Stephanie Robtoy works as an account manager at Working Fields, a staffing agency that helps people with barriers gain and maintain a job. She grew up in St. Albans in a huge family of Robtoys, some of whom are pretty notorious in town for criminal activity.
In this story, Stephanie talks about what it was like to grow up poor, with a last name that was hard to escape.
"What class are you?" is an occasional series from Vermont Public reporter Erica Heilman. In it, she talks with people from all sorts of backgrounds about money and class and privilege.
Find the other installments of the "What class are you?" series here.
This interview was produced for the ear. We highly recommend listening to the audio. We’ve also provided a transcript, which has been edited for length and clarity.
Stephanie Robtoy: My father had 15 siblings. They grew up very poor around St. Albans, you know, sharing clothes, lack of food and an alcoholic and abusive home. They were raised "below the tracks," had a reputation of fighting, you know, getting in trouble at school, getting in trouble in the streets, being in the bars a lot drinking, and mostly like, violence and fights is what I've heard of a ton. And there's this unspoken thing of like, not really going anywhere. Like we can't buy houses, or we don't own our houses. We don't run companies or have really good jobs, like white-picket-fence type of thing, you know, a good family, good parenting ethics. As a Robtoy child, I believed that's what I was.
My mom met my dad when she was 14. They started dating and by the time she was 16 she had my oldest brother, so her first kid. She also came from a poor, alcoholic, abusive family. My dad got into drugs. He was living that kind of addictive lifestyle. And my mom would be home taking care of us, busting her ass at work.
Then he, you know, he died when I was 9 from a drug overdose.
Erica Heilman: And did you feel stigmatized as a Robtoy?
Stephanie Robtoy: Yes. Feeling like I was different or "less than," you know, looking at other kids shoes and the name brand things that they had I didn't have. And wouldn’t ask for or want, because I knew it wasn't an option.
Responsibilities. As far as like other kids could kind of be kids and go to sports, go to fun events, I had to be home, taking care of the house, babysitting my sister. We would walk or drive around in a taxi for a long time, until my mom did eventually get a car. But you know, they had cars. They had parents, families in their house, they had two parents in their house. They had nice houses, backyards.
There was no me sitting down like, to do my homework. That wasn't a priority. If something else had to be done like dinner or laundry, that had to be done. I had to do other things first.
Erica Heilman: Did your circumstance limit your sense of possibility?
Stephanie Robtoy: Yeah, my options for sure. When I was younger, I had hope.
Even now, I know if you stick me in something and I can focus on that, I excel at everything I put my mind to doing. I don't know why. I had a feeling that I had potential and could exceed and do good things. It was just, there wasn't any people around me that were doing those things that I aspired to do.
But by the time I was in high school, I was like, "OK, you know, I'm just destined to be this way," because it felt like I fell into that trap and it felt hopeless to be any other way. It wasn't until after I'd already made a complete s—show of my life, as far as like dropping out of school, getting into drugs, trying to be independent and have my own place and vehicle and things and getting evicted, you know. And it wasn't until I got into actual recovery — that's when, down the road, I started realizing it is possible for me to have a good life or live a decent life.
I started going to meetings. And what I found was, I'm not that different than other people. There was these people I used to put on a pedestal, like judges, lawyers, thinking these people must have a great life. And I realized, like, I was listening and I hear, they have all these issues too. So I'm not that different than anyone else.
Erica Heilman: So what did you think you wanted then that you didn't have before?
Stephanie Robtoy: Material stability. A job. Legal money. A house in a nice neighborhood. I want a reliable, safe vehicle. It provides a sense of security that I didn't have before, where I don't have that anxiety of "Where are we going to live? How are we going to be warm? What's my daughter going to be looked at like because she doesn't have a ride from basketball practice? Or what is she going to be treated like because she doesn't live in a nicer house?"
Erica Heilman: Can you have these things?
Stephanie Robtoy: Sometimes I feel there's hope and I can have them and then more and more with the way society is today and rent and inflation, I'm literally feeling these past couple days like maybe I can't have these. Maybe I'm not meant to have them.
Right now my biggest stressor is the house that I'm living in is for sale. And depending on what happens, I might have nowhere to go. Like a lot of landlords around here have been buying houses, they redo them, or just make them look a little better inside, and up the rent $1,000 or more. Literally. So that has me, the past few days I've been so stressed out about that. Because I don't know what I'm going to do.
Erica Heilman: Where would you go? What would happen?
Stephanie Robtoy: I really don't know. It's not like I have a family to fall back on who has extra space or rooms. Rent is insane. I honestly don't know.
And I don't want to find pity on myself. But I'm a single mom working two jobs busting my a—, and I thought there would be this reward. But I'm in between, like, being pushed back into the lower class yet working like someone in a higher class. But it's like, I make too much for Section 8 or any kind of assistance and help, yet I don't make enough to buy my own place or rent $1,900 a month. I could do it but I'd be living in poverty again.
You know, all my money would go to something that's not even mine.
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