a messy pod of one hundred plus siblings, which was possible due to my early eighties conception date. The laws you talked through in the episode are even rougher and more uneven in the US. It's still not illegal in some states to swap sperm samples for insemination without telling the parents What? Yeah. Check out the documentary Our Father too learen More Horrors. Okay. At that ye sure. I'll add it to the watch list right after I get through this entire series of Charlie Brown and peanuts At that phase, I most especially hoped I wouldn't learn that a grievous violation had been perpetuated on my mum, fortunately wasn't O least that. There is that. I did, however, learn a lot about the weird lies told to and between prospective parents. Among them, sperm mixing, still a fairly common practice for various reasons was done for plausible deniability. Even though sperms tend to attack each other in a way, it's a counterproductive measure Parents were also told that the higher glucose content of the healthy sperm samples often solicited from med students in that era Would help the sperm in the original sample get to the egg? People believe wild things, she says, when they're in emotional pain, and believing the lie gets them closer to something they desperately want. I have a lot more sympathy for people believing the lie than for the people propagating the lie. Yeah, for the medics propagating the lie, exactly. But again, like with all these things, once they're regulated, it's just so much clearer for everyone, including the people working the field isn't Yes, the ethics around this has been severely lacking. Yeah, totally. Unfortunately, she says this opened the field, especially in its early years to a lot of weird shit, including these weirdos with one hundred plus or six hundred plus kids. It's where science intersects with breeding kinks, eugenics and power trips It's a really weird space even now.. I want people to get what they want, especially when it mostly doesn't hurt anybody, but I hope I live to see very, very different laws around this. Yes, me and you too. Thank you for sharing that with us. That is Super intense. My strongest opinion is that anonymous donations should be illegal because it can result in really complicated emotional side effects for the kids whichich brings me to my last point of what compelled me to write Reactions to discovering that you are donor conceived or that your parent was vary wildly I immediately wanted to know everything about my newly illuminated background in part because my father of record is awful, so learning we weren't related was fantastic news. O bonus But my brother may never care to look into it. This is very normal, it's personal, but the terrain is so complex that you can't predict reactions, even your own It's completely valid that Charlie doesn't want anything to do with this situation and posing it as a favour they might do for her oversimplifies things, I'm afraid. I will accept that critique. If they weren't genetically mixed up in all of it, maybe, but since their mum's family weirdness is also theirs, it's reasonable that they would prefer to be excluded from the narrative They might also feel differently in a year or five years time Be it's norm for these feelings to change markedly across time as the new information introduced has time to metabolize But given the age of the people involved, I suppose the warriors that they wouldn't necessarily have the years to wait for what may come psychologically. And also, I mean, there are ways to support your mum and your aunt in their journey. That's the thing. I mean they were quite dismissive, Charlie in their email, weren't they? That's why we were kind of like, well, hold on, this is a big deal for them. Yeah. But it is legit to say, and it's not a big deal for me and I don't want to do it. and that to be a defense mechanism. I get that. Love a defense mechanism But we've also had this email from Joe on the same topic who says my story is a lot less dramatic, but my mum, now in her late seventies, was one of eight children of divorced parents, quite unusual back in the nineteen fifties, you can imagine. Her mother remarried and had one more child, so nine on that side. We always knew her father had another family too, but there was no contact with them About ten years ago, one of her siblings had a DNA test and discovered the family from the father's side They also live on opposite sides of the world. But even so, there were meet upps and my mum's half siblings even came to stay with her for an extended period I felt zero interest in these people who are strangers to me and felt I have enough aunts and uncles and cousins to be getting on with anyway Well Fast forward to maybe five years ago, and for whatever reason, my mother decided to do a DNA test as well and found out H Inverted comma's father wasn't her biological father. So she Biologically only a half sibling to the brothers and sisters she grew up with. This can be backwards engineered as why you didn't get along then Perhaps Yeah. And no biological relation at all to the long lost siblings that were previously discovered. Oh that's weird. What do you do if you find out that your long lost siblings aren't related to you? Do you then disconnect from them like you've made friends and shared things Well, I'll tell you what Jo's mom did. She has actually tracked down the family from her biological father. Wow But still keeps in touch with the family of the man she thought was her father as well, so she's up to something like twenty various flavours of siblings. I mean at that point it's just like all your acquaintances are related to or have once been related to you in your mind. Close enough. Yeah. Joe says I continue to have no interest in any of them. However, instead of thinking of myself as heartless, which I think is fair think of yourself as Harvest. It shows that at least for me, family is who you grew up with, not biology. Joe says, My mum took it very hard that she was inverted commas only a half sibling to the brothers and sisters she grew up with I don't think she was too worried about the father who evidently didn't bother staying in touch with any of his children post divorce. Maybe he's not any of their dads. I have tried my best to convince her that nothing has changed between her and the siblings she's had for seventy years, and hopefully the message is getting through. Okay good, well that's a supportive thing to do. Thought I'd add another way of looking at the question of what makes someone family Yeah. I mean, the same for me, that's what I was saying in our original conversation. Like I don't have any contact with my extended family Not because of hostile stuff, it's just I wouldn't know them if we walk past each other. I think also, you know thinkinking about chosen family, which people are a lot more aware of these days, that's a concept that more people could get on board with Listeners you're our chosen family, if that's not you'd write a thing to say. Well, if you're going to write them all into your will, I'm sure they won't mind. And we love to receive your questions as well as your feedback on anything we've discussed in Answer Me's past or presents.. and you can send those bits of feedback in the form of voice or written notes to our email address which is listed upon our website answermehyspodcast. comot Our next full episode of Answ Me This with FreshQions will be out on the twenty fourth of december, twenty twenty five. Which means we don't get to say Merry Christmas yet ' we can say that then. So just enjoy December. Do what you like? Yeah. Do what you like with December. whatever you need to do to get through. and tonic calendar is probably reduced now. Get one for every month of the year At Soock Doc, we know being a healthy adult is like living in a video game. Every day has side quests, taxes, laundry, birthdays, and just when you're leveling up, you have to book a doctor. 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