208 – Doug Robb of Long Valley NJ, Father of Five Including Two With Autism & Co-Founder of A Seat At The Table Foundation

Transcript:

Tom Couch: Special thanks to Horizon Therapeutics for sponsoring the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. Working tirelessly to research, develop, and bring forward medicines for people living with rare and rheumatic diseases. Discover more about Horizon Therapeutics’ mission at horizontherapeutics.com.

Doug Robb: I’m a brutally honest person. What you see is what you get. I’m not…I don’t play games. So I’m telling him my problems, her problems, our problems—and Dara and I are on the same page—for 45 minutes. So he takes his glasses off, puts them on his pad. He looks at me, and he goes, “I can’t believe you guys are still married.”

I go, “What do you mean?” He goes, “People get divorced for a fraction of what you guys have going on. I honestly can’t believe you’re still married.” I’m like, “Okay. That’s all I needed to know. We’re doing something right.” So we never went to counseling again.

David Hirsch: Hi, and thanks for listening to the Dad to Dad Podcast, fathers mentoring fathers of children with special needs, presented by the Special Fathers Network. The Special Fathers Network is a dad to dad mentoring program for fathers raising children with special needs. Through our personalized matching process, new fathers with special needs children connect with mentor fathers in a similar situation. It’s a great way for dads to support dads. To find out more, go to 21stcenturydads.org

And if you’re a dad looking for help, or would like to offer help, we’d be honored to have you join our closed Facebook group. Please go to facebook.com/groups and search dad to dad.

Doug, thank you for taking the time to do a podcast interview for this Special Fathers Network.

Doug Robb: Thanks for having me, David.

David Hirsch: You and your wife Dara have been married for 28 years and are the proud parents of five children, Taylor, 27, Dougie, 25, Jackson, 22, Peyton, 21, and Mia, 19. Both Dougie and Jackson are on the autism spectrum.

Let’s start with some background. Where did you grow up? Tell me something about your family.

Doug Robb: All right. Born in Paterson, New Jersey. My dad was a cop there for 35 years. Mom was a nurse for the city physician for probably 25 years, and when I was five years old, we moved to Totowa, which was the next town over. And that’s where I spent my childhood, going to Passaic Valley High School.

David Hirsch: And did you have any siblings when you were growing up?

Doug Robb: Older sister, four years older, younger sister, nine years younger.

David Hirsch: So that’s a pretty big age range.

Doug Robb: Yeah, my parents like to say that she never was a mistake. She was just a little bit of a surprise.

David Hirsch: I was talking to a rabbi in Israel the other day, and there was like a 16 year difference between the youngest and the next oldest. And I said, “You know, with all due respect, is that like an oops baby?” He said, and he’s in his seventies, “I said that once, and I’ve never been able to live that comment down. So now we just think of her as a blessing.” Because all kids are blessings, right?

Doug Robb: That’s right. When my wife and I were on a mission when we started having kids. We got married in ‘93, Taylor was born in ‘95. We’re like, all right, we’re gonna have five, so let’s have five in seven and a half years. And that’s how it worked out.

David Hirsch: Well, not everybody can have kids, and the fact that they’re sort of bunched together in a relatively short time frame, you know, presents some challenges, but a lot of blessings.

Doug Robb: Absolutely.

David Hirsch: So, you mentioned your dad was a police officer. I also remember in a prior conversation you mentioned that he held down more than one job, and what was the backstory on that?

Doug Robb: So he went on the force in ‘66, the year I was born. And I think he made $6,000 a year. I remember that number for some reason. But it wasn’t enough to buy a house, so he had a trade of being a pipe fitter, and he also delivered cleaning for his uncle who owned a cleaners. He delivered cleaning, he was a pipe fitter, and he was a full-time police officer in Paterson.

And he did that in the beginning for the first couple of years. Then as you know, there was a lot of riots going on in the late sixties, a lot of activity. So he didn’t do those two jobs, but then he replaced the pipe fitting and the cleaning with side jobs, working security in banks and doing things like that. So he always worked full-time as a city cop, but he always had those side ones too.

And basically he said, “This was the only way for me to save enough money to buy a house.” Because when I was born, we were on a second floor, two bedroom house. Just me and my sister shared it on Albion Ave in Paterson. He wanted to get us out and get us into a house and get us into a town, which was Totowa, and he had to work three jobs to get it.

David Hirsch: Yeah. What I hear you saying is that he has a very good work ethic.

Doug Robb: Without question. Yeah. Two things that need to be recognized is that you sacrifice for your family, right? You sacrifice for your family. You know, why are we doing all this? You really take a breath and look at why we work so hard. It’s for our family. It’s for us too. Don’t make any mistake, but we really do it for our family.

But it can come at a cost. And for my dad, I didn’t get to see him that often. Growing up, I did not see him that often. He wasn’t home. He was literally working almost 20 hours a day. He always found time to come to a game, not all of them, but come to a game and come to my events. And I always felt loved, but I just didn’t see him that often.

And then for me, the first 20 years of my career, I’m doing this almost 30 years now, I commuted from Jersey to the city—and you know, that’s three to four hours, depending upon traffic. It could be an hour and a half to two going in, hour and a half to two coming out. And that’s a lot of time that you miss with your family.

So I’ve always strived to find balance in my life. I still haven’t found it, but the way I always have my visual is a three legged stool. You have to have balance: your home life, your professional life, but then you have to have that third piece, that thing that you like to do. Could be fishing, right? I love to spend a lot of times outdoors.

And if one leg on that three legged stool gets too long or too short, your life is out of balance. So, you know, this point in my career, I’m finally the closest I’ve been to being in balance, but I’m not there yet. And growing up my dad was not in balance.

David Hirsch: Well thanks for pointing that out. It’s really important. And your dad’s still alive, right?   

Doug Robb: Yeah, both parents.

David Hirsch: Which is a blessing And I’m wondering, in addition to making the sacrifices, having the good work ethic, if there’s any important takeaways you’ve taken away from your dad, perhaps something you’ve tried to incorporate into your own parenting.

Doug Robb: So my dad is a gentle giant kind of a guy. He was a weightlifter for many, many years. He’s feeling the consequences of arthritis now because of that. But growing up, he was always the envy of a lot of other cops. So whenever I saw my dad around other cops, he was the guy whose arms were over 21 inches, and the shirts just didn’t fit. He’s six feet tall, he had a 56 inch chest and 21 inch arms, and he drew a lot of attention.

But he was very modest. He was meek, which is a good quality to have. People think meekness is weakness, and it’s absolutely not. But when you pressed his button, you didn’t want him to erupt, because he only did it once or twice in my life, and you learned not to do that.

So he was kind of like that gentle giant. So I kind of got that from him. And then his work ethic, obviously I got that from him as well. And just his attitude towards doing the right thing. I just always grew up with him, knowing that he always did the right thing.

Now every kid probably says that about their dad, but it was actually very clear to me. older in life, when I was in high school, his three best friends that he went on the force with early on were all basically caught doing things they shouldn’t have done, working with organized crime.

And my dad was not involved. I don’t know if he knew what was going on, but he wasn’t involved at all. He made the conscious decision to do the right thing and not be involved. Whether he knew about it or not, I really don’t know. He doesn’t talk about anything like that. But that really instilled in me that my dad wasn’t doing something he shouldn’t have done.

So he didn’t get caught. So guess what? As long as you don’t do anything wrong, you never have to worry about getting caught. So do the right thing and you’ll be okay. So that was a valuable lesson I got from him.

David Hirsch: So my recollection was that you took a BA in political science from Montclair State and you also played football in college.

So when you graduated, what was your aspiration? Where do you think your career was gonna take you?

Doug Robb: So it was funny. I had a terrible academic career in high school, because I didn’t do my homework. I was very easygoing. My parents never checked my grades, and they never checked my homework. So I squeaked through high school, and my grades weren’t good enough to go to college.

So I went to night school at Montclair State, and I worked full-time construction during the day. I still figured I wanted to go to college, even though I wasn’t really being pressed to go to college. I didn’t really want to work construction the rest of my life. So I worked construction during the day, went to night school, I got my grades up, and then I got accepted into Montclair as a full-time student in 1986.

And then I started playing football, because I was a pretty good football player in high school. I was an all area player. Then I really matured. I put on about 15 pounds of muscle every year in Montclair. And by my senior year, I was being recruited by some NFL scouts. At six-four, 305, pretty good on my feet, I was getting a lot of looks.

I was a political science major, and football was never gonna be an option for me. But it turned out that it was. So I played two years professionally right out of college. I was at a Giants camp very briefly, for the length of a cup of coffee, in 1990. I was released, and then I got recommended to play in the World League, which just started that year.

So I played two years professionally, with the World League in the spring and the arena football in the summer. So I got paid for playing for four teams, and that was the downpayment on my first house.

David Hirsch: Good for you.

Doug Robb: I didn’t get paid that much. It was like $4,000 a week, but I ended up playing for like 24 weeks straight for two years. So the math worked out pretty good.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Good for you. Well, you’re a big guy, six-four, at one point over 300 pounds.

Doug Robb: Probably more. A lot more than that now, but unfortunately I’m not back at fighting weight. I’m still above my fighting weight.

David Hirsch: Okay. We’re not gonna go there tonight.

Doug Robb: But, you know, it’s interesting. Now, a good lesson that I learned was…I knew football wasn’t a long term thing for me. I mean, I was hopeful to play in the NFL, but I just wasn’t mature enough. You know, coming from a small school, I wasn’t mature enough. I needed more time.

So I went to night school at Jersey City to get my BA in criminal justice, and I was over a year in the process with Secret Service. That’s really what I wanted to do. I wanted to be federal investigator, and I was over a year into the process. I was probably six months away. I was doing really well. And when President Clinton took office, he actually slashed the budget of the Secret Service by $9 million. It went on a two year hiring freeze. I was six months away.

So I was teaching and coaching football at Westwood High School in the fall. Also going to night school in Jersey City for my criminal justice degree to help me get into the Secret Service. And I was playing professional football in the spring and the summer, so it was a busy two years in ‘91, ‘92, and I was getting married in ’93.

So I was hoping one of those things was gonna work out for me. And turns out I ended up going in a completely different direction. I didn’t want to continue to play football. I was getting married. I wanted to start my family, so I went and basically got hired for the Equitable insurance company. And that was really my first venture into the financial world.

David Hirsch: Excellent. I’m sort of curious to know, how did you and Dara meet?

Doug Robb: We met in 1984 in the gymnasium of Passaic Valley High School. I remember walking into the gymnasium, seeing her talking to a mutual friend of ours named Brian. She was upset. I walked over, I started talking to her. I met her for the first time right there, I could walk to the spot. So we met in high school, and pretty much got married nine years later.

And it’s been fantastic. You know, she’s my first and only girlfriend. I watched my wedding video that I had converted over to a thumb drive, and I remember I said something. I said, “I thank God for creating a girl that I’ll never, ever leave.” And I said that on my marriage day, September 19^th, 1993. And I feel the same way now.

David Hirsch: That’s beautiful. Thanks for sharing. So let’s switch gears and talk about special needs, first on a personal level and then beyond. So I’m sort of curious to know, before Dougie’s diagnosis, did you or Dara have any exposure to the world of special needs?

Doug Robb: No. None.

David Hirsch: And how did his diagnosis come about?

Doug Robb: So when Dougie was born, he had kind of typical behavior for the first year or so, and then…with the controversy going on now, especially with vaccines, the God’s honest truth is when he got vaccinated, he lost his vocabulary. He had about 300 words in his vocabulary, and within a couple of days he lost his vocabulary. He went to gibberish talk for almost two years.

And he didn’t have seizures, and he didn’t have any other significant repercussions from it. But we did see that change. And with Dara, I go into different charities. Over the years we’ve seen and talked to other parents that had the same experience, where some of these kids went into full-blown seizures shortly after and had some pretty bad effects.

And you know, after doing all the research and reading about it, I read about Thimerosal as a preservative, and it was unregulated, and some batches had four times the amount versus the other batches. So we chalk it up to them having a pretty high batch probably of this Thimerosal in their vaccine, and they didn’t have the ability to eliminate it throughout their body.

So it settles on your organs, which is what it does. We spent $40,000 one year when they were older with chelation treatments trying to remove the heavy metals from their body. They were both diagnosed with heavy metal toxicity. And the problem with chelation is that it removes it, but then it kind of moves around in the body and settles in other parts of the organ.

So we tried that for a year, spent a lot of money that we really didn’t have. And it changed the diets. We did so much to try to mitigate the impact, and it didn’t really work.

So our neighbor across the street was a doctor in behavioral sciences, and she’s the one that basically said, “He’s autistic.” And my wife broke down. Again, this was in the mid nineties. It’s almost like a death sentence. But I refused to believe it. I’m like, “They don’t know that. There’s no blood test that says it.” But thank God my wife did the right thing, and Dara got him in the early intervention. She did everything.

And it took me probably five years to realize that, yeah, they have special needs. And the one thing I would tell anybody who’s listening to this, “If you think you have special needs child, or someone that you know, you have to get that early intervention. Because the sooner you get involved, it mitigates the effects down the road.”

You have to get involved. Don’t worry about your kid being labeled. Don’t worry about your kid going to school in a small bus. It’s not about you, it’s about the kid. And you got to get the kid the help that they need so that they can compete in the society. And the sooner you get it, the better. And we’ve known parents who refused because they didn’t want that stigma. And unfortunately, their kids don’t make the kind of progress that our kids have made. And it’s very sad to see.

David Hirsch: Yeah, well, great insight. It’s easy to talk about, but maybe like you admitted, you weren’t on that page for quite a few years. It took you a while. And you’re able to look back and say, “You know, if I could change something, it would be to embrace what Dara embraced,” and thank God that she sought those early intervention services when she did.

Doug Robb: That’s right. But the other thing too is it did create a kind of a wedge between us too. So because I didn’t believe it, and because she took the lead, it created a wedge between us, and that’s not good.

And the thing is that you have to be on board fully with your spouse. I mean, you guys both have to be all in, and if one of them is out and one of them is half in, it just doesn’t work as well. You both really have to sit down, be mature about it, and say, “Listen, we do whatever we can for our kid. We sacrifice for our kid, but this kid needs more.” So we really have to step it up and we have to do it together.

Unfortunately I didn’t do that in the beginning. It took a number of years before it did, and then once it did, finally we were on the same page. Things really got better since then.

David Hirsch: Well, thanks for emphasizing that. So how did Jackson’s diagnosis come about? Was it vaccine related or not?

Doug Robb: Not so much. Jackson had a traumatic birth, and we don’t know if it was that or not, but it could have been. He was a very big baby. Both my boys right now are 6-4, 250 pounds, so they’re big adults, but they were also big babies.

Jackson was big. Jackson was nine pounds, six ounces, I think. Something like that. And towards the end of the pregnancy, his umbilical cord was pinched, and every time Dara had a contraction, the doctor and I would actually watch and hear the sound of the heartbeat go from 140, 150 beats per minute down to about 20, 25 beats per minute.

He was actually cutting off his oxygen. So the doctor basically said, “This baby does not like contractions. We have to get this baby out.” And she wasn’t dilated enough, but we’re watching, and it’s a big problem. So he said, “Doug, you have to help me deliver this baby.” God’s honest truth. That’s exactly what he said to me. There were no nurses, there were other deliveries going on. So it’s my wife, the doctor and myself in the room. And he says, “You’ve got to help me deliver the baby.” I’m like, “Tell me what I got to do.”

So he said, “Make a fist with your left hand, put it here.” And he placed it on her belly. “Take your right hand, put it behind her neck. When I tell you to push down, you need to push down as hard as you can.” And I said, “Doc, I’m a pretty big guy. I can push pretty hard.” He goes, “I’m telling you to push.”

He was stuck. His shoulder was stuck behind the bone somewhere, and he wasn’t coming out. He was actually being slowly suffocated. So she was at nine centimeters, not 10. He said, “We got to start pushing.” So I had my left fist on her belly, my right hand behind her neck, we’re watching the contraction. And you can see the contraction as it starts to ramp up.

And he says, “Go.” And I push hard down on my left. She’s pushing, he’s trying to turn the baby to get the shoulder to move. So we did that twice. And then the third time he turned the baby. He turned the baby so the shoulder came out from underneath, and then he was delivered.

He said, “Doug, if you were not here, we would’ve lost the baby. And it would’ve been very hard on your wife, because there’s not a nurse in this hospital that’s strong enough to do what you did.” He said, “So the fact that you were there, and you were strong enough to push this baby’s shoulder behind while it was turning, you saved the baby’s life.”

So Dara and I went to him about a year ago for her checkup. Every single time he looks me in the eye. Dr. Seidner, he’s the best. He goes, “You. You delivered that baby.” He said, “Without you….” So we think that because he was losing his oxygen there, it could have had a negative impact on his brain. But we’ll never know for sure.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Well, that is a very dramatic story. I’ve never heard a story like that before. And it just gives me chills to think about it. I think some guys might’ve just like fainted or lost consciousness or something. So thank you for sharing. That’s amazing.

Doug Robb: Yeah. You got to dig deep when you get that. And he is the coolest guy. Never sweats. Never. Dr. Seidner was just a really easygoing guy. He looked at me, and his face was pale white, and he was sweating and he said, “I need you to help me deliver this baby.” And you don’t even think of the consequences. Like, “Okay, tell me what I got to do.” And then probably within 20 minutes he was born.

David Hirsch: That is wild. So now with the benefit of some hindsight, I’m wondering if you can look back and see as parents some of the important decisions you made on the boys’ behalf as far as their personal and intellectual and emotional development.

Doug Robb: The one thing that I learned is that, especially with five kids, obviously every kid is different, right? So every kid is motivated different. You have to discipline every kid differently. Some things work with some kids and some things don’t. And I think as a parent, you really need to know what works and what doesn’t work.

And if I can motivate one of my kids with a carrot versus a stick, the other kid is gonna be exactly opposite. You know, to use an analogy that I heard from a coach, some dogs perform well when they get kicked and some dogs perform well when they get petted. And that’s the truth. So all five of our kids are really different.

And with the boys, I learned really early that they do not respond well to a loud voice. Forget about anything physical. We’ve never put our hands on our kids anyway. But if you even tried, their anger, their anxiety would get ramped up to a level so high it would just really compound the experience.

So we just learned to really back off and speak in low tones. Even when they’re young, rolling around on the ground screaming, we would just speak in low tones, like, “Why are you doing that? You’re embarrassing yourself.” But you never get angry with them. You don’t raise your voice. You don’t grab them by their wrist. You don’t jerk them.

You know, sometimes I see parents do that, and the kids just don’t react to that. Some do, but our boys didn’t. So we really learned how to disengage with them in order to make progress. Again, it took a long time to do that as well.

And then as they got older, for me, a big challenge was trying to connect with them, because for me, I was always into athletics. And that’s the farthest thing from anything that they want to do. When they were younger, they didn’t even want to throw a ball. Not even throw a Frisbee. So a big part of my life growing up was athletics, and I couldn’t share that with my sons.

And it took me a long time to get over myself, so to speak, and focus on them, right? So if they’re into Thomas the train engine. I couldn’t tell you how I memorized that. You know, Blues Clues, all these television shows. Trains. We would take them on train rides. So you have to get into their world. And I’m not talking grammar school. Even up into high school, going to certain movies.

It wasn’t about me. It wasn’t about doing what I wanted to do. It was about, “How can I connect with my kid?” And you’ve got to figure that out. You know, I didn’t have anybody as a mentor, which would’ve been really helpful then. But I had to figure out on my own, and it probably took too long to figure it out.

But eventually I got it, and now even today, I look for ways to connect with my boys in any way. I took Dougie to Comic-Con a month or so ago, and he’ll just talk nonstop about it. But typically I could be in the car with both of them and it’s complete silence. But if I start talking about something that he’s interested in, he doesn’t stop talking. So that windshield time that we have with our kids is so important. We had a ritual of going to church every Sunday and then talking about it before we go out to lunch.

That windshield time is critical, because you’ve got your kids captured, and my three daughters as well. My three daughters are high achievers. All three of them are high achievers. But as they get older and as they get distracted and as they get their own phone, you don’t have the time to spend with them either, because they’re busy doing their things.

But when you get them in the car for an hour, driving out to Long Island for two hours, going to a volleyball tournament or going to a softball tournament, that was critical. And I learned with my three girls to really capitalize on the time. Because you have a captured audience. Take the earbuds out of your ears, and let’s have a conversation. So it’s all about tapping into your kid.

David Hirsch: Yeah. I think your point about how everyone’s different, that they’re not all motivated or you can’t discipline them the same way, is really critical. And it’s not just the difference between boys and girls, but meeting them where they’re at, right? Finding out what their interests are, what turns them on, what motivates them. It’s not a one size fits all.

You’d think that, hey, same parents, same environment, same house. Obviously birth order has a little bit to do with things. But kids are completely different. And coincidentally, we both have three girls and two boys. You know, I can relate to some of the comments you were making.

And not to focus on the negative, but what were some of the bigger challenges that you and Dara faced? You already mentioned your denial, maybe some pride that got in the way early on when Dougie was younger, and you’ve already mentioned the challenge that you had to overcome figuring out how to connect with the boys. But I’m wondering if there’s anything else when you look back on it, some of the bigger hurdles that you faced.

Doug Robb: There were a lot of years there when the boys were initially diagnosed, and then really going up through grammar school and even at the high school, Dara and I didn’t see a lot of each other. Because I’d be in the city, and I’d be at the bridge or the tunnel 6:45, and almost every night I’d be home after dinner, and I’d come home exhausted.

And she was busy. She had five kids, two with special needs. She was completely exhausted. So neither one of us were really kind of fulfilling either one’s needs. We were just like two ships passing in the night. And that was a long time. Unfortunately, that was way too long, probably ten years.

David Hirsch: Wow.

Doug Robb: And it really put a lot of strain on our marriage. If Dara and I didn’t love each other as much as we did, we wouldn’t have made it. And I remember we went to a Christian counselor right around that time, probably when the boys were in grammar school, because we weren’t functioning. We weren’t seeing each other. I was working 10-12 hour days. She was completely overwhelmed. We were both completely overwhelmed, and we both weren’t really fulfilling each other in almost every way.

So we go to this Christian counselor, and we’re sitting there, and he is like, “All right, who wants to start?” So I look at Dara, and I said, “Do you want me to start?” She goes, “Yeah.” So I gave it to him straight for 45 minutes. The good, the bad, and the ugly. And every time I talk, we’d look at Dara. Yeah, she’s nodding her head. I’m a brutally honest person. What you see is what you get. I’m don’t play games.

So I’m telling him my problems, her problems, our problems—and Dara and I are on the same page—so for 45 minutes. Then he takes his glasses off, puts them on his pad. He looks at me, and he goes, “I can’t believe you guys are still married.” I go, “What do you mean?” He goes, “People get divorced for a fraction of what you guys have going on. I honestly can’t believe you’re still married.” I’m like, “Okay. That’s all I needed to know. We’re doing something right.”

So we never went to counseling again. That was probably ten plus years ago. And then it kind of was a wake up call for Dara and I. So then seven years ago, I left the broker dealer business, and I created my own insurance agency, and I spent a lot more time at home.

So I’ll never forget this time I’m sitting on the couch with Dara. We’ve always had this kind of friction between us. And God just put it on my heart. I looked at her, grabbed her hand, and I said, “I just want to apologize. I realize that for these last ten years or so, I was selfishly thinking about how you weren’t helping me. But now I finally realize that I wasn’t helping you. So even though I was completely overwhelmed, I finally realize that you were completely overwhelmed.”

Five kids, two special needs—I mean, she was maxed out. And I said, “I wasn’t there for you, and I just want to apologize for that.” And she started crying, because that’s what she needed to hear, right? And it took me ten years to say it, but she needed to hear it.

And then when I said it, our relationship just blossomed from there. It was like putting water on a plant. Our marriage grew stronger and stronger and stronger, and right now with 28 years of marriage, our marriage is stronger than it ever was, because we’re on the same page.

And we acknowledge that our life is challenging. It’s not me not supporting you or you not supporting me. We just have a very, very challenging life, so there’s no blame. Let’s just come together as teammates, and win for our family. And that’s what we did.

So, that’s the other advice that I wish somebody told me a lot earlier, and that it didn’t take me so long to figure it out. You’ve got to think about your spouse and what they’re going through. Obviously it’s not just about us, it’s about them. And when that finally clicked for me, our marriage just exploded for the upside since then.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Well, words of wisdom. Thank you for sharing. Which brings to mind, I’m sort of curious to know what impact Dougie and Jackson’s situations had on their siblings, or your extended family, for that matter.

Doug Robb: You know, we talked to the girls about this. Taylor, my oldest, really helped raise the boys. Dara and I probably put too much on her, because the boys were challenging and we are working so much. And here we have Taylor, who was very capable, and she helped us raise her two brothers, and she did a great job.

She’s going to be a great mother someday. She’s been married two years, and I’m encouraging her to start having children as soon as possible, because she’ll be a great mother. She always had that in her. She’s a very caring person, so she really helped us raise them.

But then in high school, when she got her driver’s license, boom, she was gone. We didn’t see her anymore. She’s like, “I put my time in. I am out of here.” And that was it. Right? So we got a lot of good years of her helping us raise the boys, and they have a really strong connection, both of them, with Taylor.

So then Peyton and Mia are born after the boys. So it’s a different dynamic, right? So now, listen, Jackson is loud. He’s very loud. He lives life loud. He’s jumps, he yells, and he really lives loud. So my daughters wouldn’t bring anybody over, because there is an embarrassment there. Because, let’s face it, a lot of people don’t know what to do with that.

So we didn’t see a lot of their friends. But even though they were younger, Peyton and Mia have learned how to take care of their brothers. So they have just this incredible personality. They’re such giving people—low tone, well grounded, high achievers in college, both of them in athletics. Just really high achievers.

But they’re the most humble people you’ll ever meet. I remember their friends used to ask, “Can Peyton sleep over? Can Mia sleep over?” Because they were so good. Peyton would do the dishes at somebody’s house after a sleepover or something like that. And Mia was just friends with everybody, so she would just mix in.

So it’s probably a big reason because of the boys. They really learned how to humble themselves and take care of somebody. As a child, you’re taking care of your older brothers, and they turned into just incredible human beings because of it.

And me as well. I’m a much better person having them in my life than not, because I probably would’ve been not such an understanding, patient guy. And my wife’s probably laughing, because I’m not that now, but I probably would’ve been ten times worse.

Because you learn those lessons when you have special needs. You learn what to do, what not to do. You learn to control your emotions. You know, we all have weaknesses and lose control once in a while, but we’re all better, you know, especially with Jackson, because he was really high maintenance. We’re all much better people because of it.

David Hirsch: So I’m sort of curious to know if there’s been any particular organizations that have played an influential role, either on the boys’ behalf or on your family’s behalf, looking back on it.

Doug Robb: So growing up, the boys did not play sports, but my girls always did. I was pretty much very overwhelmed, because I was working 10-12 hour days. Dara and I really didn’t have a lot of spare time. So the spare time we did have, I spent with my kids. I coached all their teams when they were younger, until they got too good. And then I didn’t know how to…I still don’t know volleyball, I still don’t understand it. Softball, I understood. But in the early years when I was coaching, that was the time that I had with them.

And we didn’t really have organizations that we participated in. We did charity events where we would meet other parents. And unfortunately a lot of it was single moms, where the dads felt too overwhelmed, and they ended up leaving the mother with the special needs kid. I talked to some of these dads. “Well, I support them financially.” I’m like, “Boy, you’re just missing it. Finances has nothing to do with it. You need to be there. Kids needs a dad, and especially a special needs kid.”

The motherly love and the way a dad challenges, they’re different. This is not news, but maybe to some people it is. You know, men and women are different, and that motherly love cannot be duplicated by anybody, including a father.

But a father pushes their child. A father challenges their child, and that’s the balance that I think every kid needs to grow up in a healthy environment. And a special needs kid need it more than a typical kid. So when you remove the father from it, and now you have the mother who’s overwhelmed and just doesn’t know how to challenge the kid. She is more concerned about the nurturing.

So unfortunately the kid probably doesn’t develop as well as they should. That’s the one thing that I recognize with some of the charities that we did get involved with. It was a lot of single mothers, and I almost looked at that and said, “You know what, I’m not gonna be that guy. It won’t happen.” And God’s honest truth. I thought about leaving. I did more than once. It never happened, but I thought about it.

And that’s when you really just got to dig deep, get on your knees and pray. And I pray an awful lot. You know, my faith is the most important thing in my life. And without that, I wouldn’t have made it. I would’ve been gone. I would’ve been doing something else. You know, it’s my faith that grounds me. And without it, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I know that for a fact, that I’d be in a much, much worse place.

David Hirsch: Thanks for emphasizing that point. A lot of people talk about the role of spirituality, but it plays a different role for everybody. I’ve heard individuals say, “Without faith, how would you be able to shoulder some of the challenges or responsibilities of life, let alone raising a child?” Or in your case, children with special needs.

So let’s switch gears and talk a little bit beyond your own personal experience. I’m really curious to know a little bit more about the backstory for the organization that you’ve created called Seat At The Table. What was the original vision and what’s transpired since then?

Doug Robb: So, Brian Martin and I are very close personal friends. He still lives in Basking Ridge. I was in Basking Ridge for almost 20 years. We just moved to Long Valley earlier this year. Brian’s background is in the athletic field, where he’s trained professional athletes for many years. He works with physical therapists. He works with doctors. So he really does have a broad knowledge and expertise that’s truly unique.

And he has two special needs boys, one with autism and one with CP. It’s very challenging for him and his wife, Melissa, and they do such an incredible job with their boys. I don’t have words to explain how strong they are. To achieve in their own life, but still be there for their boys to the level that they are, is absolutely incredible.

So Brian and I are spending a lot of time together. And you know, he has his two boys and I have my two boys. We just started brainstorming, and we said, “Listen, what if we come up with a charitable organization, a 501(c)3?” And we basically will have some professional athletes do some engagements. We’ll have some events, we’ll do some fundraisers. We’ll raise some money.

And then we’ll start giving out grants to families to try to help them, because there is a gap between what people can afford on their own and what the state is providing. Whether it’s therapy, or it’s putting up a swing set in someone’s yard. We just wanted to create an organization where we could raise some money and start giving out grants. So that was the beginning of it.

Seat At The Table is a name that I came up with. It’s based on scripture. It’s based on King David and his best friend Jonathan’s son Mephibosheth, who was handicapped, as it says in the Bible, in Samuel. David asked, “Where is Jonathan’s son? Bring him to me.” The Bible talks about his ankles and his feet were kind of on backwards. So he was handicapped, and being handicapped 2,000 years ago was not a good thing. You talk about a stigma today, you know, imagine where it was back then.

So he came to the palace, and King David said, “You will always have a seat at  the king’s table.” So he basically acknowledged, “You’re handicapped. You’re the son of my best friend. You will always have a seat at the table.” So that’s where we came up with the name. Turns out there’s other organizations called that. So ours is Seat At The Table Foundation.

We want all special needs kids to be challenged, to be part of society, to work if possible, to earn a paycheck if possible, and to have a seat at the table and not to be off to the side. Not to be relegated to doing something a lot less than what they’re capable of.

Because these special needs kids can contribute. They can contribute to society in a lot of ways. Not just working, but in a lot of ways. So Seat At The Table Foundation was really designed to figure out how we can help these people contribute to society, because they want to contribute, they want to work, they want to be useful, right? There’s something in our heart when we’re useful, we really feel good about ourselves.

But when you have special needs, you have all these other challenges. Life is hard enough to go through just normal as a typical person. Now you throw special needs on top of it. Think about the courage and the strength it takes to get through a day. If you have special needs, and you’re aware of it, and you’re self-conscious about it, think about the strength it takes to get through that day.

So we wanted to create an organization that says they’ll have the same seat at the table as everybody else. They won’t be discriminated against, they won’t be looked down upon. We’re gonna challenge them and their skills as much as we would any typical person.

David Hirsch: That’s fabulous. I love the symbolism that goes along with the name and what it stands for. So what are some of the projects that you’ve either started or that you’re planning on, to engage these youth, to provide them with some of the life skills and some independence?

Doug Robb: So Jackson goes to adult daycare, Spectrum 360 in Whippany. They’re an absolutely incredible organization. So once the child ages out from high school at 21, it’s up to us to find a place for them to go to adult daycare. And they have just been an unbelievable organization.

I think he’s going to the Poconos this weekend. He went to a horseback dude ranch a couple of weeks ago, and the people are just absolutely incredible. Those of us with special needs know the teachers. These are special people. These are people that can spend all day with your kid.

I know for me, I couldn’t do it. When they were younger, I could maybe spend an hour or two with my kid, then I’d have to tap out. It took me years to be able to get to spend a full day with them. These are teachers that are doing this for other people’s kids, and they’re doing it as a career. Not because of the pay. They’re doing it because they love it. It’s a passion. So these people are absolutely incredible.

So they take the special needs adults now, 21 and older, and they have to find places for them to go to get some work done. Jackson was working at Jersey Mike’s, basically taking out the garbage, cleaning up, would go to Burger King, clean trays for two hours. So that’s how they get them involved in the community.

Then I’m thinking to myself, well, what can they do? What kind of skills can a special needs person have? Autism, Down syndrome, you know, CP, whatever it is. And the one thing that always resonated was shredding. Jackson loved to shred. So I would go through a lot of paper and have a basket and then he would just shred and shred and shred. And he was in charge of shredding at Ridge High School. That was his thing. He just loved to shred.

So in talking to other parents, yeah, it’s the strangest thing. Everybody loves to shred. So I’m like, “Well, how about inside of our foundation, we create a business of shredding?” What does that look like? Well, let’s do onsite shredding. Let’s buy a box truck. Let’s buy a shredder, and let’s give these adult day care centers places to bring their people, and shred.

And guess what? We’re gonna pay them. So now we’re gonna give them a wage. So if we give them a wage, now they’re gonna get a paycheck. Now they can take their parents out for lunch, or they can buy a gift for their aide. Because they’re out there, they’re working, now they’re getting paid, and there’s dignity in a paycheck. There’s dignity in hard work and pride, and those are the kinds of things that we want to start to instill.

Listen, if they’re out there volunteering, that’s all well and good. They’re helping the community. But we want the special needs adults to get paid and to have a paycheck. So we came up with the name Shredding Special Needs. I’m in the process now of getting the 501(c)3, which I should have shortly, and we’re gonna start doing onsite shredding.

And because it’s a 501(c)3, if we go to a law firm or a real estate firm, these places that use a lot of paper, and they hire our company, it’ll actually be a deduction for them. So they’ll be able to hire Shredding Special Needs. We’ll pull up, we’ll do onsite shredding. We’ll have a closed circuit camera, so for example, if it’s law office, obviously these are very, very sensitive documents. So they can monitor everything that’s going on. Everything will be done above par.

It’ll be a really good service, but you’ll be helping this special needs community. Because the proceeds and the funds that we make, we’re gonna fold back into the employees, and we’re gonna make donations to the adult daycare center, and it’s a tax deduction for the company to use. We’re not looking to shatter any big records here. We’re just looking maybe to compete for a portion of a firm’s business. If they have somebody that they use now and they really like it, they do a good job, maybe we can do a small job for you. And we’ll pull the truck right up on site. We’ll do it right on site, and we’re gonna do a great job.

So I’m really excited for this, because we’re gonna really start to integrate the work ethic and the reward system with everybody in these adult daycare centers.

David Hirsch: I love the concept. We’ll have to circle back when you’re a couple years down the road and do a check-in. So Iron Mountain, Pro Shred, Shred-it, you heard it here first. Beware. Shredding Special Needs is biting at your coattails.

Doug Robb: It’s so funny too. My wife and I were just away, and I met, actually for a second time, a guy in my business. He’s in Tampa, and his wife is with this law firm for 31 years. And we’re talking at the pool, we’re talking about this, and she’s like, “Oh my gosh, this is fantastic. Can you come down to Tampa?” I’m like, “Well, it’s a business model. We got to get it going in New Jersey and New York first.”

But I said, “It’s a model that we definitely can bring to other cities.” Then I asked her, “How much shredding do you do? She goes, “We spend $7,000 to $9,000 a month in shredding.” She works for a very large firm. So I said, “You know what, maybe we’ll do an offsite in Tampa sooner than later.”

David Hirsch: Yeah, you can just try it for spring break, right?

Doug Robb: Yeah. I’ll drive the box truck down.

David Hirsch: I mean, kids, go on an alternative spring break, like for Habitat for Humanity and projects like that. And they get a number of different things from that experience. They’re doing something purposeful, which is what you’re describing. And they’re also getting to travel and do things that typical kids get to do for spring break and things like that.

Doug Robb: That’s a great idea. And you know what, I’m gonna work on that and say, for a month in the spring, if we can carve that off. That’s a great idea, David. Thank you.

David Hirsch: So let’s switch gears. Talk a little bit about advice before we wrap up. I’m wondering if there’s any advice beyond what we’ve already discussed that you might be able to share specifically with parents, or dads in particular, that are raising a child with special abilities.

Doug Robb: Well, you know, it’s funny. People who are getting married, a lot of times they ask you, “What’s the secret?” Because it’s no secret that my wife and I have a really strong marriage. We really do. You know, it’s not just a Facebook act. We really do love each other. And so people ask.

And I thought about it, and it’s actually a couple of things. What makes it work? And the one thing that makes it work is sacrifice, right? If you’re not willing to sacrifice, then it won’t work. So you have to put your family before yourself, and that’s easier said than done.

David Hirsch: I love it. Thank you for sharing or emphasizing the importance of sacrifice. So I’m sort of curious to know, why is it that you’ve agreed to be a mentor father as part of the Special Fathers Network?

Doug Robb: Because I struggled so many years. I was on an island, and I didn’t have mentors in my life. And I think if I did, I probably could have come to some of these realizations a lot sooner than I did. I mean, my wife and I and our family struggled because we were overwhelmed. And it didn’t have to be that way. It really did not have to be that way.

And somebody that went through it that could have given me some perspective and said, “You know what, Doug? This is a chapter in your life. It’s not always gonna be like this. Life is seasonal. We’re gonna go through winters, but then we’re gonna have springs and we’re gonna have summers. So no matter how hard you think you have it, it’s never gonna stay that way. It’s always gonna change. All our lives are seasonal.”

David Hirsch: So is there anything else you’d like to say before we wrap up?

Doug Robb: Well, I would say…I talk to my kids about this. Our brain—we can control our thoughts, right? And if we start having negative thoughts about whatever it is, we have to consciously control our thoughts. And we can control our thoughts, because if we’re thinking about certain things, good or bad, you know, these ruts, these brain passageways in our brain, it becomes very hard to break a good or bad habit.

So if you’re doing something that you know you shouldn’t be doing, really work on changing your mindset, because as your brain goes, your life tends to go. So if you can recognize that and say, “Listen, I’m not in a good place. I shouldn’t be thinking about these things.”

You’ve got to really work hard and change your mindset, and then change your mindset to something that’s more productive, again, in a sacrificial way. And it took me a long time to figure that one out as well. Because you can control your thoughts, you can control your mind, and you want to focus on those good things.

And you got to have that one thing in your life that you can always rely on. For me, it’s my faith. It’s the bedrock. I tell my wife, “No offense, but God is number one in my life. You’re a close number two, and my kids are right there too, and my family and friends.” But that’s something that can never be taken away from me. So no matter how hard it gets, I feel God’s love in my life all day long, and I have that to rely on.

So everything else doesn’t really seem too hard. Jackson had cancer at 14 years old, which was an extremely challenging time for us, and without the power of prayer, I don’t know how I would’ve gotten through that. And thank God, you know, he’s completely healed now. He had a germ cell tumor and we could have lost him.

You know when your kid is on the spectrum is one thing, but when you’re in a hospital, in a kid’s cancer ward, and you’ve seen all these children, and the reality is that maybe 50% of them aren’t gonna make it, it really puts things in perspective. And for me, once I got through that, there’s nothing that’s gonna shake me in my job, in my career, in my friends.

It just doesn’t shake me, because that is something that shook me down on my core. It almost broke me. His chemo was intense, because it spread to the lymph nodes, but we caught it in time. And the fact that he was healed, that was a complete game changer for me. Now hopefully nobody has to go through that, but it almost took that realization to shake me out of it.

I’ve been on mission trips. I’ve done clean water trips in Nicaragua as well. When you see what people are going through, you get outside of yourself, you see what’s going on out there, and you just realize, “Holy cow, I am blessed so much more than I deserve. What the heck am I complaining about?” So those kind of life experiences put things in in perspective for me, and I draw on that for strength today.

David Hirsch: Well, thanks for sharing. That is rather dramatic to have a 14 year old son with autism to go through a cancer diagnosis and treatment. So let’s give a special shout out to Brian Martin, Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast dad number 164, for helping connect us.

Doug Robb: Yes. Thank you Brian. Love you, brother.

David Hirsch: If somebody wants to learn more about A Seat At The Table or contact you, what’s the best way to do that?

Doug Robb: My mobile number is 908 area code 399-6162, and my email is my name, Doug Robb, dougrobb78@gmail.com.

David Hirsch: Excellent. We’ll be sure to include that in the show notes. Doug, thank you for taking the time and many insights. As a reminder, Doug is just one of the individuals who’s part of the Special Fathers Network, a mentoring program for fathers raising a child with special needs. If you’d like to be a mentor father, or are seeking advice from a mentor father with a similar situation to your own, please go to 21stcenturydads.org.

Thank you for listening to the latest episode of the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. As you probably know, the 21st Century Dads Foundation is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization, which means we need your help to keep our content free to all concern. Would you please consider making a tax deductible contribution? I would really appreciate your support.

Doug, thanks again.

Doug Robb: Thank you, David. God bless.

Tom Couch: And thank you for listening to the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. The Special Fathers Network is a dad to dad mentoring program for fathers raising children with special needs. Through our personalized matching process, new fathers with special needs children match up with mentor fathers in a similar situation. It’s a great way for dads to support other dads. To find out more, go to 21stcenturydads.org.

David Hirsch: And if you’re a dad looking for help, or would like to offer help, we would be honored to have you join our closed Facebook group. Please go to facebook.com/groups and search dad to dad.

Also, please be sure to register for the Special Fathers Network biweekly Zoom calls held on the first and third Tuesdays of every month. Lastly, we’re always looking to share interesting stories. If you’d like to share your story, or know of a compelling story, please send an email to david@21stcenturydads.org.

Tom Couch: The Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast was produced by me, Tom Couch. Thanks again to Horizon Therapeutics, who believed that science and compassion must work together to transform lives. That’s why they work tirelessly to research, develop, and bring forward medicines for people living with rare and rheumatic diseases. Discover more about Horizon Therapeutics at horizontherapeutics.com.