Q: Do you think the children resented the fact that their parents were so busy?
A: The children, I believe, had to make quite a few adjustments to the fact that their
parents were both very busy and not home on a consistent basis. Again, they had a grandmother
who was consistently available to them. Their household ran smoothly. So that the children had
a sense of stability, and they knew in terms of the household what was happening. What they also
learned very early on was how to drive wedges between their parents and their grandmother, to get
what they wanted from their grandmother when they couldn't get it from their parents. And I think
it was probably harder on the younger of the five children, because by the time, for example, my
father was six or seven, he really did not see his father very much. His father had contracted
polio when my father was five. So after the polio, FDR spent a tremendous amount of time working
on recovering and getting back the use of his legs, and then went right from that endeavor into a
very active political life. So my father probably had a more difficult time than some of his older
siblings.
Q: Talk about the children learning to drive a wedge …
A: As an example of the children learning how to manipulate their parents and grandmother,
my father, when he was in college, he crashed a car. He totalled the car, but my father was fine.
He came home and told his parents what had happened. His parents both said, "Well, as long as
you're okay, that's wonderful. But there's no new car on the horizon." And my father realized
that his parents meant that; that they were not going to buy him another car. So he went and found
his grandmother. My father at this time was about 6'4" and not terribly heavy, but he was a
big man. And he went and sat on his grandmother's lap, called her Toots, and within ten minutes
had a new car.
previous |back to Interview Transcripts | next
|
