Howard Robbins and Robin Sparkman

00:05 I'm Howard robins and I'm 46 years old. Today is September 12th 2014. I'm here with my wife Robin Sparkman and Foley square and we been married since June 21st 1997 and I'm Robin Sparkman and I'm 45 and today is September 12th and New York City and I'm here with my husband.

00:33 And what I thought we would do today in our inaugural storycorps interview is hopefully there to provide a bit of a gift to our children that Charlotte and Victoria will be a blessing to this point and that we would talk about their grandparents Howard's parents Mel and Phyllis robins and my parents be Paige and Nick Sparkman. Am I thought I do is just start and I'll ask Howard some questions about Mel and Phil as they are affectionately known to us. So the girls never got to know them the Castaway when Victoria was just a baby and Charles a toddler and I thought it would just be nice that we can serve talk to talk about them in a formal way. Not what we're sort of not just a little bit of an anecdote it on the middle of many other conversations so hard I thought can you just described your parents physically?

01:33 My parents were abusive physically, obviously the one with male and female so I could even beyond that. My father was someone imposing physical figurative. That's not 661. He was thin for most of the time but developed in an admirable belly late in life. And I he was a pre-World War II generation and and always wore a suit and a hat and even on social occasions wore a tie and he grew living life. He was also a generation that smoked and didn't have fluoride as children. So when he had dental problems later in life grow mustache, I think it's compensation for that. My mother was without either had War mustache. My mother was quite the teeth and she

02:33 And also formal dresser, I don't think she owned by their sneakers or pair of jeans and always dressed in a very young professional businesslike fashion, even on social before you well, just one more thing on the parents thing your parents always look a certain way when they left the apartment yet. They actually spent a lot of time in their apartment which when you were growing up with 68th and 3rd, and then when you were older, it was 84th and 5th. Describe with her at home with her was like when we live down south on 68th Street their their attire was I think pretty much the same as it was that later. My father wore Brooks Brothers by Me by that is Brooks Brothers boxers and a Brooks Brothers t-shirt, which he supplemented in winter with a thermal vest and so he was always walk around the house.

03:33 Let's just that and a cigarette with his usual costume and my mother always wore a housedress around the house when she was there and with one of the earlier doctors of pants suits but not around the house your parents in the year in which they grow up because I actually think it tells a lot about who they were later. So when you start with one of them through familiar with the word not used in there once were generation of of Jews who were biscuit second generation without going to Norma's detail, my some of my mother's family arrived a couple Generations prior, but her but her her parents

04:27 I had both arrived as immigrants and my father's parents are also both arrived as I'm sorry, my father grew up in the Bronx my mother grew up in Brooklyn near Coney Island, which has to be a very heavily and your neighborhood called Washington Heights areas of the Bronx are in the next days off not off for of the Grand Concourse a good now that I think of it and these were entirely neighborhoods and their parents were not educated people and my parents were the first generation who really got to go to educational Advantage kitchen and that was a big deal in the neighborhood and I was a generation of UPS drivers and they were all expected to succeed and

05:27 That was the the dynamic in which in which they they grew up tonight, then they both grew up my mother more so than my father and very religious household which each of my parents rejected a secular.

05:42 I'm just going to talk a little more about the family Dynamics and each other should run across also in my my father's house. He grew up in a family where the there was a retail business that his father had started in 1927 his father Harry and it was and his wife Sarah Robbins. They both worked in the family business. It was not the expectation that my father were going to have no intention of going back and family, but my father went to Columbia law school and he talked to you and it was his brother who was the younger end and less I was White River was going to go and family business in that would that would be his his role?

06:37 Later in life. My father only went back in the family business which for him I said Thank A source of great frustration. But the that was the major event brown rice the family room. All of which was beat the family the family business for my grandmother. Sarah was one of nine sisters. My father always thought that that was the worst punishment on somebody to have nine daughters and I and his brother Bobby.

07:12 When he went back into town on business with Bobby events are there was a falling-out and Bobby was bought out of the family business in 1977. So ironically my father ended up running the business loan with my mother who ended up with a trained as a scientist for south end up working to tell me business. That was a strange Circle in the form and my mother's parents. Wish I were recording of Victor on my mother's Father Victor bakalar, he and Lillian Moustakas and became bakalar both came from Poland and they came over Victor came over. I actually is a teenager.

08:01 Just before the immigration laws changed and his brothers were not able to tell her brother's not able to come over here because the laws changed and in the early 1920s and Victor who wanted to become a doctor but was not able to do that because he had to work and he was a furrier and Lillian did some odd jobs here and there but she didn't write much how much for career.

08:29 Do you want to describe for us your father's mother Sarah Sarah. We often referred to her affection lay around the house as an old battleaxe. Sarah was like everybody has to be someone's grandparent Joseph Stalin had to have children and grandchildren. And so everybody, you know, even the worst people can be someone's grandmother or grandfather. And that was Sarah. Sarah was larger than life. She lived to be willing to her nineties. Although she was such a liar and a compulsive liar. You can really never get a straight story about how old she was. She was somewhere between 93 and 95. We think when she died and it's really hard to miss. Sarah was a loud difficult person and she had a a piercing nasal voice and it was she was a physically strong person and even late in life. She was loud and so

09:29 She was also a vicious racist in the wrong way, but I would say consistent with our generation. So she wasn't and Sara. Took money out of the register. She worked in and primarily the store we had on 32nd Street in the manager would have to complain to my father that she and taking money out of the register and if their potential is not stolen she she used to call me which in Yiddish chicken and she would pinched my cheek hard enough. That'll leave a mark. She also when I was a young child crossing the street, she would grab my arms. So tightly that that I nearly cried out and in pain. I was just getting very strong hand about everything.

10:20 I'm in her favorite phrase was so close to make sure didn't like a rat bastard. So this was this was my grandmother and I will finally remember the first time you came over to our apartment on 84th Street and that her and you and I had known each other not all that long and she was very shy and said to you and I'm I think your response was something non-committal like what was your response to remember? And and when there were disagreements with Bobby about the business Sarah was kind of caught in the middle.

11:05 And kind of took sides with with Bobby and that didn't help the relationship all that much. So your parents were very well-educated and they were very proud of their education. It was very important to them. Can you talk more about why that was sure so some of those so you could go back four thousand years and asks, if you know why that was when some of this the history of the Jews and that the baggage that they all had going back to Europe where they from which they said was that Jews weren't allowed to participate in the professions in the field in which Gentiles were and they had to live by their wits baby, you know, they were places where Jews couldn't own land use couldn't do a whole range of things and and the condition of the people of the book my father took it very seriously. My father was although an atheist and and not an observer in any way was a serious amateur scholar of Jewish history and to him

12:05 He was very conscious of being one of the people of the book end of of books generally and he viewed education as being the most important thing. The life of the mind is what was to be lived and he never forget sample. Throw a ball around with me or my brother Charles When We Were Young. He said yeah, that's for the goyim Gentiles and you can do that with your friends. You don't need me for that in his view was that and he was a voracious reader?

12:40 And it was important to him. It was rather than flexing muscles or being a jock to be the smartest the most every died. That was that was the achievement to be to be had and my mother who was signed as my background had a similar orientation that that's What mattered and that was the succeeding in Academia was the the the most important thing in terms of building a path to success and and where you went to school and how you did in school was extraordinary important.

13:19 Until what he drove myself and my brother and sister obviously not a question that we would go to college and loop. Hope the freaking collagen to graduate school did and it was never a question that they would pay for that because there was nothing more important than that. It was never it was never an issue about whether they would fund that I'm other things whether it was a car or the price of a of a wedding or other things that were considered frivolous like weddings that they would question the price of but never about the price of a ticket. What else when you look back to you feel we are parents just do two or three other huge influences that you still seeing now is a you know, as a parent time is a person that they have at me. I still quote my father. I find myself saying things that he said and in my practice as a lawyer, I remember things to say to me is he?

14:19 Child, but I still carry with me and or are some of the most fun of a guiding principles that I used. I often say to clients something you said to me when I was probably six or seven years old, which is don't play chess one move it at I'm always think it had as far as you can and and I I said that the clients often. He also remember at 7 a.m. In the discussion about academics. He said it has to bother you if something isn't good something shouldn't just be good enough that has to bother you on a gut level if what you're doing isn't really good unless it bothers you that it's not good. You're not going to be able to make it good and I say that often to Associates in my Law Firm on reviewing and I relate that if they turn into work product that I don't consider to be acceptable. I think they could have done better and I say to them if you want to succeed here, it really has to bother you if your work isn't top top notch and I hear his voice.

15:19 In my head when he when he says when he says that and he was also when he was one of the best public speakers know what he was a very powerful speaker and the way in which he spoke for better or worse. I hear that voice in my head and I I think I probably pattern my own speaking after his the way the way he spoke. He was in a larger influence. I think that my mother was pretty quiet probably beaten into submission by his not physically, but what you did

16:00 So he was a larger influence, I think on all of us. What do you think? Do you think your mother did to you though? My mother was a more balanced person. Yeah. She was more interested in the Arts. And she said she went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We live across the street. She was there later in life most days and she on days you can go inside she sat outside and watch the world go black and she was more of an influence in helping me be conscious of people around me being a better listener and one of her favorite phrases was to say better to be silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. That was not my father's approach. My father's approach was to assume that he knew the answer to everything even if he was talking to the world expert at didn't stop at it. And so so that my mother tempered that I think my brother got more of heavy Joseph.

17:00 Father less influence by my mother and my mother was a big cook and she was at a generation where even a professional woman entertained and and made dinner for her husband. And for the first year of their marriage my mother made a different appetizer from my father every day for sure their marriage that stopped when it became clear. He had not realized that he was getting a different appetizer every day. And so that was the end of that and by the time I came around it was usually the same laptops and my mother and I am a knight as you well know since you haven't cooked a meal I don't hold that against you, but I guess I'm the cook because my mother with coconut and my bonding with her was over cooking in in substantial part, and we would spend time watching Julia Child and other people on

18:00 On TV. That was an early television knife and and replicating some of those things and watching her do her thing in the kitchen in for she works full-time and vented all this cooking. So she was his parents influence to you as a parent.

18:24 My parents influenced me as a parent in making me realize that when you're a parent. It's it's not about it's not about you and and your fun anymore and it's just us and getting responsibility. My parents did not go away on the weekends. They convinced us that there was no fun to be had in the country that that was a waste of time. And why would you want to be in the city but that it was worthwhile to spend time with the children. They did not go off and socialize and do things elsewhere. They also, you know the value of Education. I mean, that's something that I think that has stayed with me and terms of what are children's priorities are they should know that whether they play tennis well or other things for the Glam if I can stay in this complex this room and only you and the rest of the United States will hear if they search for it.

19:24 But that's not important and and it's the people who become balanced successful. People are those who have laid it all themselves intellectually first. I have to be so people course and some of it always is with your parents you think about what's good about them and let's not and you try to replicate the good and leave behind the bad and course. We all felt that some greater lesser degree, but I think the the bad parts were the intolerance that my parents both had and it was a product and part of their generation and some bleach bleaches them and their milia and so to leave behind some of the the insensitivities that they had and their their lack of empathy. I think for four people who were not as we're not like them and not as successful as labor and they didn't have the same understanding for other people search

20:24 Francis I don't think that that they might have and so one thing that I try to help teach our children it when I'm around my other things that my parents left him with us then need to work and it didn't matter how hard you work in the course of tension between working hard and being a parent cuz you can't be both places at once but is

20:51 The the the value of some of work and that our children should also understand that they are very fortunate and it's it I don't think my parents did as good a job as they might of helping us understand our place in the world will have to other people

21:11 Senator license stick to our children should try to pick up on

21:16 And so should we had so your your parents came from a place where they said know you're probably more often because you come from Huguenot stuck your parents were not so why don't we start with your your father and his or where he came from and what the baggage is with that milieu of that that social background and when and where they were where they were from the family came to the US in the 1600. So they've been here a long time and the ancestral home was in neuroshell New York, which they lost because

22:16 Succeeding Generations couldn't afford to keep it for you and my father had two older brothers and then a baby who died in infancy sibling dying infancy and he grew up in a kind of weird family environment economically where there was lots of money sort of around the family and there were certain social trappings that we're really important being a member of the yacht club in Larchmont that kind of thing but the family didn't have a ton of money. My grandfather was a worked on Wall Street and I start a low-level position and his uncle was very successful at one end and started at the family business called Sparkman Stephens and at some point he went and worked for that businesses as well. But he was also a terrible alcoholic and had some problems keeping jobs.

23:16 In the whole ceiling world that are that you're not a sailor then the neighborhood. Can you give some sense of of that as these to fit the social currency is a Sparkman Stephens? It was a naval Architecture Firm is still in business today. It was founded in 1929 by bowling Stevenson Rod Stevens and brakes Workman who was my grandfather's brother and they were the preeminent Naval architect extra firm of their time and they created and the groundbreaking America's Cup designs for both. And so this was interesting for a few reasons why it was very high-profile back.

24:16 Believe it or not the winners of America's Cup boat race had a ticket type parade when they won in America in your city yacht clubs for you know wasps for one of their phrase social scene's and didn't the women would sale during the day and then we'll Sail on the weekends and the kids would say on the Summers and your social life revolved around your friends at the Yacht Club. So let's talk about your father where there was and he said challenges and and maybe you can talk about the extent to which he has held on to that that world and and his own struggles and and as you grow up,

25:06 What that was like for you then as a child and and and then later when your role model shifter.

25:18 My parents were not married that long several years and got divorced to my sister and I were very little and my father is bipolar with schizophrenic Tendencies. And so he is just seriously mentally ill person and was never able to hold down a job and never able to have a serious adult relationship and he is a man with refined taste and even when he didn't have a job always had a subscription to New York Philharmonic and always went to the Museum's deceive the new shows loves impressionist loves great bottle wine loves terrific food and you know was never willing to give that up or give up treats for himself when it comes to Vacations or gym memberships. He's very fit.

26:18 You know being fat as a big thing, and then my family my family, so it was a very challenging thing to reconcile his case with his actual that money coming in the door and and your mother.

26:40 Can from very different background and hand in very different set of personal abilities and and values of your mother's background and upbringing in and what her influence on you. So my mother grew up in Westchester and a family where people didn't go to college when they wouldn't talk about my father is that his siblings all went to college or do excellent colleges and his own mother and my grandma Kathleen got her PhD from Columbia around at age 60 something like that. Where is my mother of an environment where people didn't have college degrees and she herself actually didn't get a college degree through a lot of very complicated reasons, even though she was a stellar student is she should be happy to tell you in high school.

27:40 Yes, yes very very difficult chapter in her to her life and she actually went to the Peace Corps and said it was the early 60s and was another Avenue back then. The only thing I would say is you said which of these two people have in common aside from growing up in the same county in New York City say sadly is alcoholism among their parents just that they they live with it. They saw close hand and it was

28:14 Not considered. The problem is today was considered just people's personality and it was really your mother who is around right? And so what was what was that? My mom was like at home like your house going out then and what was your mother's what what did you see when you play with your said yourself? Cuz my mother is like weeds and are looking back now and how did that affect the way you try to your path?

28:51 We don't have an hour Edwards leave it there. But what I would say is my mother was a single parent with two girls for a close in age and she did not have a college degree and she is one of these people who put their heads down and her head down and get it done. And she at one point had three jobs when my sister and I were little and wasn't one of her jobs was cleaning her the office that she worked in at night and said she would bring me and my sister there and we would play into the desks and she would empty the garbage baskets and and clean and stuff like that. It was very we were little was extremely extremely difficult for her financially and that always was an issue.

29:37 You know, I was once for everything you have is that we live in a small house in Rowan County get and I always remember there was a bathtub in the bathtub leaks. It was thought that was over the living room and it leaked a lot and I just remember the stress of trying to get that fixed all the time and the money and it wouldn't work and what we can do about it and I just remember that feeling of the kids like not even if I saw that I was looking at what you want to say anything she want to point it out cuz now I can only cause stress and I just think that the

30:10 That my mother worked incredibly hard her whole life was and was even when she had sort of time on the weekend. She would still Gardener Cook elaborate meals things like that, and I certainly get my mother's tremendous work ethic and identity through work as a you say and she made that happen somehow I have the resources and at what time should I sue for starting 9th grade? I went away to boarding school and my mother, you know, it's just one of these people who through connections hard work will you know made that happen and she's a thought I could have a better path for my life, and she was actually right by going away to a boarding school. He had amazing school on

31:10 And she was able to make that happen.

31:14 And if you think about your role as a parent now looking back. Do you see yourself mirroring things that your mother were in or your father dead or points of the parchment? What what do you think about as a parent as compared to your own parents?

31:32 Well, what I would say is.

31:37 My mother always worked so hard and there was never any complaining about it. And so I think that you know, it's just it's just I just would have presumed that I would always work hard and have kids it was never go over as a parent.

32:02 I think that you know that the importance of working hard to start something that I got from her and then I tried to convey to our children. My mother later on in life is much more able to enjoy yourself and have fun and I think you know, she is the one who always say to me by that shirt that makes you happy by that or have that ice cream go on vacation to go do that. So enjoy yourself, which is a really nice thing to see her doing that end in to

32:35 Would I would I treat our kids to something her voice in my head, you know and the challenges that both your mother and father. Were you conscious of those then today try to Shield you from those or we're not really the financial I wouldn't say. I was never shielded from it. I was always very aware financially that things were precarious there was never they had an very acrimonious relationship while they were married and and after their divorce, so I was always very aware. Will the child support check is going to be dropped off today. Is it going to come in the mail? My father would come into the house when he was visiting us when we were little kids on Sundays in and he would say who did your mother was that a new picture or is that new we know we're going to do when did the TV when did that come here? And we live very far.

33:35 At least it was very stressful. So I I wasn't shield in anyway, and then maybe that's why I think it's very important for children that adult world comes rushing in soon enough. There are children to lead a very

33:54 And I think it's important to know the macro issues of the world that you know is that there is something like a bowl out there, but they don't need to know that any of the day today issues that we're dealing with the town in which you were up changed a lot during the time from today Manhattan. How did were you conscious of that? I grew up in the 70s.

34:32 Text before there was the other that is when I was growing up like many neighborhoods small towns Across America the Pirates winning divorced and these work am I stupid for to get divorced back then and everyone I knew their parents they were getting divorce. And so it was it was a stressful time to be a kid because your parents were dating and it was so bizarre that the way I look at it is on top of everything else, you know, your your parents trying to bring in money and keep the household going and get to school on time that they were also dating which was complicated.

35:19 And and the town itself your mother moved out of that of that town. She moved out of the town after my sister. Mike went to college was likely. Yeah the town became a middle-class town that became a great Castle in town right now and your mother is extended family had a very different set of circumstances. And will you conscious of that as a child and and and how did that affect the house? So my mother's sister was incredibly wealthy in group if you had racer for kids few miles away from us, and that was a very difficult. I was aware all the time of the different economic situations between the two households. It was it was apparent. I wouldn't say on a daily basis, but it was constantly a parrot.

36:19 In terms of men. I'll just wants one story about my life, which I see that time.

36:25 Happy I want to play piano as a kid my aunts and my little sister had a piano and a white baby grand in her living room. Nobody wasn't late and I used to ride my bicycle over there young couple miles from my own house and then play every afternoon when I was in Middle School on the news a piano teacher and school by my middle school talked to you in awhile since $15 a week. And sorry I took weekly lessons and trying to figure out the money to get those $15. I think my aunt pay $15 my mother $15. I can't remember where we scrounged up the money, but it was with a lot of conversations about how we would get those $15.

37:12 Frontier license and your mother did you were you close to the cousins? Who was there from the start of the different world? Yes. We we saw them all the time. We socialize with them a lot. We would go sledding on their heels the winter and go to their clubs in the summer and swim there pools and did your mother has her pass judgment on them. And what was your understanding of how she viewed you the world and her sense of what was important about why I think she felt that she would be the first to tell you that education was the most important thing in your life if that's why she loves you and for her children. She was incredibly pleased that I went to Choate wells in Columbia and that my sister

38:12 Low, Heywood University of Washington and Harvard those that the quality of education and the status that conferred was extremely in the opportunity that those considered those degrees conferred was extremely important to her. And I know that it was just a tremendous source of satisfaction to her that we were able to do that with education was a big thing. There's a certain food snobbery in terms of my household was going up with about eating healthy food. And in moderation that you learned as a as an older adult that salad dressing can have oil and yes, my mother was very focused on being think thin was very so our children. First know your mother and my parents remember her

39:11 Well, I think that we're very fortunate that they have gotten to know her otherwise known as Gaga and I don't actually think I have to mail say it but I don't think I have to say it because they they're old enough now as we speak, they're almost 12:00 and 9 that they have their own feelings for her and their own relationship for her and they they see her as somebody who loves them unconditionally and accept them and then purely wants the best for them. So, you know, I think that that's they get it they already think they got it and I get her her selfishness and her devotion and you know someday when I'm a grandma that I hope that I will be as but I was dry. Well, yeah, I was just completely accepting and and loving and in just genuinely interested in and who they are whatever that is about them.

40:11 One word running mother. It's it's selfishness there. Isn't there is no task to great. No no indignity. She wouldn't suffer to take care of people report to her. That's true. And I would never I'll never be that kind of stuff that's in Barrett. Just. It's easier makeup or or you're not like I'm doing this babe. Thank you. I love you. I know I'm sorry for something. I'm not sure what it is. But I know every story for interview has to include the elements of a college they were is the two out there for them. They were not they were not shares public.

41:08 Thanks, but they would enjoy talking about their own family history or father comes out here with the mic so I can get his tickets.