Reagan’s daughter says her father would be ‘appalled’ by today’s politics

Patti Davis, the daughter of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, reintroduces America to her parents in her book “Dear Mom and Dad.” She joins Meet the Press to talk about her father’s legacy and her own.

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#PattiDavis #RonaldReagan #Reagan

>> Thank you so much for being here. We really appreciated. And welcome to meet the press. You wonderful to be with you. Thank you so much for having me. So let’s talk about your beautiful book, Dear Mom and dad. This is really a letter to

Your parents and it comes after you’ve written about your family before. Why did you want to write this book in this way right now? Well, I wanted to tell this part of the story for a long time, because I think making sense of your family and

Processing everything and, you know, moving beyond, you know, whatever happened in your childhood, whatever wounds you’ve been carrying around all of that stuff, it’s a journey, you know, and it’s and it’s not a smooth journey. And so I I really had kind of reached the end part of that. And I reached

A place where I could stand back and look at look at my family. Look at things through a wider lens and look with more understanding, more forgiveness, more compassion. And so I’d wanted to tell the story. And I actually been trying to make a documentary called the Reagans before the

World moved 10 kind of based on that premise and that desire to tell to tell us or the finale of this of this journey. Right. And it didn’t work out very well because every time I thought a producer would be okay, they start trying to take

It away from me and like you go, sit over there to run. We’ll tell your story for you. Didn’t want anyone else to do is very patronizing is like, what do you know? You don’t know any and so anyway. So my editor, Bob, while called me and had

This idea for this, he said a small book and a letter to parents. I thought, Oh, my God, I never would have thought of that format ever ever. What was it like to write this letter to your parents and how do you think they would respond to it if they could read it?

Well, I’ll ask the first part of that. First. It was I mean, I was totally willing to like dig deep and and be completely, you know, honest and everything wrong. But I think doing it in this format made it even more raw and more and and more may be more able

To dig deeper in because you are picturing saying things to them that I never would have said if they were in front of me, particularly to my mother, I just never would have I would have been too scared. So it was a brilliant idea for a format that he had. I mean,

What what they say? Well, my if my father were here, he’d be 113 years old tape. I wouldn’t see that side. I mean, I think he would. I think he would be fine with some of it. I think he would feel sad because some of it, you know, I mean, he didn’t

One of the realizations that I came to was that as a child of an alcoholic, where would my father had learned to be an available father? He and it took me a while to really look at that, I think and accept that. And where we learn

Conscious parenting his, you know, his father was an alcoholic. You and by saying that you wish you had shared more with them while they were here, which is so powerful. Yeah, I do. I’m like I said some of it. I never could have shared with my mother

And I think I did. I did share a lot with my father during the 10 years of his Alzheimer’s. I mean, as as on as that might sound, I got to know him better during those 10 years than I ever did before in my life

Because I was willing to because I went, OK, you know what, you got to grow up now and you got it. Put the past away and enter into this situation and ask what can I learn from this? You know, I mean, I’ve said that to people about

Alzheimer’s a lot instead of asking, why did my loved one get this disease, which there’s never an answer for? It’s understandable question. That’s the wrong question. Instead, what can I learn from this? How can I grow from this? Why was it important for you to, as you say,

Delve into this very personal space to round out the other accounts of your family in this very personal way? Well, because all the messiness of our family has been so public partly past me. Don’t buy those other books. Haha, you know, I felt like I the world has known a lot of the

Story and they should know this part of it, too, but also in primarily because I’m not the only person who has messiness and their family and challenges and difficulties and fractures and all of that. And if the work that I have done on this and the insights that I’ve

Managed to gain can help other people. And I wanted to that in Iran, a support group that I created beyond Alzheimer’s for caregivers for 6 years. So I’ve heard a lot of family stories and it really it really deepened in needs and knowledge that we’re not that

Different. You know, families are messy and they’re complicated. And particularly when disease enters the picture. So if I can say to anybody else, hey, you know what, this is what worked for me. I need to do that. I kept thinking as I was reading your

Book that it is raw and deeply personal in challenging at times but also in some ways like a love letter. It is here pair. Yes, it is. Is that how you saw? Yeah, it is because I I I finally learned to look at them as these complete people

Who had childhoods that were pretty messed up on their own, particularly my mother who edited unredacted her childhood across the board. But the fact of the matter is she was dumped 3 years old by her mother with relatives should never met before left there for 6 years. And then her mother came back

And said, Oh, I met this doctor and I’m gonna get remarried. And now we’re moving to Chicago. Let’s go her head. I think that impacted her that I think it the band and then yes, but not. But to her. I wrote about this to her.

The way she added to the story was I totally understood that mother had to go and do her work as an actress. She was 3 just bad. She just knew mommy’s driving away. So you learn to feel compassion for your 3 year-old mom? Yes, yes. Yeah.

Yeah. And in an environment that I am assuming was not that nurturing because she never talked about it to ever. And so I don’t know how much those are very formative years. I mean, 3 years old, who p**** trained or who came into her room at night if she had

Nightmares. You know, I don’t nothing was ever talked about. I think she was a very lonely. I’m desperate little girl who developed some survival skills as a result of that that made her a very formidable in controlling woman. You know, and you write about

The foundation or lack thereof that your parents provided and you write about it in the context of their relationship in this quote that you have in the book really stood out to me. You say the circle of just the 2 of you was the overriding reality of

Our family. It dominated everything many years later. I told someone that is children. We have the sense that if we were spirited away by pirates, you and dad would miss us. But you’d be fi. I said it lightly with humor. But it was because of that impenetrable circle that we

Were family was no real. The foundation has been really challenging as the yeah. I mean, it is. And I I use that biblical phrase of building a house and on sand versus building a house on Iraq. And it was it was a, you know, there was no, there was no familial

Foundations there. They were this entity and we orbited outside of it. And, you know, we all knew that. But and I written about as to when I look at home movies and I look at older photographs when it was just the 3 of us before

My brother was born. I was 6 when he was 4th. It was different. I mean, I I look at my mother in those home movies and there was tenderness there. And there was like a joy of motherhood that comes across in those that definitely dissipated as as the years went on. But,

You know, there was love and tenderness there. And that’s part of the story, too. And I think that’s something that I want people to take away from this in their own situation said, if you can think of any times, even if they’re only like little slivers of time when there was love there,

That’s part of your story, too. And it is almost haunting. When you talk about going back and looking at those home videos, it must have been emotional, incredibly emotional to look back. You know, it’s funny when I was a little girl, my father used to roll up the

Screen, you know, in the living room and he player home and And then when I was older, he, you know, I quoted him in this evening. Will you called her family dysfunctional? We weren’t look at the home movies and I would go up. You know,

They don’t tell anything. But when I looked at them later, I want no that actually tell a lot. They tell a lot. You know, you also write that there were moments when you actually felt afraid of your mom. Lot of moment. Why was that? Where did that come from?

She was, as I said, she was a formidable presence. And, you know, there was just I I wrote this were like American Russia. You know, we were just always at odds and I seem to be the person who anger turn no matter what I did. You know, so I was very intimidated

By her up till to up till and after she died. I mean, when she died, she died in the middle of the night and it was a long time for the Kerner can come out. They needed a police escort needing all. It’s tough to get her

Body. So her body lay there in bed for, you know, like half a day. And I remember standing there looking down at her and saying to myself, okay, she’s gone. She’s gone. She is nowhere on this earth. But there was another part of me

That was going. I’m not so sure I was waiting for her to pop up and tell me to cut my hair. You know, I just couldn’t really believe that you actually like she’s just kidding. It is that was that divide? Because you we’re a very strong-willed person in your own, right?

Do you think from a young age? Maybe? But, you know, I think no matter what I did was just going to be there. I think my mother was always better with males and females. So when Ron was born, it was, you know, there is there is a moment and

I wrote about this, too, in our home movies when runs a toddler in the swimming pool and I go splashing over there on the Grafton, I go splashing over and there’s no sound in those movies. This is from long time ago. But, you know, I’m real happy, especially with that. And she

Like pushes me away and says something harsh. I I don’t know what. And it’s a moment that kind of resonates with me because I thought, okay, now we’re on the downhill slide. It happened that early use. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Have you and and through writing this letter to your mom

And dad, do you think you’ve made peace with your mom? If you come to terms with the new white pick a year? I I’m sad for her. I’m sad for her that she never got the well, maybe early on. But after that, she never got the joy of motherhood.

You know, it was not it just kind of lost. So she never really got that. You know, that overwhelming love. And I I don’t know, joy that that mothers have for their children. And I’m sad for her that she missed that. And I was

Sad for her for the whole time that my father was ill because she didn’t have the full to the family around her because it had been so fractured. I mean, I was there for her. And sometimes, you know, it was fine. And I was welcome there.

And and sometimes it was tense. But she didn’t. She didn’t have that. And so it makes me sad for her. You didn’t have the same standoff with your father, but you did have you differences with him differences in viewpoints. How did this book impact how you reflect an feel about your dad?

Well, I’ve always felt more tenderness to my father, my mother. I mean, my father and I were not at odds except, you know, obviously when I was in doing demonstrations and things like that. But a lot of it, a lot of the tension between us was because I had tension with my

Mother and he and she were such a fused circle that, you know, if you don’t get along with her, then I’m going. But, you know, I he couldn’t see my side of things. So that sort of got in the way. But thank you know, everybody. Sarah wanted more from my

Father. He had a reserve about him. It was a very sweet reserve. It was very enduring reserve. But there was a reserve about him where people are always reaching for more from him and trying to figure him out. People are still trying to figure him out. You know, people are still

Writing books about him in trying to figure him out. And I I said to someone I don’t know recently, I think that to understand Ronald Reagan, you have to understand that everything about him bounced off the fact that he was a child of an alcoholic. Everything. Whether you want to

Look at his politics, his policies, the way he governed the way he lived his life as a family meant everything bounced off of that. And to me a long time to really get that to think you fully understand your father having written about him so extensively haven’t written this

Letter to him. I understand him much better now. And I as I said, I came to understand him better during Alzheimer’s, because, you know, Alzheimer’s is a peeling away. So I got to see that a young boy who was near sighted and just, you know,

Had his nose in a book because you can see anything outside of that and had this alcoholic father in that house. And and I got to see like different phases of his life because in all, like I said, it’s a peeling away layers of the person goes back through time.

So you get to see that. And I I really was very deliberate about being very open in in that experience, to learn from it and and grow as much as I could. I am going to ask you about your father’s Alzheimer’s in a moment, but I want to ask you about

Activism. What what you just referenced, the fact of the 19 as you became very outspoken and you’re right. The truth I have to live with now is that while I was appearing at rallies talking about world peace, the only thing being communicated was that I was at war with my father. Yeah.

Why did you want to be so outspoken while he was still OK? So I when he was elected president, I mean, I did not want to be the president’s daughter and I did not want any of this, you know, but I thought I remember sitting there in my apartment and thinking,

Okay, well, maybe so. Maybe I can do some good here. I was already involved in the anti-nuclear movement. No one cared until it was hard to present one other person there. So it was something that I passionately believed then. And I thought, OK, well, I can use this to bring more

Attention to this. This issue that I feel so strongly about. But, you know, I was young. I was 28 years old. And I didn’t I mean, I have to kind of forgive myself for that. You know that I yes, of course, I do this demonstration and

I’ll stand up on stage at the Rose ball and, you know, be kind of a thorn in his side in a way if I if I were than the person that I am now I would go okay.

I can speak out, but I can do it and pads or I could do it in an interview. I don’t have to do it like that. And I think, you know, that’s the difference. As like I said, what I I kind of have to have somebody else said to me,

Well, I did this in the past. I regret it so much. I would say to them, well, did you know any better at the time? And if you didn’t then and you didn’t. So you don’t regret your actions? I just you. But I also then have to say, but you have

To like, forgive yourself for not knowing any, but I didn’t sit there and go. I’m really get hurt him. I can do that. You know, I thought I was doing the right thing, you know, and then and I did try to forge this relationship or this dialogue, rather between him and the

Anti-nuclear movement and the activists by bringing Helen Caldecott to the White House. I mean, that was I thought, oh, this is like the best idea ever had in my life. You know, and I wanted to be an ongoing series of of communications and meetings between him and anti nuclear activists.

And that was just not to be because after that one meeting that was disastrous, that was it. But I but I wanted it for him to, you know, I wanted people to see that he could listen to the other side to people who he disagreed to s.

Well, another major issue that he grappled with this president was the AIDS epidemic. And you write about this one of the moments the right about is how he explains sexual orientation to you. His friend Rock Hudson, of course, pass. Tragically, talk a little bit about that moment. What did he say to you?

So a little bit like, yeah, so I was young. I mean, I don’t know 8, 9, something like that, maybe and we were in the den. It was just me and my father. And we’re watching 2. I was sitting down. He was in the chair, nursing down on the

Floor, like was like, and it was Rock Hudson, Doris Day, moving into Richmond and and they were kissing and I went that’s weird. What what do you mean? I said, you know, it just looks weird. And he said, well, he said Rock

Hudson doesn’t really want to be kissing her. He wants to be kissing a man. And I think I saw my memory is that I said alike and Glasgow in Italy because we have these 2 lesbian and they were called Anthony and they weren’t Ryan’s.

But, you know, call them that. They were a couple. I mean, to me, they were a married couple. They stay. They babysat us. When when my brother was like 2 or something in my parents went to Hawaii, he slept in my parents bed. They lived together. They’re always together 2. They were

Married couple to me. So I was not unfamiliar with this. And I said, OK, he said, yeah, that’s why it looks strange to you. It’s fascinating because that’s such a personal moment. And he clearly was in some ways ahead of the curve in terms of being

Able to share that with you at such a young age. And yet you say you are disappointed to some extent by his public response. I’m heartbroken by an IED wanted to write about for a long time, like in an op-ed or something, you know,

And there was just never really the right opportunity to to do so. So when I start writing this, I thought, well, I’m going to write about this now, not to make excuses, not to really make anything other than what it was, which was a failure,

But to try to explain some things primarily that, you know, one of his character flaws was that he delegated things to other people. And then he didn’t. You just believe that they would tell him what he needed to know, which was not the case. And there were very

Homophobic people in his administration. There were people who believed that AIDS was God’s revenge on gay people. I mean, who went that far with, you know, and did not want him talking about AIDS. And it was when Rock Hudson died, that they they kind of went well, I can keep it from now.

And he, but he allowed things to be kept from him. And as I wrote in here, you know, for for someone who’s timing usually was pretty impeccable. Its timing failed pretty much every step of the way that so I can’t make it anything other than what it

Was. But what I I can say is 2 people who think, oh, he didn’t care about gay people or he was homophobic. That’s not true. A few forgiven him for his response. What you say was a failed response to the AIDS crisis. That’s a hard question. I don’t know. I mean,

I guess I need to that’s a tough one. I mean, I love I had friends who died in your mom. I definitely have not reached the top of the mountain when it comes to forgive. That’s your mom encouraged him to speak public. She did it and you talk about it in the

Context that she was often a shield for him in from some of the people in his administration who are maybe leading him astray. Yeah, but that see that puzzles me, too, because yes, she was. And yes, she pushed him a little bit. But I don’t

Understand why she didn’t push him more. She knew people who are dying of aids. Her hairdresser died of AIDS. She had lots of gay friends. So I don’t I don’t understand that eyes are, you know, because he listened to her. And and I don’t I don’t know why.

Like I said, I don’t know Washington pushing harder. There’s so much that I don’t know in that you’re right of your father’s policy positions and this is specifically about abortion. You say you would probably be amused by that after my public rebelling against your policies. I have occasionally taken on the task

Of trying to explain a few of your positions not to excuse or indoors but simply to shed light on how I feel. You arrived at some of them like abortion like abortion. Yeah, I was prolife with exceptions. Yeah, we’ll heat. The bill he passed in California was that was revolutionary. I mean,

Before that girls could not. I knew the woman who went to Mexico and were blindfolded as superintendent let into clinics. How do you think he arrived at that position? And and and I guess what do you think he would say today in the wake of Roe v Wade being overturned? I mean, I

I don’t know. I I don’t think you would like a lot of what’s going on right now. And I think that that that was probably one of them. What I what I explained in this book, and I also the first up

And I wrote for The New York Times was about his views on abortion and how, in my opinion, he was very influenced by the fact that he and Jane Wyman lost a baby today sold who he never got see because he was ill with pneumonia, literally fighting for his life to.

And so he never saw. So there was this baby. It was just it was born. And that was she was gone. And I think that the the dialogue that anti-abortion people use resonated with that grief in him that I don’t think he ever really allowed himself

To feel. And now because he never talked about it, I never knew that Christine Reagan even existed until I was in my 40’s. How painful that really noticed or so I’m going to dedicate the book to touch to Christine Reagan. And I said, who’s that?

Was it painful when you realized that history? Yeah, yeah, because I thought, you know, if you don’t 2, don’t explore your grief. If you don’t acknowledge their grief and it’s going to claim you in other ways and you’re going to play out in other ways and it’s going to become this whole sort

Of tangled mess. I think one of the incredibly powerful moments of the book is when you talk about your role to the rest of the country, America kind of sat with your family at the dinner table and it’s only through your father’s illness. Yeah, that you were able to forgive

And you say it wasn’t until you got Alzheimer’s, that I came to appreciate America’s companion, Shia people approached me with compassion with sympathy. We were in a realm beyond politics. There was no way that everyone who spoke to me agreed with your politics. They were responding to you as a human

Being, not just a political figure and there was sustenance to that. Yeah. How did that impact you? Very powerfully. I was living in New York still when he was diagnosed and then released his letter to the country in the world. And, you know, this was 1994,

People were not talking about Alzheimer’s. This was really revolutionary that he did this and was so open about it. And so I bet, you know, walking around Manhattan and there were people would recognize me and then come up to me and tell me

About their own situations with a parent or a grandparent or Gorman and her uncle, whatever. You know, I knew that they were telling me things that they probably didn’t even tell friends of theirs. They were Tony, really personal things. And then and then they just be gone. I sort of felt like it

Was in the French underground or something given like little bits of information, people I never going to see again and was going to piecing together all of this information. But I started to feel like there’s this network of people around me in this country who know about my situation and know about

Our family and my father who are who feel compassion for us. And so it it did. It was like this, this odd kind of companionship words before it was so resentful of the entire country. Understandably. So. You felt like the country had taken away from my family and your father. Yeah. Yeah.

I wonder if you could reflect on today’s politics. You right. This beautiful account of Tip O’Neill visiting your father, his hospital bed and how different our politics feel today. The inability to reach across the aisle, frankly, to form those types of bonds where you

Can. Yeah, they vigorously in Washington but be there for each other on a very personal level. What do you think your father would say about our current state of politics? I think he would be. So I think it be appalled, really, you know. And yeah, they used

To have Martinez together to an old Irish guys like sharing a drink after, you know, it’s like 2 lawyers battling it out in court and go into having a drink or animal. And I mean, it was more a it was just more civilized. And I he didn’t understand lack of civility. He didn’t

Understand attacking another person. I mean, he could be, you know, pretty pointed in his and what he would say about someone else. But he didn’t understand cruelty. And that’s what we’re dealing with now. And I think he would understand that. And I think he would be

I think he would be really scared for our democracy. And I think that I don’t I don’t know who I think he would address people more than any candidates. You know, I think he would address the American at what has what has divided us. And

I mean, in my own opinion, and I think I don’t know. I think this probably is how he would think is our divisions really started because rough, because we’re all so scared. There’s so much fear around whether we’re going to get shot in the mass shooting. Our children are or, you know,

If you walk into a stores are going to be injured or a church where ever, you know, we’re scared and fear Morrison to anger. It just does. It’s not sustainable. We don’t want to be afraid. We don’t mind so much being angry. And, you

Know, there are people on the public stage in on the political front who understand very well that synergy between the fear and anger and her masterful at exploiting it. The other big issue that has been in the forefront right now is the issue of age. Your father when he was elected at

The time was the oldest person elected president. 6.16. I know. Now obviously the president is in his 80’s for President Trump. The frontrunners in his late 70’s. Do you think there should be cognitive tests for people running for the highest office in the land? Probably. Yeah. I mean, in just what we

Know about what age can do, it doesn’t always do that but probably be a good idea. I know my father was 77 when he left office after 2 terms since young now does not. Yes. Did it seem at the time to you? We talked about your dad is

Being at the time the oldest president? I think it did because, you know, it was it was it was 87, I believe when he stood in front of the Berlin Wall and said, you know, Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall. So that was not someone who was fractured in in age.

I mean, yes, I probably thought he was old, could fall parents. But, you know, not not in the way that that we’re talking about now. Do you see ink that? And I guess the question is, do you think of political families now? Obviously we spend a lot of time talking about the adult

Children of our politicians. Do you reflect on that at all? The intense scrutiny? Yeah, yeah. Least. Get stabbed Tuesday. You know, I mean, I was I mean, I hate I did not like being first are at all. I didn’t like being followed around by Secret Service.

And I wrote about signing off from them after 4 years. I mean, nobody could do that. Now. The world’s too dangerous to countries too dangerous. You know, I mean, they my brother did it first coronavirus. My brother Brown signed off from them first and I went, oh, you can do that.

And so I have to write this letter and then they send someone they so one of the suits down from Washington to basically try to scare you, you know, and they sat in my little apartment of the dining room table and it was time. Well, you know,

There could be kidnapped threats and we can’t protect you in staff. And I said to him. >> Okay. Anybody looking at the Reagan family isn’t going to go. Let’s take Patty. Who would pay for me? Haha, I was there the next 4 years with no Secret Service protection which helped

A lot. I didn’t know what a great I was never afraid. No, I was no. But that’s the difference. I mean, now, if if there were a first family in the White House and somebody like texting me or something or wrote me and said you signed

Up. I think I’m going to I would go don’t do that. World now is not. I mean, yes, there were dangers, but >> don’t do that. Well, you know, that leads to my next question, which is you had one of the most famous last names

In the world in American politics. You decided to change it. Yeah. Why? And do you ever regret that decision? No, I don’t. Because like most children of famous parents, I just wanted my own identity. You know, and I wanted 5 minutes when someone met me to just sort of size me up and

And like, look at me as a person rather than governor’s daughter. I was a teenager when I decided to use to change my name. And I went through all these different names. I mean, you know, little hippie chick that I was I thought of like a

Single number rain was one of them. I’m going to be rain because I was writing poetry the time I thought that’s couldn’t write Ponson Reyna. Now I thought was stupid. >> And I didn’t want to thank her by parents. I couldn’t like

Go to the I’m going to be rain and now. And so there were limits. Yeah, so I didn’t want I did not want to hurt them. I didn’t want to make them angry. And I thought, well, my mother’s maiden name is Davis there mean they’re like

85 million Davis’s around. I mean, that’s not you know, that doesn’t like set off any alarms and people. So I thought all do that will be Patty Davis. And I remember having that conversation with them and trying to explain to them that I just want someone to look at news, a person just

For a few minutes before they figure out who I am. You think they understood they did understand and they weren’t around? Yeah, it actually worked a moment of connection between there was a connection and they and they actually they did. They did understand, you know, they were very accepting of it.

So much of the Republican Party to this day still speaks about wrestles with debates. Your father’s legacy tries to emulate. What do you say Inc? Your father’s message would be if he were sitting here today to the country to our current politicians.

I think he would want people to look at one another as human beings. You know, that’s why he and Gorbachev, we’re able to do what they did, which was world changing at the time because they looked at each other as human beings. And and that’s what’s missing now.

You know, these were 2 people who are put on the stage of history in a moment in time to, in my opinion, do what God intended them to do. They might not have, you know, but they were both to people who I think have the same agenda of looking

At each other as a human being. Gorbachev came to my father’s service in Washington, D.C., I got to meet him. He says he was very shy, serve vulnerable person. They all met him briefly. But you know, that’s the impression that I

Got from one of them. You think we’ve lost that ability to look at each other as human beings? Yeah, I do. I do. For the most part. Yeah. Is there anything that gives you hope when you look out at America that this country?

I don’t know. It depends on what day of the week. You ask me. I think you know me, I want to have hope. I want to have faith that we will get through this, that we will come back together. But but like I was saying, I think that

I think because there’s so much fear and anger because anger always sits on top of fear that it’s hard to find that face. You know, it’s hard to to really say, yes, word. And and you know, that’s what it is. I didn’t grow up in calm times. There was a civil rights

Movement. There was the women’s movement that was the antiwar movement. It’s not like America was calm and happy. But there were people like Martin Luther King like John Lewis and many others who are rooted in this faith that that America could function from her better angels. You

Know that that this was still a great country, which was remarkable. Always to me, because you think about what Doctor King and John Lewis experienced and witnessed to have that faith is really remarkable. I don’t see that now. It’s not there. They’re not eloquent voices out there. There are. But I don’t

Feel that I don’t feel that routed nus and absolutely, you know, we can do this. We can get through this. I believe in this in this country. I don’t see that. >> And just finally, Patty, when people read your book,

I read it is a daughter as a mom and took so much from it from all those places. What do you hope people take from your book from sharing opening up about this deeply personal part of your life and your heart? I hope they look at their own families and and go, OK,

How can I look at this differently? How can I just take a step back in the same way that you take a step back from a painting to really see the whole picture? How can I step back from my family and my life

And and look at it differently and no, and look at it through more mature eyes and and it to a more complete vision. And then if you can do that with your family, you can do that with other people. People are are more complicated. Then they appear to be wonderful. Thank you