Caroline Kennedy, the Senate, Qualifications of Mothers & My Birthday

Caroline Kennedy’s bid for Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat has stirred a wide range of feelings and views. Some express outrage at the thought of such an appointment, given her seemingly weak qualifications — other than her pedigree. But many others support her bid with enthusiasm.

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t pay much attention to such things — and certainly not blog about them here. But I do so because of a very personal perspective, which I suspect I share with many of my contemporaries, and because I see an interesting employment-related angle worth mentioning.

JFK and young Caroline Kennedy

Enough Already With Dynasties in American Politics

Much criticism of Caroline K’s Senate bid is based on the accurate observation that the only reason she’s a possible appointee is because of her family name and heritage. This view was expressed in a reader’s comment to Gail Collins’ opinion piece entitled “Send In the Celebrities.” The reader (“dr, Troy, NY”) wrote:

I have every reason to believe that Caroline Kennedy will make a fine senator, but I just don’t like the idea of someone coming to political power via the family business.

Every time a Kennedy, Bush, Clinton, etc., gets an opportunity that someone else with the same resume wouldn’t have gotten, it moves the country one small step closer to having a political class that exists apart from the rest of the populace. Not only that, but the celebrity culture gets reinforced.

I’d agree — and strongly — as I did when I found the possibility of a Clinton dynasty quite distasteful in connnection with Hillary’s primary campaign.

But, there’s something different for me about Caroline Kennedy, especially at this moment in American history.

I’ll try to explain.

Caroline Kennedy and I Grew up Together (Sort Of)

My wife accuses me of being obsessed with Caroline K. It’s not that at all. It’s just that I have a deep sense of identity with her, seeing her as a special symbol of my generation — and all that we have been through during five decades of American life and politics. As Ellen Goodman, one of my favorite columnists, said the other day, “Caroline’s childhood photos are part of the family album of my generation.”

Caroline Kennedy and I are almost exactly the same age and have experienced major life events at remarkably similar times:

• She was born on November 27, 1957. I was born less than a month later, on December 22, 1957.
• We both graduated from high school in 1975.
• She got married in July 1986. I got married in December 1986.
• She had her first child on June 25, 1988. Mine was born a few weeks later, on July 10, 1988.
• She had another child January 19, 1993. We had one a few weeks earlier, on January 4, 1993.

Oh, there were plenty of differences, too. I didn’t get to ride a pony around the grounds of the White House. Nor did Neil Diamond write a hit song (“Sweet Caroline”) about me. Nor have I lived a life of wealth and privilege.

Memories of Her Father’s Assassination in November 1963

“Many vividly remember where they were when first learning of the news that Kennedy was assassinated, as with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 before it and the September 11, 2001 attacks after it” (wikipedia).

This is less true today, as most of the world’s population wasn’t even born when Kennedy was assassinated.

See Young New Yorkers Know Caroline’s a Kennedy, but Which One? (Reporter says the name “Caroline Kennedy” to a woman married the day JFK was assassinated, and “she turns almost maternally protective . . . ; the passage of 45 years has done little to dull her shock or to alter her image of the president’s only girl”; but a 23 year old says, “I’m like, ‘Is she a Kennedy Kennedy, or is this one of the cousins?’”).

Me — I’m a member of a special in-between group: for us the JFK assassination is a clear memory, but only an early-childhood one.

I was almost six, and in first grade.

For me — and perhaps many others near Caroline Kennedy’s age — the impact of the JFK shooting went far beyond a child’s perception of the national political tragedy; though it was unsettling enough to see grown-ups in such obvious shock and sadness.

More fundamentally, JFK’s death was the first time I’d ever contemplated the possibility of the death of a parent; an extremely troubling thought to a grade schooler (and one of the most difficult and stressful life experiences at any age).

Caroline and her brother John mourned publicly; images of them with Jackie at the funeral were all over TV and print. I knew Caroline was just my age, and John my sister’s age, and I felt so sorry for them … .

So What About Her Qualifications for the Senate Job?

Amongst the millions of other Americans who remember Caroline as a little girl in such tragic circumstances, there is probably much good will and affection for her after all these decades. But that’s not a justification for handing her the job, is it?

Let’s look at her resume highlights (per wikipedia):

• Radcliffe, A.B., 1979
• Columbia Law, J.D., 1988 (consistently ranked among the top three U.S. law schools for academic reputation; among the most highly selective)
• Mother of three children, currently 20, 18, and 15 years old
• Commission on Presidential Debates, board of directors
• NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, board of directors
• Kennedy Library Foundation, President
• Harvard Institute of Politics, adviser
• American Ballet Theatre, honorary chairman
• Coauthor, In Our Defense: The Bill of Rights In Action (1991), The Right to Privacy (1995)

So … impressive credentials in many respects; but not a close fit with conventional qualifications for a Senate seat, given the glaring absence of prior political office of any kind.

Yet, as Ellen Goodman puts it:

Her résumé shows no more chutzpah than Al Franken’s. Her celebrity is no greater than that of her cousin-in-law Arnold Schwarzenegger. Is she any less entitled to this post than the business leader who decides that his acumen at widgets qualifies him to lead a country?

A Mother’s Re-entry Quandary

Another reader comment to the Collins piece in the Times cast a different light on Caroline’s qualifications. This reader, Leah Parks Schoinas, of Portland, Oregon, sees Caroline as typical of intelligent and well-educated women who have devoted a substantial part of their younger lives to child-raising, and then at 40- or 50-something seek to reignite a career or begin a new one.

Similarly, Ellen Goodman characterizes Caroline as “a mother and public citizen auditioning for a second act.”

Such women face a special challenge in defining and portraying their qualifications; and employers face a parallel challenge in deciding whether to give them a shot at a job for which they lack some typical qualifications, but may have other skills and inherent potential.

Ms. Schoinas writes:

I am actually warming up to the idea of first ladies and women from famous families striving to reach their full potential in their careers in their 50’s. This is not about dynasties; this is more about the story of women. … What would Eleanor Roosevelt have accomplished today? I wonder if she would have been president or a senator.

What is happening is we are seeing women who have stood out of the spotlight … while their children are young, finally come into their own when their children are … grown…. [T]hese talented women now have the time to shine themselves. …

Furthermore, it is not that these women were not working. They got prestigious degrees and then worked on boards or headed important organizations. What they didn’t do was run for public office and work in highly visible jobs that took them away from their families for extended periods of time.

I am coming to realize that we cannot think that these women have not worked. They did work and they gained knowledge and experience during the entire time they were not in the spotlight. They have been part of the power and brains behind their husbands’ and families’ successes. …

How do we fairly assess the qualifications of such women as they return to full-time employment? What responsibilities are they capable of assuming although they never climbed conventional career ladders because they chose to spend more time with their children?

To the extent she is a highly visible symbol of the challenges raised by these questions, Carolyn Kennedy epitomizes a struggle faced by large numbers of women every year as they seek to reintegrate themselves into the workforce after years as “stay-at-home Moms.”

Another such talented and well-educated woman is moving into the White House in a few weeks. What will Michelle Obama be qualified to do when her husband is no longer President?

(Actually, the reality is more complex than women simply choosing to stay home full time. For many, the choice is less than fully voluntary, being forced by lack of workplace flexibility; for many, like Caroline K., the path is one involving neither full-time work nor full-time child-rearing. See Marilyn Gardner, The truth behind women ‘opting out.’)

Caroline Kennedy and Team Obama

Obama and Caroline Kennedy

How does Caroline K’s Senate bid suit the peculiar circumstances of this point in history?

Judith Warner feels the current economic situation points against appointing someone rightly viewed as part of the wealthy political elite:

In 2008 … I’m not sure we can afford to extend excessive amounts of public generosity to the wealthy and well-connected. …

We are living in a moment when all the machinations, the corner-cutting, the inside deals, mutual back-scratching and indifference to the larger world of our nation’s wealthiest and most interconnected have led us straight into the ground. We’ve just elected a president who’s sworn to clean things up. We’re in the middle of a political-appointment fiasco in Illinois.

With lawmakers and taxpayers eyeing bonuses and corporate jets with angry incredulity, we’ve arrived, after years of worshipping the very wealthy, at what could be a very positive time of reckoning. This change could go a long way toward restoring people’s faith in the fairness and decency of our leaders and institutions.

Yes, but … . What would having another Kennedy in the Senate do “for restoring people’s faith in the fairness and decency of our leaders and institutions?”

That faith is dependent not on the wealthy or humble origins of our leaders, but on their character and devotion to serving the interests of all Americans. FDR, after all, bore a dynastic political name (though Theodore Roosevelt was only a remote relative: a fifth cousin) and was born to great wealth.

Caroline Kennedy made a great contribution to the election of Barak Obama. Her endorsement came at a critical time. On January 27, 2008, in a New York Times op-ed piece entitled, “A President Like My Father,” she concluded: “I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.” This was the first time she had endorsed a presidential candidate other than when she endorsed her uncle, Ted Kennedy, in 1980.

She then co-chaired Obama’s Vice Presidential Search Committee.

So she has a strong connection to the incoming administration that could serve her well in representing New York — and she could be a committed voice and vote in the Senate supporting the Obama Administration’s positions.

Ellen Goodman says she believes Caroline K. “is less focused on the Kennedy legacy than on the Obama beginning,” and she concludes:

Pick Caroline and you are not choosing the latest scion of a dynasty. You are choosing the emblem of a generation — and maybe a country — coming back to life. Public life.

I concur; and as I turn 51 today, I hope our generation and country will come through this crisis better and stronger than ever — and that, whether in the Senate or not, my contemporary Caroline Kennedy, whose 51st birthday was last month, finds a role in which she can satisfy her desire to follow her family’s tradition of leadership.

Sources

• Gail Collins, Send In the Celebrities
• Judith Warner, Getting Beyond Camelot
• wikipedia, Caroline Kennedy
• Ellen Goodman: Caroline Kennedy Takes Up Her Generation’s Challenge

Other Resources of Interest

• Women Leaving the Workplace, by Larry Burkett
• Reinventing Ourselves After Motherhood: How Former Career Women Refocus Their Personal and Professional Lives After the Birth of a Child, by Susan Lewis
• Career Books for Women
• Work-Life Balance books
• Book List: Resources for Stay-at-Home Moms and Dads

Related Reading:

Hiring the Best: Manager's Guide to Effective Interviewing and Recruiting, Fifth Edition

Lab Manual for General, Organic, and Biological Chemistry (2nd Edition)

General, Organic, and Biochemistry: An Applied Approach

Hiring for Attitude: A Revolutionary Approach to Recruiting and Selecting People with Both Tremendous Skills and Superb Attitude

Who: The A Method for Hiring