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Cokie Roberts
Remarks to Wellesley College Class of 1994
May 27, 1994
It's very nice to be here. It seems so familiar; I froze
the whole time I was here. Here I am again. It's also nice
to be in a familiar place because Washington is getting less
familiar with every passing day. It's getting harder and
harder to explain what's going on there, and we're losing
some of our most familiar characters who we used to be able
to count on to have continuity.
When I'm in the Boston area, I can't help but think about
Tip O'Neill, who, of course, was "Mr. Speaker" for so long,
and a great and dear friend. I saw him about a week before
he died, and he was at an event to raise money for a
scholarship for a student, and he got up and told a story
that I just love because he prefaced it by saying Mrs.
O'Neill didn't like for him to tell this story. And I
thought "Dear Lord, what could it possibly be? The idea of
Tip O'Neill telling a risqué story was too
tantalizing for words. It started, as so many do, with a man
dying, going to heaven, getting to the gates. Saint Peter
says, "My son, you have been a good and noble servant of the
Lord. You may have any wish you want. What would you like it
to be?" And he says, "I want to see the Blessed Mother; I
have a question to ask her." Saint Peter says, "Done." So
the guy goes in and he meets Mary and she says, "I
understand you have a question, my son." And he said, "Yes.
You know, over all those centuries, in all that art--every
stained glass window, every statue, every painting--when
you're holding the baby Jesus, you look sad. Why is that?"
She says, "I wanted a girl."
I must say, it has not always been so familiar at
Wellesley. My mother's words, that Diana read, were not her
first words about Wellesley, I want you to know. When I came
here, as a freshman, it was pouring. I'm the youngest child,
and my mother and father, for reasons that still escape me,
lo these many years later, decided to drive me to college;
this was very unlike them. And we got here and were doing
all the usual things, you know, opening the bank account,
mama was sewing in name tags and all that stuff. And then,
as they drove off and left me behind, drove off the campus
in the pouring rain, my mother burst into tears, and said to
my father, "We've left our baby in a Yankee, Protestant,
Republican school." Every time we tease mom about it, she
says, "Well, it's true."
I must say, that even thought it's cold, I'm glad to have
a sunny graduation. It poured on my graduation here, too,
and we were indoors, and our graduation speaker (this was
the year 1964) was McGeorge Bundy. Now, I know that you all
weren't born and all that, but he became rather famous and
was someone that the Vietnam War was somewhat blamed on. And
I think back on that peaceful graduation day, and how nobody
thought about such a thing as protest or anything like that.
If the poor man had shown up on campus a few years later, he
probably would have been stoned.
But it was a different time, and I was thinking about
some of the things that made it a different time. And of
course one of the things, one of the facts for us as young
women, was that the thought of war was not something that
really had touched us--and we couldn't imagine it touching
us. As the immediate years after that went by, it touched us
vicariously through the men that we were involved with. Some
of us have children as a result of that war, and we like
them, we're very glad that they're there--but it did happen.
But the idea that we might be involved, was something that
never occurred to us, and really has never occurred to women
until now. And the first time I was really struck by it was
in listening to the Congressional debate on the Persian Gulf
War.
It was a wonderful and studious debate. It was really
Congress at it's best--one of those times when it's easy to
explain, as opposed to the usual--and I was struck by the
language, because people in the House and Senate kept
talking about "our men and women in uniform, our men and
women in Saudi Arabia, our men and women in the Gulf," and
it was just remarkable. We had never heard that before,
ever. I mean the dirty little secret is that women have been
in our military since the Revolutionary War, but we've never
talked about it openly before. And then it struck me that we
really had never talked about "our men" either, it had
always been "our boys"--"our boys in Vietnam, our boys in
Korea, our boys in Europe," which led me to the quite
wonderful observation that this was not the first time that
a woman had turned a boy...into a man.
I am honored to be here, to be back, not only because
it's a place I really care about enormously, but because
you've had such a fabulous group of graduation speakers in
recent years. I mean it's been sort of First Lady Central. I
loved the year that you had Barbara Bush, and then she had
the sense to bring along Raisa Gorbachev, who, of course,
was noted for her philosophy degree. I mean that was it,
right? And then Hillary Clinton, of course, recently, before
she was First Lady. When I was here the only first lady that
was ever around was Mei-ling Soong, and that was a sort of
an interesting situation, but I won't dwell on that.
I did ask Mrs. Clinton about Wellesley, what she thought.
I saw her not too long ago, and she said, "Well, things
really haven't changed there a lot." She said, "They changed
in the middle, but they're back again." And I took that to
be an endorsement. I was shocked, though, by something she
said a week ago today, about another first lady, about
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. And here's what Mrs. Clinton
said, quote "The choices one makes have to be her own." I
thought about that, and of course that's true: you do make
all kinds of choices and they do have to be your own. But
life presents a lot of choices that you don't expect as
well. Jackie Kennedy didn't expect to be a widow at age 34.
She then had to make choices about how she was going to live
that life.
Today would have been my sister's 55th birthday. She
loved the color purple. She would have loved to see the
balloons around. She didn't choose to die at 51 of cancer,
and I didn't choose to have an old age without her. But life
presents you with choices that you then have to deal with
and adapt to. My mother did not expect my father's plane to
fall out of the sky but at age 58 made the choice to run for
office herself, as a widow. So I think there are a lot of
choices that are made for you, but there are then things
that you do to choose to deal with them in various ways.
I noticed in a letter that I got, as a member of the
community, from Diana concerning one of your many
controversies. She said, "In an increasingly interdependent
and multi-cultural world, we must find better ways to
discover and rally round the common bonds that unite us amid
our diversity. At Wellesley, we will continue to provide a
learning experience that prepares women for the complexity
of a changing world." --Choices that are thrust on you.
I got my class reunion book yesterday, the 1964 book.
Thank God for it because I was not prepared for this speech;
I was having to cram. I had thought that I would have plenty
of time, and then I was sent off to do a story about the
Citadel, about a young woman wanting to get into the
Citadel. I tried to keep an open mind, thinking that as I
talked to these young men, "Now, pretend they're women,
pretend they're women, and put everything they say in that
context." But that became really hard because they said
things to me like, 'Well, we can't have girls around here, I
mean, you know, what would happen when we get together in
the morning and we all pull each other's pants down and
stuff?" I swear to you, they said that. Whew! But it did
throw me off my stride about having a chance to write a
speech to you, and I got home and found that I had my class
reunion book, and I was just struck by the choices that
people at our age, 30 years out of here, feel that they are
continuing to make and having to make, that it is all still
sort of in front of them in a variety of ways.
Let me read you just a few selections here. This one is
from a lawyer who is the mother of a 10 year-old--now that's
a choice that's less open to us than it is to men, to have
children at age 50. She says, "On October 1st, my employer
from the last 14 years ceased to be an independent public
company, and became a wholly owned subsidiary of another
company, one that Jay [student commencement speaker at
Wellesley today] wants to be Editor-in-Chief of, actually.
The year leading up to this event was very exciting and busy
for me as the company's sole inside lawyer; however, what
this change will mean for me in terms of future professional
challenge is still not entirely clear. So I'm beginning to
think about what I will do when I grow up."
Here's another. This is a college professor. She has
grown children, second marriage. "I'm somewhat unnerved by
my present stage of life. I'm uncertain about my direction
in my work and unsettled by the necessary changes in our
family relationships as our kids become independent and we
become ever more clearly the older generation. Still, even
as I mull over my next steps, I count my many blessings,
including a loving family, a happy marriage, and many, many
pleasures. I've developed enough sense over the years to
know that uncomfortable transitions are necessary for growth
to happen. At 51, I guess I'm having growing pains again."
And then this one (this is another lawyer--this might say
more about lawyers than life, I'm not sure): "My world is
one of transition, both in attitude and in actuality. I feel
as though I'm in the middle of one of those books, in which
you can choose a number of possible twists to the plot and
don't know the end until you get there. I'm still picking
plots. I'm not sure I'll know the story line any time soon.
Anyway, I plug along as a lawyer, continue to be fascinated
with the development of women's issues, appreciate my
friends and supporters more and more, and revel in the
warmth of my wonderful family."
I think that this book is actually a fascinating book. It
has stories for everyone. I mean Sally Jessy and Oprah could
have a wonderful time with it. It does have the whole
spectrum of American stories...and it is so interesting to
me because we were not a very diverse group, and yet we have
led somewhat diverse lives. A lot of people ask in the book,
"Where is the wisdom of middle age?" A lot of them answer
that question very profoundly. It's very clear that their
lives have been touched, not only by the tragedies of normal
life, the deaths of family members, the loss of people who
were close to them and by the blessings of normal life. But
they've also been touched by the particular tragedies of
these times that we live in. You tend to think that only you
are affected by these things but let me read from another
classmate.
"I've been touched by AIDS. A fellow piano teacher spent
two awful years trying to stay upbeat in the face of his
approaching death. He and his faith were an inspiration to
me, but it seemed like such a waste for him to die. I've
also been touched by unprovoked violence: a good friend's
husband was killed in the massacre at Luby's cafeteria in
Killeen, Texas. She's now living on the edge financially.
Another professional friend's oldest child, 39 years old
with two children, 11 and 7, was killed last week in San
Antonio by a couple of teenagers who ambushed him. My
friend's willingness to forgive the murderers of her son is
also an inspiration to me. She's taking great comfort that
his organs have improved the lives of over 300 other people.
Wouldn't it have been better if that good man could have
lived out his full life? What can be done about the lack of
care of our children, for the lives of others?"
And finally, another classmate, touched by the particular
times in which we live. "My husband Ezio was assassinated in
March 1985 by the Red Brigades, and two years later I was
asked to enter politics. Why did I enter politics? At the
time I was asked to run, I felt that what had been my life
up to the moment of Estio's assassination had been
destroyed, not by private rage and violence, but by a
political act, and that the offer of the candidacy had
placed me up against the choice of either trying to put my
life back together on the level that I had lived it before
the assassination or of becoming an actor in the sphere from
which the destruction had come. I felt that the only choice
I had was to try to combat destruction as I could on that
level. Another factor which decided me in favor of the
candidacy was the fact that I ran on a feminist ticket, and
I thought and think that we need more women in politics."
Yes, Jay, yes indeed. We need more women in politics. You
talked about Roslyn. The person I like to quote is an
assemblywoman in Connecticut who is a plumber by trade, who
said when she was talking about the importance of getting
involved in public service, she said, "I figured I either
had to stop complaining or run for office, and I knew I
couldn't stop complaining." It's important of course to have
women in politics for all of the reasons that you know
about. It is something that I see constantly, the issues
that they bring to the fore. But one of them--and this is
the place where I think in the end you will have no
choice--one of them is that they bring their role as
caretakers to the world of politics.
And that is what I see as a theme running through my
class book: that you will make that choice no matter what
other choice you make, that you will be the caretakers in
this society. It's what we do. That's what women do. We're
the nurturers, we're the carriers of the culture. And
whether you run for president or run the Patriot's Day race
or become editor-in-chief of the New York Times (though you
might want to talk to me before you do that), whether you
do, as Hillary said, "make policy or bake cookies," (it's
been my experience that one generally does both) that what
you will still be doing, no matter whatever else you do,
will be being the caretakers.
Ronald Reagan offended people when he said that women
should be honored as civilizers. That statement was
offensive because he said it to a group of professional
women and defined them in terms of their relationship to
men. He said they were civilizers of men. But he was right.
We are. (I must say that men sometimes make it a little
difficult, but that is what we do.) We can't avoid it. And,
as I say, in politics, it is the women who are constantly
bringing the civilizing issues to the forefront, the
caretaking issues, the issues of concern to families and
children.
Right now the focus in Congress, on the part of women, is
on women's health and all of the myriad issues affecting
women's health, from reproductive health, birth control,
mammograms, all the way through breast cancer research, all
of the things. That is primary concern to the women in
Congress because if they don't do it, nobody else will. I
had an experience a few years back where, what the women in
Congress do is, you know, they sort of bring women's issues
up like Chinese water torture and constantly drip them on
the heads of their male companions until finally they get
passed. A few years back there was this tremendous effort to
get mammograms covered by Medicare, and it was getting very
hard to do, and there were not enough women on the
appropriate committees to have it in place every step of the
way of the process, so one woman who was a lobbyist went to
a male friend on a committee and said, "I need you to bring
up this mammogram legislation." And he said, "Oh, I can't do
that. I did the last bit of legislation for women in the
subcommittee. Everybody will think I'm soft on women." And
she said, "Nah, just tell 'em you're a breast man." He did.
It worked!
But I have to tell you I don't just see this role of
women as caretakers in the world that I cover, I see it in
the world I live in. Slowly, slowly, slowly but definitely,
the workplace is becoming a more humane place because of the
presence of women. The idea that time can be taken for
family, whether it's having children or caring for sick
people or elderly people in your family. That is becoming
more possible for the men in the work place as well as for
the women in the work place because of the fights that we
have fought over the last several decades.
But I also do see it in my personal life. Four years ago
this time when my sister was dying, she was completely
surrounded by a network of caretaking women--her mother, her
sister, the nuns who had taught us, the nurses, women
doctors, her hairdresser who would come and make her
beautiful, and then circles of women around that. My
daughter was in college at the time in Princeton. She was
taking care of my sister; the women in her class were taking
care of her. The women in my profession were spelling each
other on vacations so that somebody would always be there
for me--these are busy, journalistic women. The women in
Congress were doing the same thing for my mother, supporting
her and caretaking her because that was what they understood
they needed to do for each other and for her--was to say
"Yes" under those circumstances.
What I would say is that it is impossible to shake the
caretaker role even if you wanted to, and I will revert just
briefly once again to my class book to one hysterical line
from a friend saying, "George's parents are still in good
health and maintain active lives. We think it's remarkable
that his 81 year old father and 78 year old mother look
after George's 100 year old grandmother, who still lives
alone in her Wisconsin farmhouse. May we all do as well." So
you can't shake it, but I don't know why you would want to.
Life is long. You have many opportunities ahead of you.
You have so many more opportunities than so many people. You
are privileged and blessed. And you will have the
opportunity to say "Yes" to many different things, but you
also will have the opportunity in the saying of "Yes" to say
"No" sometimes, to say "No, it's not right for me, and my
family, right now, to take this great job offer." And you
know what? Another one will come along. I'm living proof of
that. You can do it all. There are times when you have to
not do it all at once. There are times when you don't sleep.
But you can do it if you have some sense about saying, "This
is what's right now, this is where I am now, and this is the
care I need to take right now." I think that it is important
to look at the long view as you go out of here and realize
that there's a long time ahead, and there is time to see it
all, to do it all, and to do it in ways that make you proud
and happy in the end.
One last reading from a friend: "I've been thinking
lately about the changing size of my world, interior and
exterior. Our generation grew up with rosy expectations
about the economy, about the invincibility of our country,
about the boundless possibilities for our lives. Yes, there
were much more limited opportunities for women, and nearly
unfathomable dangers, such as the threat of nuclear
annihilation. But I think most of us felt a personal
optimism which our children do not. What they see is a
shrinking job market, AIDS, drugs, crime, homelessness,
thinning ozone, and more and more cynicism about the
possibility of fundamental change. We came of age in a time
of hope, of Camelot, when anything seemed possible--and
they're growing up in post-Watergate, post-Vietnam,
post-decade of greed, crisis of faith.
"Now, as many corporate giants downsize, I find myself
doing the same. The medium-sized theater company I worked
for in the '80's failed, and I'm now working for a smaller
one. With one child gone and one back only temporarily from
college, my live-in family has shrunk. As my husband
considers retirement, we face a smaller income. As hormone
changes take their toll, I find myself with less energy.
Through my fifty-year-old eyes, even the print has grown
smaller.
"One of my happiest moments came, though, when I finally
discovered, late in my forties, that I didn't have to
accomplish something huge in order to succeed. Corollaries
of this discovery were that I didn't have to save the world,
publish the great American novel, or be Superwoman all the
time; however, I could launch a scholarship fund for a
deceased Wellesley friend, become a pretty good theater
marketing director, and learn to be a more compassionate
family member and friend."
The long view: when we were living in Greece, we used to
go to this beach at Marathon--just think of it.... And there
was a little museum there, a little tiny museum from well
before the Battle of Marathon that you've studied, with
artifacts from 7000 years ago. And you looked in these
cases, and there were buttons, there were frying pans, there
were mirrors, there was jewelry--and it was remarkable to
look at. You could open them and put on--you could put it on
and use it right away! It was totally recognizable to the
lives of women today. For men, what was in those cases?
Well, there were some bows and arrows, and there were some
articles of worship, so if you were a soldier or a priest
there was something. But if you just went about leading your
daily lives, there wasn't something terribly recognizable
for you. That's what we have: we have this wonderful,
wonderful continuum.
So I say to you, young women of Wellesley, open up those
cases. Take up the tools and put on the jewels--of your
foremothers and sisters. Go out into this world and take
good care of it. Thank you.
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