Ry Russo-Young: Okay. Are you guys comfortable? This looks good.
- Robin Young: Okay. - (awkward laughter)
-Ry: Okay. That's nice. That's nice. -Sandy Russo: That nice?
Ry: Yeah, okay. Um, so,
tell me... Just briefly describe your names
and, of course, your relationship to Ry.
To Ry? You mean you?
- Ry: Yeah. To Ry. - Oh, is this
all gonna be like in the third person or something?
Ry: Well, it depends...
It's really up to you, how you wanna do it.
Well, I'm Sandy Russo, and I'm...
- your mom. - Ry: (laughs) Okay.
Good.
That kind of describes it.
(laughs) And I'm Robin Young, and I'm...
your mother also.
♪ ♪
Ry: I was born in 1981.
(waves washing ashore)
Robin had a very difficult pregnancy.
When she finally had me,
apparently I come out, and I'm all red and bruised up,
and Robin starts crying
when she looks at me.
And she says to Russo, "She's so ugly,
no one's ever gonna love her as much as we do."
The irony is that I was not ever a child
who wasn't deeply loved.
If anything, I was loved too much.
♪ ♪
(no audio)
♪ ♪
(no audio)
♪ ♪
(singing): Robin and Russo...
- B-Cam marker. - (clack)
So, just first, let's just talk about...
a little bit about your relationship
and what having children has meant to you in your life.
Everything. Having children...
I can't imagine life without children.
- I can't either. - I don't know what we'd be doing.
Or what we'd be caring about or what we'd be passionate about.
Driving around in a sports car?
- Like I don't get it. (laughs) - Yeah.
-I mean, with you guys, -I know it's so...
I mean, it sounds trite, there's no way to even capture what it means,
but I mean there's no one I would rather
be with in the world
than the three of you that are my family.
(indistinct)
♪ ♪
I always describe my parents as like
Romeo and Juliet, but Juliet and Juliet.
Because they literally... They met,
and they describe the moment they met,
and it was such a moment.
Russo: It was the Presidents Weekend
in February 1979,
and rather than hang around New York for this long weekend,
I thought I'll go up and visit a friend in Boston.
(street noise)
Robin: And I was living in Boston,
and I wanted to move, and a friend said,
"Oh, there's this...
cool apartment. You might like it there."
I went upstairs. It was like the third floor,
- and I knocked on this apartment door... - (knocking)
and this voice said, "Come in."
And I walked into this kitchen,
and sitting at the kitchen table
was Russo, and no one else was there.
And it was like, who's this?
♪ ♪
It was immediate. Like a bomb!
Kaboom. It was a thunderbolt. It was like...
I don't even know what it was.
♪ Like a ball of lightning and a ball of... ♪
So we spent, like, an hour
in the kitchen, just the two of us together.
♪ But I recognize... ♪
Russo: I kept saying, "My friend will be out in a minute
- to talk apartment with you." - Robin: But meanwhile,
we were both secretly like thrilled.
♪ Shoorah! Shoorah! Hey, I can see you coming ♪
So we were getting into it with each other. Asking questions...
Russo: Where you from? And then the question
I asked her that really
sealed the deal was,
"So, what have you done lately to make your parents unhappy?"
♪ ♪
Robin: Growing up,
I was just this little tomboy.
And I just felt like
I was always observing life,
and I couldn't picture my life
as a grownup, fitting into
the world that I saw around me.
I couldn't imagine getting married
and living this life that my mother lived.
I was always looking at the clock,
like I was perpetually bored.
And when I finally did come out,
it was almost as if I was viewing the world before
in black and white, and suddenly,
everything burst into color.
♪ ♪
So then, when I met Russo,
it was just like this is what I've been waiting for.
Me, too. It was like, oh my god.
And I was... And then, I had to go back to New York,
and I was terrified of losing her.
- This is February and, April? - April.
I moved to New York.
And all of our friends said,
"What are you doing? Slow down. You're crazy."
And everyone said, "You can't do that," and, "She's so young."
And we just kept saying, "No, no,
we love each other. Leave us alone."
I remember at one point,
we met with Russo's best friend from law school.
♪ ♪
Cris Arguedas: Russo invited me to Windows on the World,
at the top of the World Trade Center, to meet Robin.
I had never been to Windows on the World before.
I don't think Russo had either,
but that's how she wanted to introduce Robin to me
'cause it was, "This is the love of my life."
She was crazy for her,
and I liked Robin right away.
She's way quieter, more serious,
but solid.
I did think she was young,
but they're clearly gonna be together for a long time.
(traffic noise)
Robin: We lived in the West Village.
It was very gay.
We used to hang out at Bonnie and Clydes,
which was a gay bar on the bottom,
and a women's restaurant, like a lesbian restaurant,
on the top.
We hung out at that lesbian restaurant for a reason.
Because New York was kinda ugly
on the streets then and it was scary.
Russo: One time, some guy
kept following us down the block,
and screaming. You know, "You fucking lezzo!"
Robin: There was always the threat of violence.
Reporter: Bouquets of flowers and the candles
at the door of the Ramrod bar,
they're really symbols of the mourning,
a feeling of mourning for the two dead
and the others who've been shot down here on West Street.
Many of the people here see it not just as an attack on
the individuals that happened to be here,
but as an attack on the gay community.
I wanna live my life! I don't wanna be killed
on these streets! This is ridiculous!
Russo: Mom would never hold my hand.
Robin: I was always terrified to hold Mom's hand
- on the street or put my arm around her. - I'd say, "Come on, we gotta..."
"No, I'm too... No. It's not worth it. It's too dangerous."
(crowd chanting)
Cris: In the gay community,
we were creating a new world, you know.
We were creating a world of gay liberation.
And your parents were part of that.
♪ ♪
Russo and I had such a close relationship.
We could talk about anything and did.
I guess she had been saying to me on the phone.
She's very happy. She loves Robin. She's glad she came out.
"But now, I'm never gonna be able to have children."
And, you know, Russo, she was worldly,
and she had lived a life, and she had had two husbands.
She knew a lot more about herself
and life and politics.
She knew what she wanted.
Russo: I wanted kids since I myself was a kid.
I've always wanted kids.
With my second husband, I tried to get pregnant.
And I was so desperate to have it work and have a life.
I was trying for about two and a half years, and...
couldn't. Didn't.
You know, I also realized that that was a blessing
because I was a lesbian.
And then when I finally came out,
it was never on my radar again that I would have kids.
It was...
Gay couples just didn't have kids.
♪ ♪
(bar chatter)
Robin: Coming out, being gay, meant that you
were not gonna have children.
It was almost like you were giving up that right
to have a family.
And that was sad.
(street noise)
Cris: I moved to California,
and I was in a woman's bookstore
in the Mission
in San Francisco, and I saw a little...
pamphlet, you know, stapled on the sides,
with a pink cover that said something like,
"We can make our own babies," or something like that.
♪ ♪
And so, I bought it,
and when Russo and Robin came to visit,
I said, "Look. You can. You can have children."
Russo: She gave us a little pink
mimeographed thing that two women had written.
Robin: It was like homemade little drawings,
pen and ink, like, really hokey.
And the pamphlet was like,
"Sarah and Emily are lesbians
who wanna have children."
- Russo: It was how-to! - Robin: A how-to.
How to artificially inseminate without a doctor.
Russo: And when you think about it,
it's so... simple.
Robin: And it just opened up this incredible door.
It was like it was really possible.
We could have children.
♪ ♪
Cris: So, they were talking about, "Well, who could it be?
Who could be the donor?"
Who could fill that role?
And that meant who's a, who's a...
man who's a good guy and has...
good genes and would be willing to do this
under those terms.
You can't really imagine a straight man wanting to do that.
(disco music playing)
(inaudible)
We wanted gay men as donors because...
they were simpatico with what we were doing.
♪ Baby, show me your love ♪
Russo: The culture certainly was pre-HIV.
No one knew about HIV,
and it was a very
wild, loose culture in the gay community.
♪ ♪
Robin: And I think for these guys at the time, it was like,
"Oh. They want my sperm." You know?
It was great. They loved the idea.
It was like a feather in their cap or whatever.
Russo: And I think they also liked the idea of...
- you know, helping create gay families. - Gay families. Yeah.
It was like this whole new thing,
and they were on the cutting edge.
♪ ♪
Cris: My girlfriend knew this guy named Jack Colve.
I thought he was very intelligent, good-looking,
and a mensch of a guy.
Robin: Cris had told us that
he spoke five languages or seven languages.
That he was very smart.
Russo: And we liked the idea of the donor being in San Francisco,
which was gonna be far away.
♪ ♪
I said to Robin, "You go and interview him
'cause (stammers) I'm too nervous to do it."
Robin: You waited in the car, and I went into his house
and met with him for not very long
and helped him fill out this health questionnaire.
And sort of made the deal.
And came out and went...
you know, "We got a guy."
But what was important to us
that we did work out with him was...
No rights, no responsibilities.
The only thing we asked, "Would it be okay
if the kid wants to call you in the future?"
And we didn't think much past that.
♪ ♪
Russo: We started with me because of my age.
We used an artichoke hearts jar. You know,
the artichoke hearts you buy in a little jar?
And the reason that we like to use this one in particular
is because it has a wide mouth.
So we cleaned that out, and we gave it to him
and said, "Here, this is...
this is for you."
Insemination Expert: The person who picks up the sperm and brings it to you
arranges with the man a specific time on a specific day.
He called and said, "Come over and get it," and he handed me
a little paper bag 'cause it said in the pamphlet
that you should keep the sperm in a dark place.
I like to put it in a sock, like so,
and that keeps it protected from light and it keeps it warm.
And I just put it right here (laughs)
and I drive to the person's house.
Cris: A friend of mine drove so that
I could keep it warm next to my body.
- So, I... fill it up... - Mom would fill it up.
From the artichoke thing, and...
she was lying down, and...
- (squish, laughs) - Insert it. (laughs)
♪ ♪
(plane roaring)
Robin: So we get back to New York, and...
she misses her period.
And so, we go for a pregnancy test.
And it was positive. Like, she got pregnant.
♪ ♪
And then nine months later, Cade was born.
(laughs) We had this wonderful baby.
-Russo: It was just magic. She was this just perfect... -Robin: Yeah.
Child, you know, this delicious baby.
And we said, "Alright. Let's do it again."
Robin: We wanted each of us to have a child.
Ry: And you also chose to have different donors.
Yeah, because it just felt odd.
If our kids can't genetically be related...
- Robin: Through us. - through us, it didn't make any sense that
they should somehow be genetically connected
- through the donors. - Robin: Some other way.
Genetics were not sort of
the focus of our family here.
We also didn't want any one donor to have...
such a role.
It was such a potential power.
So, I, we... I went on a search for another donor,
and I introduced them to one guy who
we went on a picnic, Golden Gate Park.
♪ ♪
He didn't know he was being vetted
for being a donor. He just thought we were friends
and we were going out.
Russo: And he was wonderful. He was a very, very sweet guy.
But we turned him down because he wasn't very attractive.
(birds chirping)
We wanted someone good-looking. We thought, well,
if we're doing this, let's pick someone cute.
So, um...
I don't... I think the next person I thought of was Tom.
('70s rock music playing)
Robin: Smart, tall, dark and handsome.
-Really nice personality. Very political. -Very political. Out.
Nanci Clarence: He would walk into a room,
and everyone would sit up and take notice.
He was charismatic, he was kind,
and he was astonishingly good-looking.
♪ Hey hey, let's go out tonight ♪
You can't just wave a wand and close down
14 businesses in a city...
Nanci: He was this rising star of an attorney.
Everybody in the gay community knew Tom.
Cris: Tom was absolutely
the foremost lawyer protecting gay people.
Nanci: He worked harder than any lawyer I knew.
♪ Rebel rebel, you've torn your dress ♪
And he did cases that
really changed the legal landscape.
♪ Rebel, rebel, how could they know ♪
One of his big cases was Peg's Place, which was a women's bar.
People had gotten beat up, and he sued the cops.
Nanci: He never shied away from being
progressive and outspoken in what his beliefs were.
Robin: And Tom was attracted to the idea,
as a gay man,
of helping lesbians have families.
♪ ♪
He really identified with
these women wanting to build a family
that they envisioned, on the terms that they wanted.
Russo: And he agreed, and we were delighted.
And Robin got pregnant, and then they had us.
Voilà.
(funky '70s music playing)
Russo: Coming out and meeting Robin
and having our babies was like...
just a second chance for me.
And it was just wonderful.
♪ Home is where I want to be ♪
♪ Pick me up... ♪
Robin: People knew we were lesbians because we were totally out.
We felt like it was very important to be out.
♪ Oh ♪
♪ I got plenty of time ♪
Robin: But in so many ways,
we were this traditional family.
People laugh, ha! You know, we really are
mom and mom and the kids...
Russo: And the dogs and the van.
Robin: And driving the kids to school.
♪ Standing here beside me ♪
Ry: Robin stayed home and took care of us,
and Russo went to work
and was a lawyer.
♪ Say goodnight ♪
Ry: My memory of childhood is very sort of rosy.
It was very magical, and there was a lot of playfulness.
♪ ♪
Kathleen "Cookie" Ridolfi: I remember Russo and Robin were so proud
of what they had and what they built,
and so protective of everybody's role and everybody's part,
and making sure both you kids saw
each of them equally, and I really admired them.
Because there were no gay families
when I was growing up. None.
Linda Starr: Cookie said, "I'd really like you to meet my good friends,
Russo and Robin," because Cookie and I
were talking about having children,
and I really wanted to hear your moms' experience
with creating a family
because I don't think anybody thought of a gay family.
There wasn't this idea, "Oh, that's a gay family.
They have two same-sex parents and children."
I don't think anybody even thought that that happened.
Not then.
There was always some other way to try to define it.
People looked at your family and said,
"Oh, they're friends and they're hanging out.
Oh, maybe they're sisters." It was always
some contortion of what that arrangement was.
It wasn't even comprehensible that,
"Oh. It's two moms and their kids."
♪ ♪
Russo: People used to get really angry at us
if we wouldn't answer questions.
People would say, "Oh, whose is she?"
And we would say, "Both of ours."
And they'd say, "No really. Which one is the mother?"
And we'd say, "We both are."
- And they'd go, "I mean, who's the real mother?" - "We both are!"
Then I'm gonna show you the prince (indistinct)...
♪ ♪
Russo: And we made it an absolute
family policy not to answer that question.
It was like, excuse me. We'll define our reality
and our life.
Ry: People are always like, "So, what was that like?
Having two mothers?" And I'm always like,
"Well, I don't really have much to compare it to."
Russo: Hey? Can I get a kiss or anything? (kiss)
- Love you. - You know, it's not like,
"Well, first I had a mother and a father,
and then I had two, you know, two mothers."
Get a nice car shot, Mom!
Mom!
It's hard to sort of see it
as like a foreign, strange thing
because it's so normal to me.
Cade: Explaining that to people became
just part of daily life really.
And now, I realize
that its people's own ignorance
and a sense of disbelief and...
steadfast hold to the notion of
the dad as this
all-encompassing
wonderful creature...
(no audio)
and a biological tie
as the most important thing in the world.
♪ ♪
Panelist: The issue is with the American family
under attack by divorce, by separation,
and by promiscuity in our culture,
homosexuals say that family is what you make it.
I disagree. For thousands of years,
the family as traditionally understood has proved to be
the most effective means of providing a good civilization.
Every other kind of arrangement has been tried,
and nothing has ever worked as successfully as what
these people derisively call "the traditional family."
Ry: It's just ridiculous, you know?
These people seem to think that it doesn't matter if a kid has
two dads or two moms or three dads or one mom
or maybe an armadillo for a mother.
Cade: Nobody asks kids in straight families
if they ever wished that they had two moms
or if they ever wish they had two dads.
It's annoying for kids like me to constantly explain,
no, biology isn't the end-all and be-all.
Okay. Alright, so let's go back to the donors, right? So,
the first few years
- we had no contact with the donors? - Right.
Ry: And maybe just talk about
like what you sort of expected for that relationship.
We had pictured somehow that you guys would ask about,
you know, like, "Who's my father" or wanted to have
information about your biological...
uh, you know, fathers,
like, in high school or something.
You know, that it would come up as sort of teenagers.
♪ ♪
Well instead, Cade was going
to preschool, and everyone was talking about their daddy,
and she came home and said, "Do I have a daddy?
Who's my daddy?" Like, you know, wanting to know where she fit in with this.
So, we said, "No, you don't have a daddy.
You both have nice men who helped make you."
Cade was very precocious,
and she kept wanting more information,
so then we wrote to the donors and asked if
they wouldn't mind sending pictures,
and they were very sweet
and both sent pictures of themselves,
and we showed you both.
"This is the man who helped make you, Cade,
and this is the man who helped make you, Ry."
Russo: But the pictures sort of weren't satisfying
Cade's curiosity enough.
Cade was very concrete and linear and,
you know, could read a book,
and had those kinds of skills, and you were off
in La La Land.
Robin: Cade was asking questions and...
Russo: "Well, what's he like? Where does he live?"
♪ ♪
Russo: Our commitment to our kids,
before we ever had them,
was to always tell them the truth
and to not withhold information from them
when they wanted to know it. Appropriate to their age...
We just wanted to be honest with them about everything.
And some of that came off of my experience as a kid
because I didn't know who my biological father was.
(footsteps)
Grandma?
They're not marked. Grandma?
- Hi. - Sylvie Rosenberg: Hi!
- My darling Ry! - Hi, you.
Oh, your house looks so clean!
Oh here. This you gotta see.
Steeplechase... You know anything about Coney Island?
This is an original artifact from Steeplechase.
And this is my darling, darling daughter
when she was, oh, I think she was about 2 years old here.
-I just had it framed. Isn't it pretty? -Ry: It's beautiful.
Ry: Tell me about how you got pregnant with my mom.
Sylvie: This is something that
I've kept under wraps
for many, many, many years because it's always been
very difficult to talk about it.
♪ ♪
When I was 18, I got pregnant,
and I really didn't have that much experience
with boys at the time,
and the father, he denied it.
And I never saw him again. I wrote to him every day,
and I never, never received an answer from him.
And despite all the commie-lefty...
philosophy of my grandparents' home,
they were horrified that my mother
had an illegitimate child,
and they sent her off to a home on Staten Island
to have this kid.
And I was put in a foundling hospital,
so I didn't go home with my mother,
and after the foundling hospital,
I went to a few foster care homes,
and it wasn't till I was 5
that I got to move in with my mother.
("Buckeye Jim" by Burl Ives playing)
♪ Way up yonder above the sky ♪
♪ A bluebird lived in a jaybird's eye ♪
♪ Buckeye Jim... ♪
It was a whole new environment for me.
♪ Buckeye Jim ♪
(playful screaming)
♪ Way up yonder... ♪
Russo: They were loud, they argued, they were Jewish.
They, you know, it was a very spontaneous,
warm, open household,
and my grandparents lived there,
my mother lived there.
So, it was this very active,
lively environment.
But everybody else knew who their father was,
good, bad, or otherwise, and it was just
this piece of information that,
that my mother was so adamant to keep from me.
♪ ♪
And she never wanted to look back,
never wanted to discuss it.
(no audio)
For the next whatever years, until I was like 35.
I just was tortured about
who I was, so I decided I was gonna
pursue figuring out who
my biological father was.
By then, I was an adult
and didn't even have fantasies
about a relationship or anything like that.
I just wanted the facts.
And so, I met with what was my half-brother,
and he told me that my father was an abusive alcoholic.
The guy died on the Bowery a drunk.
And that was sort of the end of the story.
Ry: And that was your father?
And that was my father.
Cris: From that time on,
Russo said, "If I have children or when I have children,
"I will never let that happen,
that they will not know who their father is."
And this is what's so important to this situation.
And everything that happened.
Russo: It sort of became apparent to Mom and me that
maybe now was the time that
I didn't wanna make it secretive...
Or mysterious or...
You know, so we thought
maybe we should have them meet you.
(plane roaring)
Robin: So we booked a trip to California like a vacation,
and we went out and met them both together.
♪ ♪
(bell ringing)
Russo: It was very important to us
that both of you meet both men,
and neither of the men be more important to either one of you.
We just wanted to keep that sense of equality.
Both donors were very tentative and respectful.
There was something really nice about it,
you know, and we appreciated their willingness
to honor that promise that they had made.
(plane roaring)
Robin: And they became like friends of the family
who live in California, who we would see occasionally.
When they were coming through New York, we would see them.
We had other friends, obviously,
in California, so we would go to California.
And it worked out that we saw them sometimes, and it was...
It was fine. (laughs) Yeah.
♪ ♪
So, we went out this morning for a walk in the rain,
- down that path there... - (kids chattering)
Ry: Our family would visit Tom and Jack
throughout our childhood, several times a year.
Often, it would be vacations.
(indistinct chatter)
Some break we had in school.
(indistinct)
We'd all go rent a house together.
Come on.
I wanna show you...
Ry: Usually in Long Island, or Stinson Beach, California.
Jack, Cade's donor,
didn't often come to those visits
because he was an alcoholic and was unable to connect
to the rest of the family.
Russo: He visited once, and he was drunk.
And I wrote him a letter and I said,
"You can't come visit when you're drunk.
"You're kind of a different person,
and it's not good."
And I think he took offense to that,
but like every drunk,
he kind of hid it and tried to mask it.
There wasn't a lot of contact after that.
Tom Steel: The famous Easter egg hunt.
(waves washing ashore)
Ry: So generally,
the visits would just be with my donor.
It would be my moms, me,
Cade, Tom, and Milton.
(chatter)
Russo: Tom was with a man named Milton.
And Milton had been married to a woman
and had a son, Jacob,
who lived with his mother.
(high-pitched): I'm here because your wretched dog
bit me this afternoon,
and I hate that wretched animal creature thing!
Well, you see, I can read minds...
Ry: Milton had a video camera,
so on those visits a lot of the time,
we would film fairy tales.
I see a lady...
Ry: And stories that Cade and I knew and loved.
My daughter Dorothy has run away!
Ry: We'd all have our alter-egos of who we kind of wanted to be.
♪ ♪
(door shuts)
We must be over the rainbow!
Are you a good witch or a bad witch?
I'm not a witch at all!
(waves washing ashore)
Milton Estes: Ry, what happened?
- I got wet. - Milton: How did you fall?
Ry: What I remember vaguely
is that there was some tension
between the adults,
about Tom treating the girls equally.
- (kids screaming) - (waves washing ashore)
- Robin: Are you wet yet? - Yes!
(overlapping chatter)
Cris: Your mothers said
that Tom needed to treat
both you and Cade equally,
and he did as best as he could.
- Say hi. - Hi!
Hi... Tom's daughter.
- (laughs) - Tom's daughter!
Cris: But, it didn't come naturally to him.
Okay, now you wanna talk to Cade? Gotta be equal. (laughs)
Cris: He was deliberate about it.
Go! Race to Mom! Race to Mom!
- Cris: But my memory, at least... - Go!
Cris: is that it was clear that Tom fell in love with you.
Tom: Oh! Oh!
♪ ♪
Nanci: Being around you brought out the playful side of Tom,
the ridiculously goofy side of Tom.
Robin: What are you gonna do, Ry? That's pretty scary there,
Tom. You want me to get you your cup?
Nanci: Suddenly, this tall, well-spoken,
charismatic lawyer was turning you upside down,
and on the floor, rolling around.
And he let down his guard.
(inaudible)
Cris: I'd never seen Tom pay any attention
to a child or a dog
or anything, except for work
and his friends, you know what I mean?
But nothing like with you.
(inaudible)
And I think that's because he had
a biological connection to you,
and not to Cade.
♪ ♪
(no audio)
Russo: I said to him, "Whatever you do,
you have to do it equally for both kids."
(overlapping chatter)
And he said, "Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure."
- Ah! - (kids giggling)
Russo: But he was more and more focused upon you.
(laughing)
Robin: I think when he entered into the original agreement,
he thought that it wouldn't be anything to him.
- Yes, you can! Yes, you can! - Tom: I don't know how to do it!
Robin: And he'd say "hi" when you were 5
and pat you on the head.
He didn't think, "I am going to fall in love
with this child and become part of another family."
♪ ♪
Tom: There's the kitchens.
- Who's that? - Ry: Jacob!
Tom: It's Jacob!
Ry: Sleeping away on the couch!
Tom: Now, Jacob, why don't you do Captain Hook for the camera?
No thank you, Tom. No thank you, Tom.
Tom: Let's go get him. Go get him.
- (indistinct) - Cade: Do it! Come on!
Girls: Come on! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!
Jacob Estes: You know, your moms wanted
you and your sister to be treated equally.
Well, it may not have been possible.
(laughs) I don't know.
- Girls: Yes! (screeching) - Jacob: I have two kids,
both of whom I love. I don't treat them equally
because they're not the same person
and they don't want the same things and they don't ask
for the same things.
(playful chatter)
(high-pitched): Oh ho! What? Cinderella!
You lazy girl! What are you doing?
Jacob: I know that Tom wanted to treat both of you
as equally as he could.
Oh, what's she doing dancing with that prince?
I thought we were gonna dance with him!
Jacob: Because he wanted to respect the rules
of your mother's family as it was suggested to him.
(indistinct chatter, laughter)
What are they doing together? I'm furious!
Jacob: So, I think somewhere underneath those,
those articulated tensions are the real tensions.
Um, there's subtext. So...
- Can you articulate the subtext? - Jacob: I can't.
I wouldn't dare to articulate
the subtext for Robin and Russo.
Milton: Our very last day here.
Russo shows signs of wear and tear.
(laughing)
Milton: Little sand under her eyes.
- Morning. - Milton: Morning.
Cris: The problems started to happen because they had
all this contentious relationship with Milton.
I don't remember how many times, but there were like...
at least two, maybe three times, when they got
furious with Milton.
♪ ♪
Milton: There's our intrepid sailor out on the ocean.
Robin: Over time,
Milton just inserted himself into...
uh, the relationships
- more and more. - Milton: So, Russo...
Do something.
- I am. - (laughs)
I'll light a cigarette.
Milton: This is the most exercise she's gotten all week.
Robin: And he would say things to you.
Like, "Call Tom 'Daddy'."
And it was like...
he just imposing his own idea
of what our family was on all of us.
- Hi, Tom. - Tom: Are you having a good time here?
I was until these two girls stopped cooperating.
(indistinct chatter)
Russo: As parents, we were unhappy with the dynamic.
And so, the last night of their visit,
we went out for dinner.
In fact, Jacob, Milton's son, was babysitting you.
♪ ♪
And we went out to dinner, and we said,
as gently as we could...
Robin: Maybe we could slightly change
how we saw each other, you know?
Instead of all staying in a house together,
we could meet at a resort and each have our own rooms
and come and go a little more freely,
but still spend time together.
And we're discussing it, it just...
I don't know, it just blew up,
and they just got furious.
Like we were rocking some boat
that they did not want rocked.
It was a little bit like "Where do you girls come off
telling us what to do?"
It was pretty alarming.
Robin: We were trying to make it nice
and we just wanna change things
a little bit to work better for everybody,
and it was just like, whoa!
Russo: They left in a huff the next morning,
you know, got in a cab.
Robin: They left without saying goodbye.
I mean, it was bizarre.
♪ ♪
Russo: The fact that they allowed themselves to get that angry,
the fact that they thought they had the right
to be so pissed off
at what we were suggesting was scary to us.
It's like... what's going on here?
(cinematic intro playing)
♪ ♪
Ry: I was not aware of the arguments
between the adults,
but it always sounded to me like it went
sour, and it was about their relationship.
The relationship between Tom and Milton and my moms...
started to deteriorate.
♪ ♪
Well!
Queen and King,
you didn't invite me,
Maleficent the Evil, to see
your pretty little daughter...
Cris: Robin and Russo said to Tom,
"We don't wanna see Milton anymore.
We don't want him around our children anymore."
You will prick your finger on a spindle,
and die! (maniacal laughter)
♪ ♪
Ry: What was Tom's reaction to that?
He didn't like it. And he...
It was very awkward for him and Milton.
Maleficent, you old hag!
(screaming, laughing)
♪ ♪
(kiss)
And that was very difficult on Tom.
- My darling. - Now start dancing.
♪ ♪
Cris: But he didn't let anything get in the way of ever seeing you.
(folk music playing)
Jacob: I remember Tom
had the point of view that he wanted to keep visiting.
But, I think there came to be a point where
my dad, Milton,
I think he started to feel like this was heading into a place
where, "If you go to New York without me,
"and if you continue down this path,
it's not gonna go well."
And Tom...
felt like he had to go
to New York without my dad.
Or else, he was terrified that
it was gonna lead to, you know, oblivion for him.
♪ I can tell by your face... ♪
Russo: He would come here and visit
without Milton, you know,
and he resented it.
Robin: We were close friends before this, and now,
it sort of changed so that like after dinner
and after you guys were in bed, he would sort of retreat
to his guest room and read.
Russo: He did it for like a year or two,
but it was clear he wanted as little
to do with us as possible.
I think I was in denial and didn't quite get that.
♪ Open your eyes ♪
♪ Get up off your chair ♪
♪ There's so much to do ♪
♪ In the sunlight... ♪
Russo: One of the things that was originally discussed
at that first meeting with him was he said,
"I'm not gonna tell my family about this."
And we said, great.
- Fine with us. - We don't want any relatives,
you know, spinning some idea about their
- son has a child and... - Grandchildren or something.
This was perfect.
So now, cut to when you were 9.
♪ ♪
Cris: Tom said that he wanted to take you girls
up to his grandmother's
90th birthday in Yuba City
in the middle of California.
And all the Steel family were gonna be there.
There's like 40 of them, or something like that.
Tom is one of 10 siblings. Ten kids,
and their husbands and wives and children and all that.
♪ Someone ♪
♪ Sitting outside ♪
Cris: They have a huge house.
We used to call it the Ponderosa.
It has a lake and water skiing and all this stuff.
And he wanted to take you girls there
and introduce you to his family.
(indistinct chatter)
Linda: He wanted you to come to this event,
and your moms said, "Only if we can come, too."
Like, okay, we would think about it,
but if we did it, it would have to be the whole family,
and then you introduce your family
to this family that you helped make,
and he didn't like that idea. He didn't want to do that.
♪ ♪
I assumed that we were invited, too. Why wouldn't we be?
And then he made it clear that he didn't want us there.
♪ ♪
It was like, so everyone's gonna be there with their parents,
but our kids will be in this situation without
their parents? Like, it doesn't make sense.
And then we asked more questions, and...
it was clear that his family
didn't even know about your existence.
And when we asked what he was gonna tell them, he said,
"I haven't figured that out yet."
(overlapping chatter)
Cris: And Russo and Robin
just flipped out at Tom's idea.
- Okay. Okay. - (indistinct)
Cris: The girls are not going to meet the Steels.
Absolutely not.
♪ ♪
You don't
understand who our family is if you could even suggest it.
They were alarmed by this
because I think, by then, they were already a little concerned
about his, you know, attachment to you.
(yelps)
And at that point, allowing you guys to go there with him,
you know, that, "I'm bringing my kids.
This is my daughter and my step-daughter" kind of, you know.
Would present a totally different definition
of the family than what was true.
Your family was your mothers and you guys,
and he was an outsider.
Russo: Tom got very insistent, and we had these
back-and-forth phone calls.
Robin: And then it got more heated, and finally got to the point
where I was saying, Tom, why don't you come back
- to New York and we'll talk about it in person. - Right.
Because I just felt like we were forgetting, he was forgetting
our whole relationship and the whole history
and our promises to each other and what this was all about.
♪ ♪
Russo: I kept thinking we have an understanding.
We have an original understanding,
and this, this isn't working.
Cris: And they said to him
"You don't know your place.
"You have blown up everything,
and we're not gonna talk to you about any of this anymore."
Jacob: Your moms tried to stop the relationship.
My dad wrote letters. Tom wrote letters.
♪ ♪
Russo: We were a little afraid.
There was a good deal of fear about...
power dynamics.
Robin: He wrote that it's a parental relationship.
That he's a father.
He said, "You expect me to keep going on like this forever,
"but I want the relationship
to grow and deepen and become something else."
He changed his mind.
♪ ♪
It was like. where do you come off interfering with our family?
Grandma, in those days,
Russian women and girls wore scarves...
Cris: I said to Russo and Robin
you've been so proud all of these years
that you were building a new and different kind of family,
which you have done.
Now, you had a fight in the family.
One member of the family
wanted to do something that you had vetoed. Fine.
It's vetoed. It's over.
But, that doesn't mean you cut someone off.
♪ ♪
And, you know, I feel a special...
responsibility
because I was part of what brought you into the world
by introducing Tom to Russo and Robin
and made it happen.
And I feel like I...
was among the grownups
who fucked this up so badly for you.
(acoustic guitar playing)
Robin: We had a little country house up in the Catskills,
and I was up there with you and Cade,
and Mom was in the city
'cause she had to work that week. It was in August.
♪ Ba-pa ba-pa ba-pa... ♪
And then a car pulled into our driveway,
♪ Ba-pa ba-pa ba-pa... ♪
And I remember this woman getting out of the car,
and saying to me, "Are you Robin Young?" And I said, yeah?
And I remember she apologized.
She said, "I have no idea what this is about, but I'm sorry."
And I was served with papers.
♪ When you just want someone ♪
♪ To like be you ♪
And I read them, and it was pretty clear I was being sued,
me, for...
for you.
♪ Ba-pa ba-pa ba-pa... ♪
♪ Ba-pa ba-pa ba-pa ♪
♪ When you just want someone more for their being ♪
♪ And not so much for ♪
♪ Their brains... ♪
Robin: For paternity.
♪ Can I be him? ♪
Robin: And immediate
visitation. They wanted you in California immediately.
♪ Ba-pa ba-pa ba-pa... ♪
And I had to tell you guys.
You were 9 and 11. We were in the kitchen,
and I remember Cade...
was holding a bottle of
cranberry juice, Cran-Apple, something.
And she dropped it.
And there was cranberry juice all over the kitchen floor,
and the three of us were on our hands and knees, crying,
with paper towels mopping up the cranberry juice.
So I called Mom. I read her everything that I had.
She said, "Put the kids in the car and come home."
♪ I will be waiting ♪
Russo: Well, I asked her to read me the papers,
and I said, "Who's the lawyer on the papers?"
Who was suing her?
- (sniffs) - And it was a lawyer that I knew.
Progressive, you know?
His name was Paul Gulielmetti, and the woman
in his office was Ellen Gesmer, who was handling the case.
♪ ♪
And I called him, and I said...
"Do you know who you're suing?"
'Cause maybe he didn't know Robin's name.
He certainly knew mine, but my name wasn't on the papers
'cause I wasn't a legal parent.
And I said, "Paul,
do you know who you're suing?"
And he said, "Yeah.
"We had a really hard time
"you know, deciding the ethics of this,
"if we should take this case,
but, yes, I know who we're suing."
And I hung up the phone on him.
♪ ♪
Robin: So I remember driving back to the city, sort of like a maniac.
And Mom was there.
Russo: And by now, I was furious
because Milton called
and left a message on our answering machine.
And he said, you know, we could meet at their lawyer's office.
He said their lawyer could draft this little document,
and then, "You could bring Ry and a little suitcase,
"and we'll settle this on paper,
and then we'll take Ry back to California with us."
And it was just like... whoa!
They had no idea what...
- I think they underestimated us. - Totally.
♪ Be him ♪
♪ ♪