According to a book, the US president and his wife have had a dopey past. Does that surprise anyone?
BEFORE getting hit by hurricane Kitty Kelly, the wag whose latest book on the first family details dope, drink and infidelity in the Bush household, a less sexy but a lot more seminal treatise demands notice. Dr Phil McGraw, the bald shrink, who has made his millions analyzing human behaviour, has penned Family First, calling all parents to give their children a real chance at “authenticity, success and happiness”.
Overloaded with advice and tools for parenting with a purpose — clarity; engagement; negotiation; currency; change and harmony, Dr Phil wants to save today’s child, bombarded by 500 TV channels and the Internet. Before kids are mentally developed they see sex glorified and glamourized. He says, “They’re getting pushed with the glamour of drugs and alcohol and life in the fast lane. They don’t know how to handle all of that. And we need to step up and be a strong clear voice in our children’s lives.” He tells parents to limit TV viewing to 90 minutes for pre-schoolers and two hours for older children.
“Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body,” says Elizabeth Stone and seconds Dr Phil who urges parents to aim at becoming a “phenomenal family” where each member is a “star in their own right”. But for this to happen, he lays out the law: you need love in your heart that gives you unconditional regard for your children.
“Respect and encourage their uniqueness.”
He tells the story of a 12-year-old “born into poverty”, who was “withdrawn, sullen, depressed, detached” from his family. His mother slogged as a store clerk to put food on the table and his father was an alcoholic.
Powering up, the young boy conquered an unhappy childhood and went on to help millions trapped in a similar life cycle as his. “Courage is not defined by those who fought and did not fall, but by those who fought, fell and rose again,” says Dr Phil, the young boy of this tale.
“Success builds a foundation of self-confidence, self-esteem and self-mastering,” and that’s what happened to him while growing up. His mother was his pillar. “My mother is a saint — everybody thinks their mother is a saint, mine is a saint, I mean, she is a terrific woman.” Parents must bring out the gifts, skills and talents of their children, teaching them to live with hope, passion and energy as his mother did.
Interconnectedness is the name of the game. Dr Phil’s father, like him, was also a victim of an unhappy childhood. The son of an uneducated father and a mother who inflicted “severe mental, emotional and physical abuse” this horrible legacy crippled his relationship with his own wife (Phil’s mom) and the young children.
Raising kids is part joy and partly guerrilla warfare, so Dr Phil offers five strategies for parents to factor in if they want a happy family. He says:
1. Have a plan. Don’t get side-tracked by the phone’s ringing, the job’s calling, bills to pay, errands to run, food to buy, clothes to wash. Put your family on a project status — reschedule your work or business; change your normal routine, and make an appointment with your family and keep it. You have to have a definition of success; a commitment of discovering the authenticity of your child. Every child is different, they’re gifted differently, and they’re skilled differently. You have to find out what each kid is really good at. You need to start investigating very early on when they are two, three, four and five years old. We’re not raising kids, we’re raising adults. You have to socialize them. Teach them how the world works.
2. Create a nurturing environment. That means everybody feels a sense of belongingness; everybody realizes this is my soft place to fall, you’re accepted in your family system. It’s so important that you have that, because that’s where children get their security; that’s where they find the confidence and the self-esteem as they go out into the world.
3. Promote rhythm. The family life can’t be chaotic. There has to be rules. Reinforce your family values, create a sense of your family’s identity, establish standards of conduct. If you have an honest disagreement, let your children see the resolution.
Stand up for your family and everyone in it. Encourage family rituals. Celebrate special days together.
4. Be active in your communication. We need to listen, and we need to talk. Do some quilting — interactions involving common activity. Also, you need to have a plan for how you handle a crisis situation. And there are two very important rules for that. Number one, don’t ever ask children to deal with adult issues, and don’t ever give them responsibility for things over which they have no control. So you have to keep everything age-appropriate for your children, but have a crisis management programme: tell your child ‘I know that life seems strange sometimes, but I want you to know that we are in it together.’
5. Passionately adopt a mindset. You tell yourself you’re committed for the long haul — help your children set and achieve goals, open the door to different experiences for your child — music, art, drama, literature, science, leadership travel and sports. So who is an ideal parent — the authoritarian, egalitarian or the permissive?
Dr Phil goes for the second category and says to give your children a role in making choices, operating as a team where decisions are made democratically involving the entire family in goal-setting, decision making and problem solving.
On the last page of Family First, writes the author: “It’s been said our children are messages that we are sending to a future we may never see. That may be, but our children will see it, our children will live it. Create for them a chance by leading your family with passion and commitment. And when you do, God will smile.”
That said, let’s purvey Kitty Kelly’s new book The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty. Kelley is so catty in trashing the Bush family. She accuses them of “covering up scandals because of their wealth and influence”. She claims “George W started drinking at school and continued at Yale university to overcome shyness ... he did coke at Camp David when his father was the president and not just once either.”
George and Barbara Bush, writes Kelly had “cut off communication with their eldest son for an entire year because of his heavy drinking.”
Penning unauthorized biographies of famous people, from Frank Sinatra to Nancy Reagan and Jacqueline Kennedy, Kelly even takes a shot at First Lady Laura Bush, alleging she tried “cannabis in her youth”.
And who is Kelly’s source? Sharon Bush, the former wife of Neil, younger brother of President Bush.
Also included in the book are quotes from a former Yale mate of George W: “He went out of his way to act crude. It’s amazing someone you held in such low esteem later became president.”
The White House has slammed Kelly’s assertions saying: “This book appears to be filled with the same trash discredited years ago.” Even Sharon Bush has denied speaking about Bush snorting coke.
“Well, she can’t deny the conversation because it took place,” shoots back Kelly, and her publisher Doubleday and its editor Peter Gethers stands by her story.
Aaron Brown of the CNN, who interviewed Kelly, wondered whether what she reported was journalism or gossip about “the most powerful family in the country today ... If it’s the most powerful family in America, it’s the most powerful family in the world,” he says.
Kelly agreed, saying it was an “unsettling portrait of the Bush family, and I think as an American you’ll feel just a little bit conned by the public image.”
If Dr Phil was the family shrink when George H. Bush was in the White House, Kitty Kelly would have been all the poorer for any dope on the First Family — the good doctor would steered the firstborn away from booze and drugs.
According to a book, the US president and his wife have had a dopey past. Does that surprise anyone? 
