Father was 35 with 10 kids
Robby Hoffman contextualises her father's abuse partly through his extreme youth — he was 35 with 10 children — and lack of resources.
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Robby Hoffman Will Always Feel Poor, No Matter How Rich She Gets
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Jun 27, 2026
Where this was said
Crown Heights Memories: An Abusive Father, 10 Kids on the Floor
At 9:15 · chapter starts 7:42
Asked about her earliest memories of Crown Heights, Hoffman pauses before going somewhere she says she doesn't always go. She describes the summers as brutally hot, the family without air conditioning while her parents had one unit in their bedroom window. Ten children slept on the floor in their underwear — on couch cushions, improvised mattresses. But the deeper difficulty was her father. [1] — Robby Hoffman "Robby Hoffman describes childhood summers in Crown Heights with no AC, 10 kids sleeping on the floor of a single room, and a father who was…" 07:42 She is careful not to be entirely uncharitable — her father was 35 with ten children, her mother was 30 with ten children, neither had adequate resources, and she tries to give some grace to the pressures they were under. But she is clear: he was physically abusive to her mother for years. Her own childhood adaptation was to become invisible around him. She describes being five or six, walking to the kitchen for a snack, spotting her father sitting there, and simply saying 'Oh, didn't see you there' before retreating. It's a quiet, devastating detail about a childhood spent on high alert.
Growing Up With an Abusive Father in Crown Heights
Robby Hoffman describes childhood summers in Crown Heights with no AC, 10 kids sleeping on the floor of a single room, and a father who was physically abusive to her mother. At age 5 or 6, she would spot her father in the kitchen and simply turn around and leave.
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