adele mckernan

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I’ve just finished watching this documentary and am struggling to process what I just saw. The start is really compelling as you watch the three boys being reunited. It also was a natural arch to see how the initial euphoria when the boys reunited slide into the reality of their differences rather than the similarities celebrated when they first reunited. I understand that the limited ethical requirements in the 1960s made it possible for such a disturbing study of these triplets. The fact that these triplets were separated intentionallly from birth to aid in the design of this study is staggering. The add to this, one of the adults responsible for the adoption agency somewhat bogglingly seems still unaware by how absolutely morally bankrupt their practices were. The researcher and the assistant who were part of the study also seemed to be unaware of how abhorrent their practices were (even with hindsight) with so many smiles, smirks and shrugs that all were nauseating. The part that was so appalling given that this doc was made in the current age, was how they threw Eddy’s father under the bus and blamed him for his son’s suicide. There are so many complicated and interlinked reasons why people complete suicide so the fact that they solely blamed Eddy’s father for his authoritarian parenting style is staggering. It would have been useful, although apparently too much of a leap for this doc, to explore the effect of generational trauma. Let’s face it, these boys were born in 1961. That means their adoptive parents would have likely have been born in the late 30’s. They are also part of the Jewish community. Is it possible that the makers of this doc are completely unaware of the holocaust and the Second World War (1939-1945)? Those who produced this doc were fine to let the folks involved in the study of these triplets slide without a massively needed look into exactly how problematic this study was. However they decided to blame this elderly man so directly and harshly entirely for his son’s death which is beyond atrocious. Shame on them. In the doc’s producers’ need to make some artificial arch to wrap up the answer to the understandably complex debate on nature vs nurture on the basis of the study of these boys, it led to this brutal attack on this father without the necessary nuances to make any appropriate conclusions. Furthermore this occurred despite the fact that the results were never appropriately analyzed and published with full disclosure, I’m shocked about the lack of oversight that made it possible that this massively problematic doc was ever aired. Shame on those involved in this documentary. One would hope that the remaining brothers were offered psychological supports during and after the filming of this disgraceful doc but, given how the doc makers plowed through the obvious ethical considerations of what was revealed with absolute oblivion, I sincerely doubt it. I truly hope these men are able to overcome, with the help of their family and friends, the trauma of this doc because truly there was no attempt to manage the bumbled conclusion made during the doc