r/BeAmazed • u/mikeyv683 • Jan 22 '25

History Identical triplet brothers, who were separated and adopted at birth, only learned of each other’s existence when 2 of the brothers met while attending the same college

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u/oofieoofty Jan 23 '25

The brother who committed suicide, Eddie Galland, grew up middle class.

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u/momsafuckingbitch Jan 23 '25

The experiment wasn't just about growing up in different classes, but also the parents each had a different parenting style. If I remember correctly, Eddie's adoptive parents were neglectful and/or abusive.

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u/Unable_Traffic4861 Jan 23 '25

Turns out being non-affluent is not great for mental health.

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u/Ysanoire Jan 23 '25

He wasn't the poorest brother and from what I remember his mental situation is more attributed to his relation with his father.

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u/AngeliqueRuss Jan 23 '25

True, however I suspect this is more common among the middle class: you choose the path you are “supposed” to take and you expect your kids to do what they’re “supposed” to do. It’s a lot of anxiety, pressure, and insecure attachments.

The father who was “working class” owned a little grocery store. This can indeed be a lower income, but it’s not the same as working a blue color job for wages: you have a lot of independence and you are directly rewarded for working hard. I would definitely choose that life over having demanding middle class parents.

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u/Dangerous_Sherbert77 Jan 23 '25

isn’t it most of the time parents fault for stuff like that?

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u/Ysanoire Jan 23 '25

Not always and, well, that's what the experiment was about. They were all predisposed to mental health issues and got it from their biological mother. Seems the brother who got little support on top of that had the worst outcome.

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u/Dangerous_Sherbert77 Jan 23 '25

Ah ok, i see. Thanks

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u/jub-jub-bird Jan 23 '25

that's what the experiment was about

According to the wiki the researchers involved deny that the mother's history of mental illness was a factor in the experiment or the focus of the study. These weren't the only children in the study which goes back to the 1960s and tracked a whole bunch of idential twin and triplet adoptees from the same agency whose progress in different families was tracked by researchers post adoption in order to study the impact of their different circumstance versus their identical genetics.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '25

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u/Ysanoire Jan 23 '25

Ot the one who died.

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u/jub-jub-bird Jan 23 '25

You misunderstand. He was in the middle income family not the poorest family. I haven't seen the documentary but my understanding is that the kid given to the least affluent family ended up being the most well adjusted.

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u/Unable_Traffic4861 Jan 23 '25

You misunderstood my attempt to make a joke.

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u/jub-jub-bird Jan 23 '25

Sorry, seemed like a joke intended to make a point. I just think it's interesting that the exact opposite ended up being true: The poorest blue collar family was the healthiest environment... Though I suspect that's entirely about individual personalities involved more than anything to do with socioeconomic class.

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u/totalwarwiser Jan 23 '25

The middle child is the one who suffers the most.

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u/Old_Dealer_7002 Jan 23 '25

the key difference seems to be that his dad had some specific notion of what “a man” should be (per some of the reading i just did) and had a dysfunctional relationship with his son

the other two boys were luckier and had parents who loved them for themselves, not for how closely they matched an idea in their heads (which of course isn’t love at all, it’s a form of narcissism, the child is a extension of themselves, its all about their own self image rather than knowing or loving a real human baby).

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u/Old_Dealer_7002 Jan 23 '25

i’ll ad this: im an adopted child myself, with a family history of mental and emotional issues. both nature and nurture, as my sibling and i were adopted by my grandmother after spending time in a foster home when my mother (struggling with severe mental health issues, alone and poor with two kids) gave us up. so this story, tho different from my own, resonates with me.