THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 28, 1997 TAG: 9701280040
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Elizabeth Simpson
LENGTH: 68 lines
I FELT A mother's pride well up in me during last week's inauguration.
Not for a nation on the brink of a new millennium. And not for the guy taking the oath. But rather for the woman standing next to him.
The 16-year-old one, that is.
Chelsea Clinton has been surrogate daughter to a nation, after all, and I feel as though I have watched this first daughter grow up during the past four years. As a member of the presidential family, she belongs to us all in a way.
She's gone from an unsure 12-year-old during Clinton's first inauguration to a confident 16-year-old striding through the streets of Washington in the inauguration parade.
Sure, Clinton survived welfare reform, and Hillary the Whitewater hearings, but Chelsea did something even more incredible: she navigated adolescence.
In the White House, no less.
My reaction to her appearance was different from how I felt during Clinton's first inauguration, which I spent wincing.
There was Chelsea, after all, in all her teen-hood, her untamed hair, her braces, her freckles. I wondered how she was going to survive the place that Margaret Truman dubbed The Great White Jail.
I kept having flashbacks to my own 12-year-old self, the one with frizzy hair that had to be wound on big orange-juice-can-size rollers so I'd look like everyone else. If I had put my own gangly teen-age self in Chelsea's stead, I would have spent the entire term in my bedroom with the presidential covers over my head.
Imagine, if you will, having the press scout you at the very moment you most feel like hiding. Or what it would feel like to be spoofed on ``Saturday Night Live.'' Imagine what it would be like to have a potential suitor call the White House to ask for a date. Or worse, subjecting him to those awkward pre-date chats. With the president.
And imagine that just at that age when you're supremely embarrassed by your parents, yours are in the newspaper. Every day. A father who's labeled a philander one day, a mother who is accused of being a liar the next, a couple who seem to be the target of unending investigations.
It doesn't matter that these very public parents wrestle in one arena with national budgets, health-care reform and the war in Bosnia, they still go home to sweat out science projects, quibble over pierced ears, and feel a little sad at the prospect of their only child leaving for college.
But somehow Chelsea appears to have come through the White House years with grace. And I say ``appears'' because the president and first lady have gone to extraordinary means to shield her from a nation's scrutiny.
We only catch glimpses of her hanging out with friends at Planet Hollywood. Inviting girlfriends to the White House for sleep-overs. And sitting on the steps with a boy.
She seems, by most measures, a normal teen-ager.
It was not presidential pampering that changed her as much as the four years that make a big difference in the life of every youth, no matter their address.
Four years during which the braces come off, the hair is tamed, the awkwardness dissolves into a confident presence.
That transformation turned Clinton's second inauguration into a national coming out for the president's daughter.
Her poise and confidence are enough to give one hope.
Because the bridge to the future has less to do with presidential promises than it does with Chelsea and her peers. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
Associated Press
President Clinton and daughter Chelsea enjoy the spotlight at the
Arkansas Ball on Inauguration Day.