May 3, 2023 • 42 mins
Carol brings back this archived episode of her conversation with Deval Patrick, the former Massachusetts Governor and 2020 Presidential candidate. He and Carol discuss how his journey—growing up in the South Side of Chicago and making his way to the corridors of power—influenced his parenting methods and goals for his family. Deval shares his efforts to raise resilient and socially conscious children and tells Carol what it took to do this as a public figure, He and Carol discuss how his life lessons have helped him support his children unconditionally, and how he’s managed the challenges when private family matters have had to play out on a public stage. Follow us at @GroundControlParenting and on groundcontrolparenting.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello, and welcome to Ground Control Parenting, a blog and
now a podcast creative of parents raising black and brown children.
I'm the creator and your host, Carol Sutton Lewis. In
this podcast series, I talk with some really interesting people
about the job and the joy of parenting. This week,
I'm bringing back a wonderful guest from the GCP archives,
Governor deval Patrick. He is the co director of the
(00:27):
Center for Public Leadership and Professor of the Practice of
Public Leadership at Harvey Kennedy School and the senior advisor
at Bain Capital And as we all know, he was
the seventy first governor of Massachusetts, the first African American
to hold that office, and a candidate for the Democratic
nomination for President of the United States in twenty twenty.
He and his wonderful wife Diane have two daughters, Sarah
(00:48):
and Katherine, who are both in their thirties. In this episode,
Daval and I talked about how he was parented and
how that impacted his parenting skills, how he and Diane
worked to raise resilient and socially conscious children, and the
challenges of dealing with family matters in a very public forum.
There's so much good parenting information and inspiration into this
(01:08):
episode with Governor Patrick. So glad you're here, so let's
get started. Welcome to Ground Control Parenting, Deval.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Oh, thank you Carol, it's great to be with you,
and congratulations on the show. It's been great listening to
the podcasts.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Thank you so much, so, Deval, I love that I
have been grandfathered into your friendship with my husband, which
goes back several decades, back to when you were college classmates,
and it has been wonderful and inspiring to watch you
move from a very successful private sector career and legal
career to your remarkable career in public service which.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Continues to this day.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
You are known as a very caring, smart, compassionate leader,
and I'm thrilled to be able to sit with you
today to talk about a lesser known as your lot
of your life, in which you are also known to
be caring, thoughtful, and compassionate your role as a parent.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
That's very kind, thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
So I will start with a phrase that you have
heard me say now on several occasions. A goal in
parenting is to parent the child you have, not the
one that you were or the one that you wished for.
So please tell us about the child you were young,
Deval Patrick, growing up in a house across the street
from the Robert Taylor Holmes into God.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
So, you know, I further, I love that phrase of yours,
that guidance of yours. I've mentioned it to both of
my own children and to Diane. I think for me,
I was a you know, I was one of two kids.
I have an older sister who's not quite a year
(02:41):
older than I am, and a half sister I didn't
know very well growing up, and we lived with our
mother and grandparents, and various relatives came and went in
our grandparents' two bedroom tenement on the South side of Chicago,
most of that time on Wealth Fair. You know, my
mother and I, my mother and my sister and I
(03:03):
shared one of those two bedrooms that had set up
bunk beds, so you go from the top bunk to
the bottom bunk to the floor every third night on
the on the floor. So it was, you know, it
was a crowded house, was a busy you a multi
generational house, which is true of many many black families,
many many poor families in America. And it was a
(03:25):
blessing in many ways. But challenging too.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
So you were early on you showed academic progress and
success in school. Was that something that your family encouraged
you in or had an expectation for you? With all
of those family members in the house, were they all
very focused on your schooling?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
You know, it's interesting they were.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
I think.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
You know, my grandparents had gone to school through through
the third grade in Kentucky before they moved up to
to Chicago to get away from the Jim Crow South.
My mother dropped out of high school to when she
was pregnant with my with my sister, and then I
(04:13):
will say later on, you know, years after my father
had left, she she went back and got her ged.
He would, you know, drag my sister and me along
to these night classes and we'd play on with chalk
on the board. Was he was taking her classes in
the next room. I think for I think education was important,
(04:38):
it was an expectation. It was a time when education
was viewed as the way up and the way forward.
But I think my real love of school came because
I got love in school that I didn't necessarily feel
I got at home. And I responded to that, you know,
I had these marvelous teachers, even in these crowded classrooms,
(04:59):
who who cared about us, they worried about us. They
were professional Black women and men, and they seem to
have it together and they were you know, they raised
our expectations of ourselves, and I think I responded to that.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
So I know that you've talked a lot about your
closeness with teachers, and in fact that has remained beyond
your school days. You've said that they have they've celebrated
milestones with you as your life went on.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
That's right. I had a sixth grade teacher, missus Quaintance,
who was herself a single mom. She had a grown
son at the point when we were in the sixth grade.
But she was present when I graduated from Milton Academy,
where I went on an ABC A Better Chance scholarship.
(05:52):
She was present when I graduated from Harvard College. She
was present when I graduated from Harvard Law School. She
was at my wedding in New York. She was present
when I was sworn in to head the Justice Department's
Civil Rights Division in the Clinton administration. And she would
have been present at my swearing in as a governor,
(06:13):
but she had passed away. But my third grade teacher
was there, missus s Threet. Yeah, there were, And I
had teachers even in Milton Academy who I shouldn't say
even at Milton Academy, but also at Milt who were
surrogate parents in a whole host of ways.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
So that is actually so wonderful to hear my mom
was a teacher, and it is really so gratifying to
hear how much of an impact that these teachers can
and did have in your life. I want to fast
forward to boarding school, because there you were on the
South side of Chicago with a family that wanted you
(06:51):
to be educated, but had fairly limited scope of what
that meant. And suddenly you have the opportunity to go
to leave Chicago, to go to Massachusetts to go to
live away at school. And how did your family react
to that?
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Well, so, you know, the the amazing thing about my
family is that, as I think back on it, is
that they had limited exposure and experience, but they had
limitless hope for us, and that came through and they
were very matter of fact about new things. You know,
(07:27):
my mother, you know, I came to Milton Academy the
night before classes began by myself. I found out about
Milton Academy because a seventh grade English teacher knew about
the Better Chance programmer found out about it from a
flyer on a bulletin board and introduced my mother and
me to it because she knew of my of how
(07:51):
you know how much I enjoyed school, how strong a
student I was becoming, and what how limited my opportunity
of these were in the public high schools in Chicago
at that time, and we applied. We got this admission
letter from Milton Academy. I still, I mean academy. I
thought this was a military school. And what happened. I
(08:14):
had a dress code in those days, Carol, the boys
wore jackets and ties to classes. So when the when
the clothing list arrived at home, my grandparents spurred from
me in a brand new jacket. But a jacket on
the South side of Chicago is a windbreaker. So there
I go. You know, the next morning, all these boys
are putting on their tweet coats and their blue blazers,
(08:37):
and I have my windbreaker. I had a lot to learn,
But you know, I remember sitting at O'Hare Airport with
my mother for the first flight out to Milton and uh,
and someone asked her, you know, we got talking. Someone
asked her, uh, you know, how you how do you
(08:58):
feel about them about this? And her response was, you know,
he knows what's here and he knows how to get home.
And it was kind of a shrug of the shoulders
after that, So you know, try it. If it doesn't
work out, come on, come on home. Of course, I
never felt like I could really just abandon ship right
(09:20):
like there were a whole expectations writing on me. But
in some ways it was a comfort to know you
could come home.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Well, I you know, you've said that to me before,
and I've really thought about that response. It's a great
parenting response for two reasons. First of all, she trusted
your and the teachers and the information's decisions. She trusted
the decision making of you a young man, and she
vested in you the confidence that you could always come
(09:48):
back home. I mean, what more would you want your
family to be able to say?
Speaker 2 (09:51):
But you know it's the it's such a I'm so
glad you put it that way. And I will tell
you I haven't always thought about it that way, Carol.
I think most of the time I felt like my
mother was overwhelmed by life so undone by my father,
(10:11):
who was a jazz musician was one of the founding
members of the Sun Raw Orchestra, that he'd left her
to move to the band to New York. She found
out shortly before he left that he had fathered a
child with another another woman. I think she was devastated
by that. Inability to get up on her economic feet
(10:36):
for a period of time for her welfare and food
stamps was humiliating. My grandpa, my grandfather, was the was
the janitor at a bank on the South Side for
sixty years I think it was, and he was holding
it together. My grandmother was home, but you know, there
(10:56):
wasn't a lot of money, and everybody was pretty careful
to the point of being stingy about except for holidays,
about about sharing. So I think I think of her
a lot, just on one of those bunks in the dark,
smoking and silent and kind of distant until I was
(11:21):
older and actually graduating from Milton, and then we just
all of a sudden, she seemed to open up and
we became friends. But I think in some ways where
she could defer to my judgment, she would because it
was so much easier to do, and in a way,
You're right. It turns out to have been a blessing
(11:42):
because I learned to have confidence in uh, in the
decisions I was making and to take responsibility for them.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Right. She She also managed, notwithstanding your perspective on hers
being sort of aloof at times, she with no doubt
she was feeling her son moving away to the other
side of the country, and she managed to put aside
any display of that emotion, which could have made you
(12:11):
feel a number of different ways guilty, responsible, terrible. She
managed to just let leave you so many years later
with the feeling of you know what you have here,
go there and if it doesn't work, come back.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
I mean, it.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Really is true. I mean it's and I you know,
as a from a you know, different generation and a
different sort of altitude. I'm thinking of helicopter parenting. We
weren't quite that, but I remember when when Sarah was
maybe a year she, I said to Diane, you know,
(12:46):
we really need to get away together, just have some
time so because you know, we we have to have
a relationship when these kids go. And I said, let's
just go to Bermuda for a week or so. Said,
and maybe she was not quite two, and Diane wasn't
ready and said, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. And
her sister, who lived in Atlanta came up and she
(13:09):
was very close to Diana and to the kids, and
she said, look, I'll take her and I'll take her
with me back to Atlanta. Just meet me at the
airport and you guys get on your flight, and I'll
take her with me. And I remember carrying Sarah and
handing her to her to her aunt. We were going
for like five days and Sarah and I was the
(13:30):
one pushing Diane, you know, we gotta go, we gotta go.
And Sarah turned from her aunt and reached back for
me and Carol. I burst into tears and said that said,
don't let her see like this. We we're way to
Permuta before I was finally consoled, you know. And I
(13:52):
think I think we ended up cutting the trip short
and coming back together. So yeah, I might have learned
this lesson from my mother sooner of them.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
So in your own parenting of your daughters, were you
able to follow that model of your mother in terms
of trusting their decisions and giving them confidence or letting
them go so giving them wings, maybe even earlier than
they wanted them, or because you knew more and did
(14:25):
you feel the need to be more protective, maybe because
you were raising girls, or you just had a bigger.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Sense of how things could go wrong.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
It's a mix of all of that. I think I
think I had, you know, I felt protective because I
was raising girls. I felt, you know, and I'm thinking
of your mantra, I felt I had to demonstrate that
(14:51):
I could be a reliable show up dad because I
had that and that there should be And you know,
I was very demonstrated and continue to be very demonstrable,
demonstrative in my uh in my love of my kids,
because I didn't want them to doubt that about me
(15:13):
the way I did about my own my own dad,
who was, you know, not just aloof but absent, right,
So I think I overcompensated in some of those ways,
and some of those ways that just caused them even
now to just roll their eyes. But we also we
also and I was a in my case more than Diane.
(15:33):
I think she'd agreed, gave them a lot of room
to try things, to explore. You know, I can remember
taking Sarah with me on a on a business trip
to London, and I had meetings all day and we
were staying in a fancy part of town in a
really nice hotel, and she was maybe eleven and said,
(15:56):
you know, she'd like to take a walk, and I said, well,
take the card for the hotel. Well, and off you go.
And off she went, and some I learned later, got
terribly lost. She was, as far as I can tell,
she bought every knockoff handbag in London and and got
(16:16):
distracted with all of the shiny things. But ultimately she
called the hotel and you know, and calling from a
payphone in London is no joke. I mean, this is
before cell phones at eleven, yes, at eleven years old.
And they helped her and others helped her find her
way back to the to the hotel, and she was cool.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
You know.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Catherine, our younger daughter, after high school, as she was graduating,
had applied to all these district school big urban schools,
and tiny colleges in the countryside and the institute in
the Culinary Institute of America. And we said, wait a second,
do you know what you want to do? And she
(17:02):
said no, And I said, well, look, you don't have
to start college. You can take a year, but you
got to do something. You can't sit and play video
games all year. And she went off God bless her
to Bahia in Brazil and worked in an orphanage for
kids who had been orphaned by AIDS. And this was
(17:22):
our you know, shy withdrawn kid and that just totally
opened her up. But it was a big deal to
let her go at seventeen years old to another continent
and figure it out.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Absolutely, And that was more than a decade ago.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
And so the concept of gap year wasn't nearly in
the United States anyway, It wasn't nearly as prevalent. Did
you have any since you your foundation was built on
storied academic institutions and education was really important to you,
did you have any concerns about her taking this divergent path?
I mean, what did it concern Did it worry you
(18:04):
at all that she wasn't interested at starting college or
wasn't going to start college immediately?
Speaker 2 (18:11):
No. In fact, you know, I took through a traveling fellowship.
I spent a year living in Africa after college, which
was great because I didn't know exactly what I wanted
to do. I wanted to you know, I thought about
law school, thought about business school. I actually applied to seminary.
So I was all over the place, just like like Catherine.
(18:33):
And I was rescued from my indecision by a Rockefeller
fellowship and ended up living in Sudan for most of
that year. And it was it was transformative, and I
think I was looking for that for Catherine. I think
she founded Sarah took the better part of a year
after she graduated from n YU, and I tease her
about backpacking across Europe and coming home with Marco, the
(18:56):
Italian surfer whom she later married. But yeah, I mean,
I think you're right. Gap years were not common. If
I had my brothers, we'd have we'd have an ethic
of service in America for folks at that age are
(19:23):
in that range for a year or two at home
or abroad. And I think when you win, and if
you do go to college after that, you're more mature
a certainly the case in Catherine's case.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Absolutely, we'll be right back after these messages. Welcome back
to the show. So I want to shift gears just
a little bit to ask you about your years in
public life.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
And I'd love to know.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
How your decision to run for public office, to run
for governor, impacted your children's ability to be independent, because
it twice to be aublic figure becomes a family's choice
as well to some degree or or or does it,
I mean, how does how did it impact them?
Speaker 3 (20:09):
Well?
Speaker 2 (20:09):
When I ran for governor, which is the first time
I'd run for anything, they were out of state. Sarah
was at NYU and and Catherine was at boarding school
at Saint Andrew's School in Delaware, And in some ways
it made it a lot easier for them and for us.
They they were proud of my race. Like Diane, I
(20:33):
think they expected me to lose. But but you know,
you you cannot really prepare for the invasion that public
life has become a particularly elective office because so much
of it, I mean, the boundaries are very very hard
to maintain and and and people have or feel entitled
(20:57):
to a point of view about everything, you know, your haircut,
the cut of your suitor or what have you. And
and some of it was particularly as as you know,
my candidacy started to be taken seriously. Some of it
was nasty, and I'm glad the girls were not around
(21:17):
for that. Now. When I ran for reelection. Catherine was
back and at Smith College, and the shy one of
the of the two was very involved in the campaign,
which was marvelous, really incredible. When I thought about running
for president, they were hotly opposed. They did not say
(21:39):
don't do it, because they understood you can't, you know,
you can't really say that and then carry that weight.
And so we never and I was careful not to
ask them for permission, but they made clear what they
were worried about. You know, at that point, Sarah was
going through a divorce and uh and didn't want that
(22:05):
to be a part of the campaign. And uh and
she didn't want the she didn't want the campaign to
be a part of her divorce. Franklin and Catherine was
just starting her practice as a family therapist, and and
family therapists, as she put in, need to be anonymous
to their to their clientele. Uh and she was worried
(22:28):
about about that. So we thought hard about that, and
we ultimately first decided not to and then decided too.
And I think they were relieved in some respects that
that the campaign didn't really take flight. But you know,
they're proud and and they're very they're very They're proud
(22:50):
of me and putting myself out publicly, and they're very,
very interested in politics and public policy, particularly around issues
of social and economic justice. I love that about them.
But they are very clear eyed about how cruel the
(23:11):
process often often is and how important it is to
be ready for it. And they were clear that, you know,
in at least a couple of cases, they weren't well.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
You know, I can actually relate on a very small
level in that when my uncle Percy was running for
office here in New York City, the tabloid papers took
every opportunity they could to talk about him in negative terms,
and in some instances.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
They talked about him in negative terms.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
And I can remember being very young and seeing some
headlines slashed somewhere about some issue that involved my father
as well. And my father he was a judge and
he had to run for that office, but he was
very much a low key politician, and I remember being
devastated that it's because we were generally out of the line,
might being devastated that my father's name was being U
(24:03):
was included in this article that was so negative. So
it really does, I have to say, I think that
definitely soured me on politics as a young child because I.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Was courage you know. Diane. Diane grew up in Brooklyn
and with her grandparents, and her grandfather was Bertrand Baker,
who was assemblyman from Brooklyn, was the first black majority
leader uh in in Albany And and so she but
she remembers a time when politics was much more genteel.
(24:34):
It was you know, you didn't you didn't draw in
your family. He was a you know, he was a
West Indian gentleman. And he withdrew from politics when he
was running for re election and this upstart challenged him
some of the thing that you never do. This start
(24:54):
named Shirley Chisholm to run for her first office, and
uh and he withdrew because it was so you know,
he was a he was a negro when this is
nineteen sixty eight. He was a negro when when you know,
everybody else was black. And he sort of went at
him and rather than fight, he just said, you know,
(25:16):
this is not the way it's supposed to be. And
he stepped back. And when I met him in the eighties,
he was still putting on his three piece blue shirty
suit every day in the socks with garters and the
rest of it, and sitting by the by the window.
You're just frozen in frozen in time. Yeah, I mean
it can be that. It's a it's a rough and
(25:36):
tumble business, but there's a lot of good you can do.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
So, so one other thing I wanted to ask about
on that topic. So, being a public figure also can
mean that some what are generally private family moments can
get played out on a public stage, like your family's
decision to Siff for an interview to discuss your then
eighteen year old daughters coming out as gay. And I
want to talk about that briefly because it seemed I
(26:03):
read the article that that that you guys sat for
and it seemed like you're her coming out to you
guys went as well as it possibly could. She says
it was the easiest coming out of experience that anybody
could possibly have.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
That's a quote, and I'm just I'm interested in in
in that moment.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Of our revelation, were you and Diane able to go
with the flow without skipping a beat or was there
any prospective adjustment necessary? And did you have any concerns
about this being covered by newspapers?
Speaker 2 (26:34):
You know, it's funny when when she came out she
I remember her saying to us, you know, I need
some time with the two of you in one place alone.
And we said we And you know, we were rarely
in the same place or alone. I was in office
(26:55):
at the time, and Diane was had a very busy
practice as a in her Red Ropes and Gray and
we were finally and you know, we kept saying to
each other, what do you think is going on? I mean,
is she pregnant? Is there a is some sort of trouble?
And we were finally out in the Berkshires at our
(27:17):
place there and at a and and there was a
bunch of family around, and we were going to meet
everyone for a picnic. And she pulled us aside in
the exasperated in the kitchen and she said, look, I've
been trying to get the two of you alone. I
just want to tell you. And we said okay, and
she said, I just want to tell you I'm I'm
(27:38):
I'm gay. And Diane burst out laughing, She's not. It's
not the kind of Hallmark cards and and and Katherine said,
why are you laughing? She said, I'm just so relieved.
She said, I thought you were going to tell us
something we should worry about. And I said, that is fantastic.
(27:58):
I'm glad you feel you know, you are who you are,
Grab the mail, let's go.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
And that was pretty much.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
That was pretty much it. When I was back in
the office that Monday, I remember saying to my chief
of staff, Now, mind you, we had had the marriage
equality battles politically in Massachusetts and I was I believe
and believe then and still do on the right side
(28:25):
of that, and we had saved marriage equality, the first
in the nation to do so, I'm proud to say.
And I didn't know anything about Catherine well all that
was happening. So on Monday I'm back in the office,
I say to my chief of staff, you know the
the honest thing. You know, we went through all this
big fight last year or the year before, and here
(28:45):
Catherine comes out over the weekend. Ha ha ha. Said
I what's on the agenda? And he said, you know what, Gov.
He said, you have to say something about this. And
I said why, this is a private family matter. And
he said you have to say something about it because
somebody will say something about it. And rather than you know,
(29:06):
chasing the story. You have to get ahead of it.
And that's where that interview came from. And I think
that turns out to have been pretty good advice.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
No, I do as well, and it actually probably was inspiring.
I mean, it was a great positive parenting role model
for people across the nation who may have been in
a similar circumstance.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
So it turns out to be true. I remember, you know,
you have to kind of put aside your expectations of,
you know, walking your little girl down the aisle in
a long white dress with a flowing train and all
that sort of thing, that that, in her case, is
(29:45):
not what she is married now they're expecting their first child,
but that isn't It was a gorgeous wedding, but it
wasn't that wedding. But I remember we marched in the
Pride parade that now next June, however, many months after
that was and Catherine marched with us. And I remember
(30:09):
this woman running off, running from the side of the
and the you know, there's always thousands of people's a
big deal. This woman came running out. She was probably
in her seventies and she and then you know, the
state police get a little nervous, and I said okay,
and she came she grabbed my hand, and I'm still
(30:30):
walking and she's walking alongside me, and she said to me,
I wish I had had a father like you fifty
five years ago when I came out, and she burst
into tears, and I stopped and I and I hugged
her and and she said, that's all I wanted to say,
And she went back to uh, went back to besides
(30:51):
and it was really it was affirming.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Yeah, yeah, boy, I guess that's the flip side. I mean,
your your family's on public display, but there are some
instances where you can with that be helpful to people's
That's a great story. So I want to move on
to under the guise of sort of what you got right,
because I love this whole My whole interest in parenting
(31:19):
is trying to figure out what works and trying to
pass on information about what works. And so when I've
asked you in the past what you think you got right,
you talked about your children, both your children, both your daughters,
being grounded, being having a strong sense of justice. And
I'm really interested in how you and Diane helped them
get there, especially considering that they grew up with exposure
(31:42):
to so much. I mean, you had a very successful
private sector life, and then they went as you became
a pub governor, and they just have access to so
much and access an opportunity to things that can be
distracting from being grounded.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
And no kidding, I told you the story about Catherine's
homework in kindergarten.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Didn't I you did, but please tell it again.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
So we were living in Washington at that time, and
she was in public school, just starting kindergarten, and the
homework assignment was to just you know, they were working
on changes in the seasons, and she was to come
home and describe each of the four seasons to mom
and dad. So Diane said, you ready, and she said yep,
(32:30):
And so she said, okay, the four seasons. She said,
first you drive up and the doorman takes your car,
and then you walk down a corridor and there's a
big round table with flowers on it, and you go
down to the dining room. Because what she was describing
was her several visits to the Four Seasons hotel in.
Speaker 4 (32:54):
Washington, you know, and I think myself one generation, right,
one generation, and and the circumstances of my life, our
family's life are completely transformed.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Now. They knew the South Side of Chicago because we
took them back there. My grandmother was still living there.
My mother lived with us for most of most for
twenty years, most of their lives and until she passed away,
and my grandmother at the very end of her life.
But you know, when they were small kids, we would
(33:27):
go back and visit. They saw that neighborhood. We lived
in the town of Milton, which is right on the
edge of Boston. You can walk right into Dorchester and Mattapan.
And they had friends there and our home was full
of all kinds of people. Intentionally, the were host parents
(33:49):
for other a better chance students at Milton Academy. So
kids from the one kid from the Bronx who is
still in our lives, and he and his pal would
take refuge when they were chased by the by the
white kids in the in the town, and they'd come
running over over to our or as a safe place
(34:12):
to be. But they were offering around the table at
Sunday supper, and they all practiced dance moves with the
with the kids, and they told their stories about about
their home and about their homes and uh, and I
think the girls have also had relationships with all sorts
of people, very much more focused on the compatibility of
(34:36):
character than on things and and and places. And if anything,
I would say they've been kind of hostile to my
to some of the experiences I've had. I mean, they
wouldn't take a second look at Harvard, for example, they
just were not interested in that. That's where Dad went.
I'm not doing that. I think they said they are
(34:59):
never sending it to to the academy, for example, So
you know, they find their own way.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
So you know, you said it one generation, which from
a parenting perspective, it's it is wonderful, miraculous that from
one generation you go from a room where lots of
people had to sleep to your daughter being able to
clearly identify a young age a fancy hotel. But you know,
(35:28):
many parents would take that perspective and say one generation,
and I'm going to do everything to make sure that
we are as far away from that previous generation as possible.
You know, I have moved on up, but it is
it is so important that you didn't. And you and
Diane made the supreme effort and I'm saying this because
parents should really think about how how they can do this,
(35:49):
the effort to connect your children to that one generation
past and thereby strip away the sort of shiny things
that they're used to and have them understand the importance
of knowing the way the world is for a lot
of different people, and knowing the core values that go
across no matter what you got around you.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
So I think, you know, I was. I was doing
civil rights work at the time. I was I was.
I mean, apart from the way we were living our lives.
I mean, I think it's enormously important that you see people.
So many people feel unseen and unheard. And I think
(36:34):
in the work I have done and at every level
and in the person I've tried to be, and Diana
as well, we have tried to be intentional about seeing people.
And I think the kids have that. I know they do.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
That's great.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
So before I wrap up, I have one question grandparenting.
I am you have one grandson and you have another
grandchild on the way.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Correct?
Speaker 3 (37:05):
And so I'm just.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Curious watching your your well, you watch one daughter as
a parent and you watch another one about to be
has it given you any additional parenting insights.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Wow. Well, first of all, I can say about grandparenting,
as you may have heard, if you'd known it was
this good, you would to skip the kids. It is
that good. I think Sarah has been a remarkable mom
under very very difficult circumstances. And and she has raised
(37:39):
a a funny, I mean, witty, insightful, energetic and loving
seven year old. And you know, he has all that
boyish physicality, but he's also very very tender as tender
(38:03):
to her and and to us and to other other kids,
which I just I love. It's really fantastic. I have
said to her your mantra about you know, taking care
to raise the kid you have and not the one
you were or the one you wish you had. I
think I have it right.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
And uh And when I said that to her, she
really paused because there's a lot about, uh, the way
she has described her parenting, which is a response to
how she felt she was parented. And uh. And I,
you know, I'm not going to get into the umbrage
I take of that, but I think she, you know,
(38:47):
she wants to be She's made career choices that are
very different from her mom and me, because she wants
to feel like she can be present in a way
she felt we weren't always. I totally get that. I
think Catherine's interest in being a counselor for families in crisis,
(39:08):
and I've seen her do this. I've seen her work
and just how good she is at It tells me,
number one that if she can really bring that into
her own parenting, she is going to put the rest
of us to shame. But it also causes me to
(39:29):
tell her to take care not to be a therapist
with her kids, but to try to be a mom. Yeah,
and those aren't the same thing.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
Absolutely absolutely Well.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
As much as I am sorry to do this, I'm
going to have to wrap it up here, but first, Deval,
I want to say thank you so so much. And
you are the first. You are the first man, the
first father that I have interviewed solo father. I've had
a couple, but i've had a so you are the
first solo father and I'm thrilled that you are the
(40:00):
first solo father that I have talked to because it's
so valuable to get father's perspectives as well.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
I'm still trying to figure it out. So I thank
you for the lessons I get from your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Oh well, well, thank you. This has been really great
and I'm sure parents have really appreciate hearing your experiences
and your advice. So there's one more thing before we go,
and you have to play. That is you have to
play the GCP Bonus Round three questions, quick questions. So
here we go. Your favorite poem.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
I have to choose one, just one.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Yes, it can be one of yours, but the one
that comes to mind still I rise.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
Great. I'm collecting these all. That's a great one.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Your favorite two children's books, and they can be books
you grew up with or books that you.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
Read to your children or with your children.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Well, you know there's of course, we need the Pooh,
which by Milne, which I love because you know, it's
it's very ordinary characters, sometimes with surprising wisdom. And there's
a book I used to love to read to the
girls called Liza Lou and the Yellow Belly Swamp. Do
you know that book? I don't always fantastic by a
(41:14):
woman named mercer Meyer. I think about this adorable little
black girl who outsmarts all the creatures in uh in
in the swamp and there's some wily characters in it too.
It's amazing.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
That sounds great.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
Okay, and your your favorite film or TV or theater parent.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Ooh, what was the name of the character that esther
role played in Good Times? You remember that Florida Evans.
Florida Evans, right, Florida Evans lived with her husband in
a in a you know, in the projects in Chicago.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Yes, oh, get together. That's great. Those are great answers.
And again, I thank you so much of all for
being with us today. I hope everyone listening enjoyed this
conversation and that you'll come back for more. Please rate, review,
and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and tell your friends.
(42:18):
For more parenting info and advice, please check out the
Ground Control Parenting blog at Groundcontrolparenting dot com. You can
also find us on Instagram and Facebook at ground Control
Parenting and on LinkedIn under Carol Sutton Lewis. The Ground
Control Parenting with Carol Sutton Lewis podcast is a part
of the Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with iHeartMedia.
(42:40):
Until the next time, take care and thanks for listening.
Hello, and welcome to Ground Control Parenting, a blog and
now a podcast creative of parents raising black and brown children.
I'm the creator and your host, Carol Sutton Lewis. In
this podcast series, I talk with some really interesting people
about the job and the joy of parenting. This week,
I'm bringing back a wonderful guest from the GCP archives,
Governor deval Patrick. He is the co director of the
(00:27):
Center for Public Leadership and Professor of the Practice of
Public Leadership at Harvey Kennedy School and the senior advisor
at Bain Capital And as we all know, he was
the seventy first governor of Massachusetts, the first African American
to hold that office, and a candidate for the Democratic
nomination for President of the United States in twenty twenty.
He and his wonderful wife Diane have two daughters, Sarah
(00:48):
and Katherine, who are both in their thirties. In this episode,
Daval and I talked about how he was parented and
how that impacted his parenting skills, how he and Diane
worked to raise resilient and socially conscious children, and the
challenges of dealing with family matters in a very public forum.
There's so much good parenting information and inspiration into this
(01:08):
episode with Governor Patrick. So glad you're here, so let's
get started. Welcome to Ground Control Parenting, Deval.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Oh, thank you Carol, it's great to be with you,
and congratulations on the show. It's been great listening to
the podcasts.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Thank you so much, so, Deval, I love that I
have been grandfathered into your friendship with my husband, which
goes back several decades, back to when you were college classmates,
and it has been wonderful and inspiring to watch you
move from a very successful private sector career and legal
career to your remarkable career in public service which.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Continues to this day.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
You are known as a very caring, smart, compassionate leader,
and I'm thrilled to be able to sit with you
today to talk about a lesser known as your lot
of your life, in which you are also known to
be caring, thoughtful, and compassionate your role as a parent.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
That's very kind, thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
So I will start with a phrase that you have
heard me say now on several occasions. A goal in
parenting is to parent the child you have, not the
one that you were or the one that you wished for.
So please tell us about the child you were young,
Deval Patrick, growing up in a house across the street
from the Robert Taylor Holmes into God.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
So, you know, I further, I love that phrase of yours,
that guidance of yours. I've mentioned it to both of
my own children and to Diane. I think for me,
I was a you know, I was one of two kids.
I have an older sister who's not quite a year
(02:41):
older than I am, and a half sister I didn't
know very well growing up, and we lived with our
mother and grandparents, and various relatives came and went in
our grandparents' two bedroom tenement on the South side of Chicago,
most of that time on Wealth Fair. You know, my
mother and I, my mother and my sister and I
(03:03):
shared one of those two bedrooms that had set up
bunk beds, so you go from the top bunk to
the bottom bunk to the floor every third night on
the on the floor. So it was, you know, it
was a crowded house, was a busy you a multi
generational house, which is true of many many black families,
many many poor families in America. And it was a
(03:25):
blessing in many ways. But challenging too.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
So you were early on you showed academic progress and
success in school. Was that something that your family encouraged
you in or had an expectation for you? With all
of those family members in the house, were they all
very focused on your schooling?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
You know, it's interesting they were.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
I think.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
You know, my grandparents had gone to school through through
the third grade in Kentucky before they moved up to
to Chicago to get away from the Jim Crow South.
My mother dropped out of high school to when she
was pregnant with my with my sister, and then I
(04:13):
will say later on, you know, years after my father
had left, she she went back and got her ged.
He would, you know, drag my sister and me along
to these night classes and we'd play on with chalk
on the board. Was he was taking her classes in
the next room. I think for I think education was important,
(04:38):
it was an expectation. It was a time when education
was viewed as the way up and the way forward.
But I think my real love of school came because
I got love in school that I didn't necessarily feel
I got at home. And I responded to that, you know,
I had these marvelous teachers, even in these crowded classrooms,
(04:59):
who who cared about us, they worried about us. They
were professional Black women and men, and they seem to
have it together and they were you know, they raised
our expectations of ourselves, and I think I responded to that.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
So I know that you've talked a lot about your
closeness with teachers, and in fact that has remained beyond
your school days. You've said that they have they've celebrated
milestones with you as your life went on.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
That's right. I had a sixth grade teacher, missus Quaintance,
who was herself a single mom. She had a grown
son at the point when we were in the sixth grade.
But she was present when I graduated from Milton Academy,
where I went on an ABC A Better Chance scholarship.
(05:52):
She was present when I graduated from Harvard College. She
was present when I graduated from Harvard Law School. She
was at my wedding in New York. She was present
when I was sworn in to head the Justice Department's
Civil Rights Division in the Clinton administration. And she would
have been present at my swearing in as a governor,
(06:13):
but she had passed away. But my third grade teacher
was there, missus s Threet. Yeah, there were, And I
had teachers even in Milton Academy who I shouldn't say
even at Milton Academy, but also at Milt who were
surrogate parents in a whole host of ways.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
So that is actually so wonderful to hear my mom
was a teacher, and it is really so gratifying to
hear how much of an impact that these teachers can
and did have in your life. I want to fast
forward to boarding school, because there you were on the
South side of Chicago with a family that wanted you
(06:51):
to be educated, but had fairly limited scope of what
that meant. And suddenly you have the opportunity to go
to leave Chicago, to go to Massachusetts to go to
live away at school. And how did your family react
to that?
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Well, so, you know, the the amazing thing about my
family is that, as I think back on it, is
that they had limited exposure and experience, but they had
limitless hope for us, and that came through and they
were very matter of fact about new things. You know,
(07:27):
my mother, you know, I came to Milton Academy the
night before classes began by myself. I found out about
Milton Academy because a seventh grade English teacher knew about
the Better Chance programmer found out about it from a
flyer on a bulletin board and introduced my mother and
me to it because she knew of my of how
(07:51):
you know how much I enjoyed school, how strong a
student I was becoming, and what how limited my opportunity
of these were in the public high schools in Chicago
at that time, and we applied. We got this admission
letter from Milton Academy. I still, I mean academy. I
thought this was a military school. And what happened. I
(08:14):
had a dress code in those days, Carol, the boys
wore jackets and ties to classes. So when the when
the clothing list arrived at home, my grandparents spurred from
me in a brand new jacket. But a jacket on
the South side of Chicago is a windbreaker. So there
I go. You know, the next morning, all these boys
are putting on their tweet coats and their blue blazers,
(08:37):
and I have my windbreaker. I had a lot to learn,
But you know, I remember sitting at O'Hare Airport with
my mother for the first flight out to Milton and uh,
and someone asked her, you know, we got talking. Someone
asked her, uh, you know, how you how do you
(08:58):
feel about them about this? And her response was, you know,
he knows what's here and he knows how to get home.
And it was kind of a shrug of the shoulders
after that, So you know, try it. If it doesn't
work out, come on, come on home. Of course, I
never felt like I could really just abandon ship right
(09:20):
like there were a whole expectations writing on me. But
in some ways it was a comfort to know you
could come home.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Well, I you know, you've said that to me before,
and I've really thought about that response. It's a great
parenting response for two reasons. First of all, she trusted
your and the teachers and the information's decisions. She trusted
the decision making of you a young man, and she
vested in you the confidence that you could always come
(09:48):
back home. I mean, what more would you want your
family to be able to say?
Speaker 2 (09:51):
But you know it's the it's such a I'm so
glad you put it that way. And I will tell
you I haven't always thought about it that way, Carol.
I think most of the time I felt like my
mother was overwhelmed by life so undone by my father,
(10:11):
who was a jazz musician was one of the founding
members of the Sun Raw Orchestra, that he'd left her
to move to the band to New York. She found
out shortly before he left that he had fathered a
child with another another woman. I think she was devastated
by that. Inability to get up on her economic feet
(10:36):
for a period of time for her welfare and food
stamps was humiliating. My grandpa, my grandfather, was the was
the janitor at a bank on the South Side for
sixty years I think it was, and he was holding
it together. My grandmother was home, but you know, there
(10:56):
wasn't a lot of money, and everybody was pretty careful
to the point of being stingy about except for holidays,
about about sharing. So I think I think of her
a lot, just on one of those bunks in the dark,
smoking and silent and kind of distant until I was
(11:21):
older and actually graduating from Milton, and then we just
all of a sudden, she seemed to open up and
we became friends. But I think in some ways where
she could defer to my judgment, she would because it
was so much easier to do, and in a way,
You're right. It turns out to have been a blessing
(11:42):
because I learned to have confidence in uh, in the
decisions I was making and to take responsibility for them.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Right. She She also managed, notwithstanding your perspective on hers
being sort of aloof at times, she with no doubt
she was feeling her son moving away to the other
side of the country, and she managed to put aside
any display of that emotion, which could have made you
(12:11):
feel a number of different ways guilty, responsible, terrible. She
managed to just let leave you so many years later
with the feeling of you know what you have here,
go there and if it doesn't work, come back.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
I mean, it.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Really is true. I mean it's and I you know,
as a from a you know, different generation and a
different sort of altitude. I'm thinking of helicopter parenting. We
weren't quite that, but I remember when when Sarah was
maybe a year she, I said to Diane, you know,
(12:46):
we really need to get away together, just have some
time so because you know, we we have to have
a relationship when these kids go. And I said, let's
just go to Bermuda for a week or so. Said,
and maybe she was not quite two, and Diane wasn't
ready and said, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. And
her sister, who lived in Atlanta came up and she
(13:09):
was very close to Diana and to the kids, and
she said, look, I'll take her and I'll take her
with me back to Atlanta. Just meet me at the
airport and you guys get on your flight, and I'll
take her with me. And I remember carrying Sarah and
handing her to her to her aunt. We were going
for like five days and Sarah and I was the
(13:30):
one pushing Diane, you know, we gotta go, we gotta go.
And Sarah turned from her aunt and reached back for
me and Carol. I burst into tears and said that said,
don't let her see like this. We we're way to
Permuta before I was finally consoled, you know. And I
(13:52):
think I think we ended up cutting the trip short
and coming back together. So yeah, I might have learned
this lesson from my mother sooner of them.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
So in your own parenting of your daughters, were you
able to follow that model of your mother in terms
of trusting their decisions and giving them confidence or letting
them go so giving them wings, maybe even earlier than
they wanted them, or because you knew more and did
(14:25):
you feel the need to be more protective, maybe because
you were raising girls, or you just had a bigger.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Sense of how things could go wrong.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
It's a mix of all of that. I think I
think I had, you know, I felt protective because I
was raising girls. I felt, you know, and I'm thinking
of your mantra, I felt I had to demonstrate that
(14:51):
I could be a reliable show up dad because I
had that and that there should be And you know,
I was very demonstrated and continue to be very demonstrable,
demonstrative in my uh in my love of my kids,
because I didn't want them to doubt that about me
(15:13):
the way I did about my own my own dad,
who was, you know, not just aloof but absent, right,
So I think I overcompensated in some of those ways,
and some of those ways that just caused them even
now to just roll their eyes. But we also we
also and I was a in my case more than Diane.
(15:33):
I think she'd agreed, gave them a lot of room
to try things, to explore. You know, I can remember
taking Sarah with me on a on a business trip
to London, and I had meetings all day and we
were staying in a fancy part of town in a
really nice hotel, and she was maybe eleven and said,
(15:56):
you know, she'd like to take a walk, and I said, well,
take the card for the hotel. Well, and off you go.
And off she went, and some I learned later, got
terribly lost. She was, as far as I can tell,
she bought every knockoff handbag in London and and got
(16:16):
distracted with all of the shiny things. But ultimately she
called the hotel and you know, and calling from a
payphone in London is no joke. I mean, this is
before cell phones at eleven, yes, at eleven years old.
And they helped her and others helped her find her
way back to the to the hotel, and she was cool.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
You know.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Catherine, our younger daughter, after high school, as she was graduating,
had applied to all these district school big urban schools,
and tiny colleges in the countryside and the institute in
the Culinary Institute of America. And we said, wait a second,
do you know what you want to do? And she
(17:02):
said no, And I said, well, look, you don't have
to start college. You can take a year, but you
got to do something. You can't sit and play video
games all year. And she went off God bless her
to Bahia in Brazil and worked in an orphanage for
kids who had been orphaned by AIDS. And this was
(17:22):
our you know, shy withdrawn kid and that just totally
opened her up. But it was a big deal to
let her go at seventeen years old to another continent
and figure it out.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Absolutely, And that was more than a decade ago.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
And so the concept of gap year wasn't nearly in
the United States anyway, It wasn't nearly as prevalent. Did
you have any since you your foundation was built on
storied academic institutions and education was really important to you,
did you have any concerns about her taking this divergent path?
I mean, what did it concern Did it worry you
(18:04):
at all that she wasn't interested at starting college or
wasn't going to start college immediately?
Speaker 2 (18:11):
No. In fact, you know, I took through a traveling fellowship.
I spent a year living in Africa after college, which
was great because I didn't know exactly what I wanted
to do. I wanted to you know, I thought about
law school, thought about business school. I actually applied to seminary.
So I was all over the place, just like like Catherine.
(18:33):
And I was rescued from my indecision by a Rockefeller
fellowship and ended up living in Sudan for most of
that year. And it was it was transformative, and I
think I was looking for that for Catherine. I think
she founded Sarah took the better part of a year
after she graduated from n YU, and I tease her
about backpacking across Europe and coming home with Marco, the
(18:56):
Italian surfer whom she later married. But yeah, I mean,
I think you're right. Gap years were not common. If
I had my brothers, we'd have we'd have an ethic
of service in America for folks at that age are
(19:23):
in that range for a year or two at home
or abroad. And I think when you win, and if
you do go to college after that, you're more mature
a certainly the case in Catherine's case.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Absolutely, we'll be right back after these messages. Welcome back
to the show. So I want to shift gears just
a little bit to ask you about your years in
public life.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
And I'd love to know.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
How your decision to run for public office, to run
for governor, impacted your children's ability to be independent, because
it twice to be aublic figure becomes a family's choice
as well to some degree or or or does it,
I mean, how does how did it impact them?
Speaker 3 (20:09):
Well?
Speaker 2 (20:09):
When I ran for governor, which is the first time
I'd run for anything, they were out of state. Sarah
was at NYU and and Catherine was at boarding school
at Saint Andrew's School in Delaware, And in some ways
it made it a lot easier for them and for us.
They they were proud of my race. Like Diane, I
(20:33):
think they expected me to lose. But but you know,
you you cannot really prepare for the invasion that public
life has become a particularly elective office because so much
of it, I mean, the boundaries are very very hard
to maintain and and and people have or feel entitled
(20:57):
to a point of view about everything, you know, your haircut,
the cut of your suitor or what have you. And
and some of it was particularly as as you know,
my candidacy started to be taken seriously. Some of it
was nasty, and I'm glad the girls were not around
(21:17):
for that. Now. When I ran for reelection. Catherine was
back and at Smith College, and the shy one of
the of the two was very involved in the campaign,
which was marvelous, really incredible. When I thought about running
for president, they were hotly opposed. They did not say
(21:39):
don't do it, because they understood you can't, you know,
you can't really say that and then carry that weight.
And so we never and I was careful not to
ask them for permission, but they made clear what they
were worried about. You know, at that point, Sarah was
going through a divorce and uh and didn't want that
(22:05):
to be a part of the campaign. And uh and
she didn't want the she didn't want the campaign to
be a part of her divorce. Franklin and Catherine was
just starting her practice as a family therapist, and and
family therapists, as she put in, need to be anonymous
to their to their clientele. Uh and she was worried
(22:28):
about about that. So we thought hard about that, and
we ultimately first decided not to and then decided too.
And I think they were relieved in some respects that
that the campaign didn't really take flight. But you know,
they're proud and and they're very they're very They're proud
(22:50):
of me and putting myself out publicly, and they're very,
very interested in politics and public policy, particularly around issues
of social and economic justice. I love that about them.
But they are very clear eyed about how cruel the
(23:11):
process often often is and how important it is to
be ready for it. And they were clear that, you know,
in at least a couple of cases, they weren't well.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
You know, I can actually relate on a very small
level in that when my uncle Percy was running for
office here in New York City, the tabloid papers took
every opportunity they could to talk about him in negative terms,
and in some instances.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
They talked about him in negative terms.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
And I can remember being very young and seeing some
headlines slashed somewhere about some issue that involved my father
as well. And my father he was a judge and
he had to run for that office, but he was
very much a low key politician, and I remember being
devastated that it's because we were generally out of the line,
might being devastated that my father's name was being U
(24:03):
was included in this article that was so negative. So
it really does, I have to say, I think that
definitely soured me on politics as a young child because I.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Was courage you know. Diane. Diane grew up in Brooklyn
and with her grandparents, and her grandfather was Bertrand Baker,
who was assemblyman from Brooklyn, was the first black majority
leader uh in in Albany And and so she but
she remembers a time when politics was much more genteel.
(24:34):
It was you know, you didn't you didn't draw in
your family. He was a you know, he was a
West Indian gentleman. And he withdrew from politics when he
was running for re election and this upstart challenged him
some of the thing that you never do. This start
(24:54):
named Shirley Chisholm to run for her first office, and
uh and he withdrew because it was so you know,
he was a he was a negro when this is
nineteen sixty eight. He was a negro when when you know,
everybody else was black. And he sort of went at
him and rather than fight, he just said, you know,
(25:16):
this is not the way it's supposed to be. And
he stepped back. And when I met him in the eighties,
he was still putting on his three piece blue shirty
suit every day in the socks with garters and the
rest of it, and sitting by the by the window.
You're just frozen in frozen in time. Yeah, I mean
it can be that. It's a it's a rough and
(25:36):
tumble business, but there's a lot of good you can do.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
So, so one other thing I wanted to ask about
on that topic. So, being a public figure also can
mean that some what are generally private family moments can
get played out on a public stage, like your family's
decision to Siff for an interview to discuss your then
eighteen year old daughters coming out as gay. And I
want to talk about that briefly because it seemed I
(26:03):
read the article that that that you guys sat for
and it seemed like you're her coming out to you
guys went as well as it possibly could. She says
it was the easiest coming out of experience that anybody
could possibly have.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
That's a quote, and I'm just I'm interested in in
in that moment.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Of our revelation, were you and Diane able to go
with the flow without skipping a beat or was there
any prospective adjustment necessary? And did you have any concerns
about this being covered by newspapers?
Speaker 2 (26:34):
You know, it's funny when when she came out she
I remember her saying to us, you know, I need
some time with the two of you in one place alone.
And we said we And you know, we were rarely
in the same place or alone. I was in office
(26:55):
at the time, and Diane was had a very busy
practice as a in her Red Ropes and Gray and
we were finally and you know, we kept saying to
each other, what do you think is going on? I mean,
is she pregnant? Is there a is some sort of trouble?
And we were finally out in the Berkshires at our
(27:17):
place there and at a and and there was a
bunch of family around, and we were going to meet
everyone for a picnic. And she pulled us aside in
the exasperated in the kitchen and she said, look, I've
been trying to get the two of you alone. I
just want to tell you. And we said okay, and
she said, I just want to tell you I'm I'm
(27:38):
I'm gay. And Diane burst out laughing, She's not. It's
not the kind of Hallmark cards and and and Katherine said,
why are you laughing? She said, I'm just so relieved.
She said, I thought you were going to tell us
something we should worry about. And I said, that is fantastic.
(27:58):
I'm glad you feel you know, you are who you are,
Grab the mail, let's go.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
And that was pretty much.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
That was pretty much it. When I was back in
the office that Monday, I remember saying to my chief
of staff, Now, mind you, we had had the marriage
equality battles politically in Massachusetts and I was I believe
and believe then and still do on the right side
(28:25):
of that, and we had saved marriage equality, the first
in the nation to do so, I'm proud to say.
And I didn't know anything about Catherine well all that
was happening. So on Monday I'm back in the office,
I say to my chief of staff, you know the
the honest thing. You know, we went through all this
big fight last year or the year before, and here
(28:45):
Catherine comes out over the weekend. Ha ha ha. Said
I what's on the agenda? And he said, you know what, Gov.
He said, you have to say something about this. And
I said why, this is a private family matter. And
he said you have to say something about it because
somebody will say something about it. And rather than you know,
(29:06):
chasing the story. You have to get ahead of it.
And that's where that interview came from. And I think
that turns out to have been pretty good advice.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
No, I do as well, and it actually probably was inspiring.
I mean, it was a great positive parenting role model
for people across the nation who may have been in
a similar circumstance.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
So it turns out to be true. I remember, you know,
you have to kind of put aside your expectations of,
you know, walking your little girl down the aisle in
a long white dress with a flowing train and all
that sort of thing, that that, in her case, is
(29:45):
not what she is married now they're expecting their first child,
but that isn't It was a gorgeous wedding, but it
wasn't that wedding. But I remember we marched in the
Pride parade that now next June, however, many months after
that was and Catherine marched with us. And I remember
(30:09):
this woman running off, running from the side of the
and the you know, there's always thousands of people's a
big deal. This woman came running out. She was probably
in her seventies and she and then you know, the
state police get a little nervous, and I said okay,
and she came she grabbed my hand, and I'm still
(30:30):
walking and she's walking alongside me, and she said to me,
I wish I had had a father like you fifty
five years ago when I came out, and she burst
into tears, and I stopped and I and I hugged
her and and she said, that's all I wanted to say,
And she went back to uh, went back to besides
(30:51):
and it was really it was affirming.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Yeah, yeah, boy, I guess that's the flip side. I mean,
your your family's on public display, but there are some
instances where you can with that be helpful to people's
That's a great story. So I want to move on
to under the guise of sort of what you got right,
because I love this whole My whole interest in parenting
(31:19):
is trying to figure out what works and trying to
pass on information about what works. And so when I've
asked you in the past what you think you got right,
you talked about your children, both your children, both your daughters,
being grounded, being having a strong sense of justice. And
I'm really interested in how you and Diane helped them
get there, especially considering that they grew up with exposure
(31:42):
to so much. I mean, you had a very successful
private sector life, and then they went as you became
a pub governor, and they just have access to so
much and access an opportunity to things that can be
distracting from being grounded.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
And no kidding, I told you the story about Catherine's
homework in kindergarten.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Didn't I you did, but please tell it again.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
So we were living in Washington at that time, and
she was in public school, just starting kindergarten, and the
homework assignment was to just you know, they were working
on changes in the seasons, and she was to come
home and describe each of the four seasons to mom
and dad. So Diane said, you ready, and she said yep,
(32:30):
And so she said, okay, the four seasons. She said,
first you drive up and the doorman takes your car,
and then you walk down a corridor and there's a
big round table with flowers on it, and you go
down to the dining room. Because what she was describing
was her several visits to the Four Seasons hotel in.
Speaker 4 (32:54):
Washington, you know, and I think myself one generation, right,
one generation, and and the circumstances of my life, our
family's life are completely transformed.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Now. They knew the South Side of Chicago because we
took them back there. My grandmother was still living there.
My mother lived with us for most of most for
twenty years, most of their lives and until she passed away,
and my grandmother at the very end of her life.
But you know, when they were small kids, we would
(33:27):
go back and visit. They saw that neighborhood. We lived
in the town of Milton, which is right on the
edge of Boston. You can walk right into Dorchester and Mattapan.
And they had friends there and our home was full
of all kinds of people. Intentionally, the were host parents
(33:49):
for other a better chance students at Milton Academy. So
kids from the one kid from the Bronx who is
still in our lives, and he and his pal would
take refuge when they were chased by the by the
white kids in the in the town, and they'd come
running over over to our or as a safe place
(34:12):
to be. But they were offering around the table at
Sunday supper, and they all practiced dance moves with the
with the kids, and they told their stories about about
their home and about their homes and uh, and I
think the girls have also had relationships with all sorts
of people, very much more focused on the compatibility of
(34:36):
character than on things and and and places. And if anything,
I would say they've been kind of hostile to my
to some of the experiences I've had. I mean, they
wouldn't take a second look at Harvard, for example, they
just were not interested in that. That's where Dad went.
I'm not doing that. I think they said they are
(34:59):
never sending it to to the academy, for example, So
you know, they find their own way.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
So you know, you said it one generation, which from
a parenting perspective, it's it is wonderful, miraculous that from
one generation you go from a room where lots of
people had to sleep to your daughter being able to
clearly identify a young age a fancy hotel. But you know,
(35:28):
many parents would take that perspective and say one generation,
and I'm going to do everything to make sure that
we are as far away from that previous generation as possible.
You know, I have moved on up, but it is
it is so important that you didn't. And you and
Diane made the supreme effort and I'm saying this because
parents should really think about how how they can do this,
(35:49):
the effort to connect your children to that one generation
past and thereby strip away the sort of shiny things
that they're used to and have them understand the importance
of knowing the way the world is for a lot
of different people, and knowing the core values that go
across no matter what you got around you.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
So I think, you know, I was. I was doing
civil rights work at the time. I was I was.
I mean, apart from the way we were living our lives.
I mean, I think it's enormously important that you see people.
So many people feel unseen and unheard. And I think
(36:34):
in the work I have done and at every level
and in the person I've tried to be, and Diana
as well, we have tried to be intentional about seeing people.
And I think the kids have that. I know they do.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
That's great.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
So before I wrap up, I have one question grandparenting.
I am you have one grandson and you have another
grandchild on the way.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Correct?
Speaker 3 (37:05):
And so I'm just.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Curious watching your your well, you watch one daughter as
a parent and you watch another one about to be
has it given you any additional parenting insights.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Wow. Well, first of all, I can say about grandparenting,
as you may have heard, if you'd known it was
this good, you would to skip the kids. It is
that good. I think Sarah has been a remarkable mom
under very very difficult circumstances. And and she has raised
(37:39):
a a funny, I mean, witty, insightful, energetic and loving
seven year old. And you know, he has all that
boyish physicality, but he's also very very tender as tender
(38:03):
to her and and to us and to other other kids,
which I just I love. It's really fantastic. I have
said to her your mantra about you know, taking care
to raise the kid you have and not the one
you were or the one you wish you had. I
think I have it right.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
And uh And when I said that to her, she
really paused because there's a lot about, uh, the way
she has described her parenting, which is a response to
how she felt she was parented. And uh. And I,
you know, I'm not going to get into the umbrage
I take of that, but I think she, you know,
(38:47):
she wants to be She's made career choices that are
very different from her mom and me, because she wants
to feel like she can be present in a way
she felt we weren't always. I totally get that. I
think Catherine's interest in being a counselor for families in crisis,
(39:08):
and I've seen her do this. I've seen her work
and just how good she is at It tells me,
number one that if she can really bring that into
her own parenting, she is going to put the rest
of us to shame. But it also causes me to
(39:29):
tell her to take care not to be a therapist
with her kids, but to try to be a mom. Yeah,
and those aren't the same thing.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
Absolutely absolutely Well.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
As much as I am sorry to do this, I'm
going to have to wrap it up here, but first, Deval,
I want to say thank you so so much. And
you are the first. You are the first man, the
first father that I have interviewed solo father. I've had
a couple, but i've had a so you are the
first solo father and I'm thrilled that you are the
(40:00):
first solo father that I have talked to because it's
so valuable to get father's perspectives as well.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
I'm still trying to figure it out. So I thank
you for the lessons I get from your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Oh well, well, thank you. This has been really great
and I'm sure parents have really appreciate hearing your experiences
and your advice. So there's one more thing before we go,
and you have to play. That is you have to
play the GCP Bonus Round three questions, quick questions. So
here we go. Your favorite poem.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
I have to choose one, just one.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Yes, it can be one of yours, but the one
that comes to mind still I rise.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
Great. I'm collecting these all. That's a great one.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Your favorite two children's books, and they can be books
you grew up with or books that you.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
Read to your children or with your children.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Well, you know there's of course, we need the Pooh,
which by Milne, which I love because you know, it's
it's very ordinary characters, sometimes with surprising wisdom. And there's
a book I used to love to read to the
girls called Liza Lou and the Yellow Belly Swamp. Do
you know that book? I don't always fantastic by a
(41:14):
woman named mercer Meyer. I think about this adorable little
black girl who outsmarts all the creatures in uh in
in the swamp and there's some wily characters in it too.
It's amazing.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
That sounds great.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
Okay, and your your favorite film or TV or theater parent.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Ooh, what was the name of the character that esther
role played in Good Times? You remember that Florida Evans.
Florida Evans, right, Florida Evans lived with her husband in
a in a you know, in the projects in Chicago.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Yes, oh, get together. That's great. Those are great answers.
And again, I thank you so much of all for
being with us today. I hope everyone listening enjoyed this
conversation and that you'll come back for more. Please rate, review,
and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and tell your friends.
(42:18):
For more parenting info and advice, please check out the
Ground Control Parenting blog at Groundcontrolparenting dot com. You can
also find us on Instagram and Facebook at ground Control
Parenting and on LinkedIn under Carol Sutton Lewis. The Ground
Control Parenting with Carol Sutton Lewis podcast is a part
of the Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with iHeartMedia.
(42:40):
Until the next time, take care and thanks for listening.
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