Donald's 3 Daddies
Started in snark, ended up somewhere surprising
The next 4 posts will be about Donald Trump and the effects of the country he is creating. If you’re happy with what he and his administration are doing, you can skip this one.
Having come from a peculiar family of origin myself, and being a dabbler in fiction, I am compulsive about figuring out people’s motivations. Why does he act the way he does? Asking that question meant I needed to start with his early life and his family.
As you read these profiles, think about what you learned from your father, and how he taught you.
Sources are at the end of each piece.
Daddy No. 1 – Fred Trump
Donald’s birth father was monetarily successful. Upon his death, his New York real estate empire was worth $200 million. “Only” $1.9 million of that was in cash.
However, Donald’s childhood was filled with emotional deprivation, according to his niece, Mary L. Trump, a clinical psychologist. In her book, “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,” she calls Fred Trump a “high functioning sociopath.” He worked 12-hour days six days a week, and when he was home, he wanted to be unbothered by his children.
She also notes that Donald’s mother, Mary Anne MacLeod Trump, had a health crisis and was absent from the family for about a year, in and out of hospitals, starting when he was two-and-a-half years old. During that time, Fred was the primary parent for Donald and his 9-month-old brother, Robert. However, Fred refused to alter his work schedule, and Donald had no one to really attach to. The housekeeper was busy. Fred’s mother cooked for the children, but was not affectionate. Donald’s 12-year-old sister, Maryanne, tended to his and Robert’s needs as much as she was able – bathed them and got them ready for bed – but the children all stopped relating to one another when their mother was absent.
Fred focused a lot of attention on his eldest son, Fred Jr. or Freddy. Fred Sr. wanted him to take over the real estate business, telling him often, “You gotta be a killer!” and humiliating him in front of the rest of the family when he made mistakes or didn’t meet his father’s expectations. From this, it would seem, Donald learned that it was better to dish out abuse than to risk being the focus of another’s wrath. Freddy later died of alcoholism at the age of 42.
After Freddy became an airline pilot, which his father derided as a job that was “beneath” the family, Fred turned his attention to Donald as the one who would take over Trump Management, later The Trump Organization. He taught his son to be ruthless in deal-making, telling him often, “You’re a killer!” and “You’re a king!”
1n 1968, at the age of 22, Donald joined his father’s company, taking over all its operations in 1972.
The real estate world was where he met Daddy No. 2.
Friday: What Donald learned from his second father-figure
I see those similarly disconnected eyes in Donald as an adult, once Fred and the likes of Roy Cohn gave him a Method of Operation (M O) I'll bet he gave in, and gave up on discovering his uniquely born reason for being. It is the Catholic Jesuits who have been quoted for recognizing "give me a boy until he is twelve and he will be father to the man for the rest of his life." Or some similar observation of behaviors.
So again, while DJT's antics require too much of our attention, he needs to be held accountable and recognized for the lamentable person he is. Harry Overstreet wrote in The Mature Mind that unless a person, as they grow older, gains empathy and sympathy for others, they will merely be a big child with a lot of power. Our president is such a person.
Yikes!😳 the kids were left to themselves while mom was gone. Another lairs of the flies. No wonder there isn’t an adult in the room.😱