Remember when every girl wanted to be Caroline Kennedy

Caroline Kennedy was hiding under dad's desk pre-feminist movement.  So the rest of us  girls, no matter our chronological age, had not many fantasy choices.  Therefore, we all dreamed about how wonderful it would be to be Caroline, have a dashing father like Jack and a stylish cultured mum like Jackie.  Now, as we watch her join her Kennedy cousins in rushing to Uncle Ted's bedside, we can be pleased that the dream never came true for us.

Imagine being Caroline?  Clearly she seems to have the so-called Kennedy curse hanging over her.  Her parents and brother all died all too young.  And only her mother died from an illness. She seems expected to carry on the Kennedy legacy of service.  How can a highly educated woman bear all those ceremonies, with their awful lunches and dinners.  I bet the funding sources even schedule breakfasts.

My biggest concern about Caroline is how did she become so embedded into the core clan?  Jackie seemed to rear the two kids to strive for an identity separate from the tribe.  JFK Jr., when heading his little magazine, even wrote an editorial critical of his cousins.  Now his sister is in the thick of things.

Had the women's movement not come along, would we still envy the little girl who played under her father's desk and who grew up to attend so many public functions? Even if I hadn't been informed that it was okay to become a woman of substance, I'd rather be the woman of substance I morphed into than live Caroline's life.  The books I have written, I'm convinced, have greater depth and more utility to society than hers.  And any misfortune that has befallen me has clearly been my own fault.