In 1963 I was a student at Columbia University getting my master’s degree in clinical social work and writing book reviews for the Child Study Association. Dr. Peter Neubauer, a prominent child psychiatrist and Director of the Child Development Center, had seen my work and called to say he was looking to hire someone to identify psychiatrists and psychoanalysts writing about child development who might be interested in spending a week in Israel to study children living in a kibbutz. I was thrilled to be selected as his new research assistant. My literature review while at the Child Development Center led me to identify and contact 50 therapists from the U.S., Europe, and Israel who were interested in spending one week to observe children in a kibbutz. That summer I spent time in Kibbutz Dahlia with Dr. Neubauer organizing a one-week symposium which was held the following summer. As a result of that symposium, Dr. Peter Neubauer’s book, “Children in Collectives—Child-rearing Aims and Practices in the Kibbutz” was published by Charles Thomas Publishers, Springfield, Illinois, in 1965.
While working at the Child Development office, I would overhear colleagues talk about a study of identical twins that were up for adoption. I was told that there were no couples willing to adopt more than one child. The Louise Wise Adoption Agency decided that they should separate the babies so that each could find a home. I always thought it was so sad that siblings could not be adopted together. Dr. Neubauer saw this as an opportunity to study the issue of nature versus nurture. I had no involvement in that research, nor the decision-making process, nor its implementation. In 1965 I left the U.S., moved to Switzerland, and never heard anything further about the study.
Two years ago I got a phone call from a movie crew from England wanting to interview me about a film they were making concerning that twin study. I told them I really did not know anything about the study and would be of no use to them. They still wanted to interview me because, being in my nineties, I was the only surviving person who had been one of Dr. Neubauer’s research assistants. Wanting to be helpful, I agreed, and so a few months later seven crew members appeared in my apartment ready to film. They asked about objects in my apartment, about life in a retirement community, and about the amazing opportunity to study twins separated shortly after birth. They spent the day with me and also filmed the premises. I was happy to show them around, thinking I was putting White Sands on the map. They were very positive about the study saying what a wonderful opportunity it was to study nature versus nurture.
When I saw the movie, I was shocked and incredibly upset! I had never heard of these triplets and now was juxtaposed with them in the same movie as if I had some knowledge about their lives. It was awful to see the depiction of the triplets’ pain. In the movie, I am seen as condoning their separation for the purpose of research, when in fact the first I knew of it was when I saw the movie. When I left the U.S. in 1965, the triplets were babies. The movie shows them at age six months with no one wanting to adopt three boys. I now wonder whether putting them together in foster care or at least letting them know of each other’s existence would have been better. In the 1960s the policy was closed adoptions, where parents could not be told anything about the birth parents nor any existing siblings. Thankfully that policy has changed to open adoptions, where children can meet their birth mothers and siblings if they so wish. Fortunately today’s requirement for transparency does not permit this type of research to be conducted.
I have been contacted by movie companies and talk shows asking me to discuss this movie, but had to refuse as I signed a contract with the movie company to not accept any invitations to further address the twin study. This column is being written because I have been erroneously accused of being involved in the separation and study of the triplets. Today as I look at the movie and read about the study, I am appalled that there was a time when this was accepted as legitimate research.