![]() * CBS spots her attending a taping of the soap opera “As the World Turns” in New York. With the exception of some editorial grumbling about the Clintons’ decision to enroll Chelsea in a private Washington school, Sidwell Friends (tuition: $13,020), coverage of her has been relegated to blurbs: The same was hardly true of Susan Ford, who was 17 when her father was sworn in, or even of Amy Carter, who was 13 when her dad left office and was the subject of a media flap when Jimmy Carter acknowledged that he had discussed nuclear proliferation with her. “She seems to be a reasonably normal teenage girl struggling through the rite of adolescent passage, but not in any noticeable, particularly outstanding way. “We’ve never assigned a story about her,” he says. ![]() The coverage in major magazines fell from 132 stories the first year to 36 in 1995.Įvan Thomas, Washington bureau chief for Newsweek, theorizes that there may be some compensating factor at work, perhaps because the media have so aggressively covered each parent. Chelsea was mentioned in 1,721 stories in major newspapers in 1993, but only 694 last year. Press coverage, what little there was, has shrunk. Somehow, it didn’t quite turn out that way. “Chelsea Clinton’s private life will be anything but private.” “The eyes of the world will be watching,” USA Today proclaimed in 1993. “It seems like everything they’ve done with regard to their parenting behavior is great,” says Charles Figley, a family scholar at Florida State University who studies the children of politicians and celebrities. Observers see the Clintons’ efforts at shoe-horning a normal childhood into the bewildering environs of the White House as perhaps their most complete success. And they talk with pride of their daughter’s social conscience, self-discipline, strong grasp of reality and “big heart.” “We have seen more speechless boys,” Hillary Clinton says. Her parents joke about the nervousness of new young escorts. Last year, according to media reports, Chelsea impressed Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto with her knowledge of Islamic history and the Koran, and was photographed riding an elephant in Nepal’s royal Chitwan National Park. She nettled her dad by giving up team sports like soccer and softball for ballet, and has performed three straight years in “The Nutcracker” at the Washington School of Ballet, where she regularly attends classes. She wears Birkenstocks and passed on piercing her ears at age 13 has been assisted with her math homework by none other than economist Alan Blinder, former Fed vice-chairman and she enjoys playing pinochle with her parents. ![]() She skipped third grade, loves science and history, prefers Chicken McNuggets to hamburgers and hot dogs, and is reportedly a sci-fi nut. Only glimpses into the personality and character of the first child-whose name was reportedly taken from the song, “Chelsea Morning” by Joni Mitchell-have managed to eke out:Ĭhelsea likes to poke fun at her dad when he’s doing something “not cool or appropriate” and sees her mom as overprotective. It isn’t fair to let them be defined by the media before they have the chance to define themselves.”Īs a result, says UPI reporter Helen Thomas, dean of the White House press corps: “We have not laid a glove on Chelsea.” “We have actively shielded Chelsea from the press, for example, believing that children deserve their childhood and cannot have it in the public limelight. “There are places where Bill and I draw the line,” Hillary Clinton writes. ![]() “I would also read in the paper about boys I had dated who in fact I had not dated,” she says. Susan Ford Bales, one of the last teenagers to inhabit the White House, remembers breaking up with a boyfriend and later reading about it in the newspaper. If her father wins reelection this year, Chelsea could spend her entire adolescence in the White House, yet she has been less commented upon, photographed and chronicled than any other presidential offspring in contemporary history. While modest, such exposure is surprising given her parents’ severe strictures on media coverage of their only child. ![]()
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