The closeness between mother and daughter shows up in the smallest gestures.
When Hillary began to shiver at a beach picnic on Martha's Vineyard with
friends in 1997, it was Chelsea who took off her own jacket to drape over her
mother's shoulders. The two also share a spiritual bond: Chelsea often prays
with her mother, having chosen Hillary's Methodist faith over her Baptist
father's. Now, in the wake of the current crisis, "both Hillary and Chelsea
have this inner glow," says Rev. Don Jones, who was Hillary's childhood pastor
from suburban Chicago. "It's as if they've both reached their higher selves."
By all accounts the mother-daughter relationship is not only deep but has also
played a pivotal role in cementing the parents' relationship. "Chelsea is
crucial to the family's balance," says Clinton biographer David Maraniss. "She
is the one person her father could love unconditionally, and she is the center
of Hillary's emotional life." According to Maraniss's 1995 bestseller First
in His Class, when Chelsea was just a year old, a family friend stopped by
the house and found Bill in the den, playing gently on the floor with his
daughter. Smiling and laughing, he sang to her softly, as if from a lullaby: "I
want a div-or-or-or-orce. Iwant a div-or-or-or-orce." As her parents' focal
point, Chelsea has turned into a classic overachieving child. Hillary's brother
Tony Rodham described Chelsea to PEOPLE last year as "responsible, trustworthy,
just a darn good kid," while an acquaintance recalls "going to events with her
where alcohol was being served. Almost every other kid her age would have a
drink, but she doesn't touch a drop." And Hillary's French hairdresser,
Isabelle Goetz, told Paris Match that Chelsea "knows everything. On a
visit to a museum during a trip to Israel, the guide hardly had time to finish
his explanation of something when Chelsea already had the answer."
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In a sense, Chelsea is the living embodiment of her mother's ideas about child
rearing and feminism. As a young mother often on the road, Hillary frequently
left messages at Chelsea's elementary school in Little Rock ("Just tell Chelsea
that Mommy loves her"). She also encouraged her daughter to write back to
her -- a practice that, as Hillary notes in her latest book, Dear Socks, Dear
Buddy, not only helped keep the family close but also "helped Chelsea
practice her language skills." And as half of the most-traveled mother-daughter
team in the history of the Presidency, Hillary once wrote, "I am beyond
grateful for the times we have circled the globe together. And if those travels
have changed minds in countries where daughters are not as prized as
sons -- well, all the better."
Hillary's determination to shape her daughter's life manifested itself early
on. "Hillary did everything she could to bring her into the world under the
best circumstances," says Rose Crane of Little Rock, a longtime friend of
Hillary's. While pregnant, "Hillary once told me that what she wanted more than
anything was a great big [diet] Tab over crushed ice," but she abstained
because she was afraid it might harm the baby. In the early years after Chelsea
was born, following a difficult labor and C-section delivery, it was obvious
that both parents adored her, even if they expressed it differently. Bill kept
a child's desk in plain view for Chelsea in his office, while Hillary would
quietly spread a quilt in the backyard of the Little Rock governor's mansion so
she and her toddler could just stare up at the clouds. "Bill drove Chelsea to
school, and you would see them holding hands," says Maraniss. "It was a more
public demonstration than Hillary and Chelsea have, but that doesn't mean it's
any deeper." Over time, says Chelsea's Little Rock friend Martha Brantley, Bill
Clinton became a "figure of admiration" for his daughter, who viewed her mother
as "more a comrade." At 7, told by her father that his career demands might
force the cancellation of a planned family vacation, Chelsea shot back, "Well,
then, Mom and I will go without you."
As a mother, says family friend Staley, Hillary was never "into makeup and
pushing the little-girl beauty-queen thing." Instead, Hillary fostered her
daughter's intellect and sense of achievement. ("Chelsea was precocious,"
recalls Staley. "As a toddler, instead of saying, 'I have to get a shot,'
she'd say, '[I have to get] my immunizations.'") Hillary was also determined to
encourage her little girl's independence. Chelsea wasn't allowed to wear shoes
with Velcro closures -- a gift from her grandma Virginia Kelley -- until she first
learned to tie laces, Hillary later wrote, because "I loved the look of
accomplishment on her face when she showed us all what she could do for
herself."
It was a look her mother would see many times. When Chelsea was in sixth grade,
recalls Staley, "I was in the kitchen when the TV news came on. Chelsea was
watching, and I heard this shriek of delight: 'Look, Mom, it's up!' Hillary had
been trying to sock away some money for the family and had given Chelsea a
lesson in how investing works. Chelsea was watching the stock report."
Chelsea's stepgrandfather Dick Kelley, who was married to Bill Clinton's
mother, Virginia, until her death in 1994, recalls that on a trip to their
lakeside home near Hot Springs, Ark., little Chelsea grew bored when the bass
weren't biting. When he surreptitiously attached a live fish to her line,
"Chelsea came tearing out of the house to the dock and reeled that fish in,"
says Kelley. "Then she carried it back up to the house to show her mother."
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