How Chelsea Clinton keeps sane in a world of Twitter trolls
Someone somewhere at this moment is composing a hate tweet to Chelsea Clinton. While the former first daughter has become masterful at clapping back at the steady stream of haters with misdirected ire, she’s got much better things to do — namely, a new book, a musical based on another one of her books, and — oh, yes — a third child.
Over the weekend, Clinton was at Bay Area Children’s Theatre (BACT) in Oakland, Calif., to see She Persisted, the Musical, a stage adaptation of her 2017 bestselling book, She Persisted: 13 American Women Who Changed the World. The show sees fourth-grader Naomi meet 13 inspirational women from American history — think: Sally Ride, Florence Griffith Joyner, Ruby Bridges — who persisted despite adversity, and the former first daughter was in the audience for the show.
Clinton tells Yahoo Entertainment she was “excited, grateful and humbled” when BACT’s artistic director Nina Meehan approached her last year about “bringing stories of incredible women that mean so much to the stage.” After all, “I loved going to the theater with my mom,” that would be Hillary Clinton, “as a kid and learned so much about the world and myself sitting in the audience,” she said. The Clintons remain Broadway regulars — along with Clinton’s husband, Marc Mezvinsky, and father, former President Bill Clinton.
Clinton reports that she “loved” the musical, admitting to getting “emotional at the end” hearing “words I’d written close out a show that meant so much to me.” From what she could tell, the kids in the audience for the one-hour show, which is directed by Khalia Davis, were captivated based on how quiet they were.
Clinton says she hopes the musical, which runs through April 14, “helps more young audience members, particularly girls, imagine themselves as activists, scientists, artists and whatever else they may hope to be, one day and today.” She adds, “And, I hope it helps young audience members who are boys to see their dreams of the girls in their lives as equally valuable and valid to their own.”
Clinton’s two She Persisted books (also 2018’s She Persisted Around the World) are still a hit during story time at home with daughter Charlotte, 4, son Aidan, 2 — and likely baby No. 3, who is expected later this year. “We’ve read [both] many times,” she reports. “Thankfully, my kids still request them. I think it’s important to share stories of inspiring women with our daughters and our sons equally. Charlotte’s current favorite in She Persisted is Sally Ride as she is fascinated by space. Also, every time we read She Persisted Around The World, my kids can’t believe that when Sissi was their age it was illegal for girls to play soccer in Brazil.”
Clinton’s next children’s book, Don’t Let Them Disappear, and her fifth book all together will be out April 2 and attempts to educate about the the growing number of endangered animals.
What is the former first daughter, who works for the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Health Access Initiative, doing to raise her daughter — and son — to be feminists?
“We talk about inspiring girls and women,” Clinton shares. “One book my children love right now is Be a Star, Wonder Woman! I love that my daughter and son both request it. The book we’ve definitely read the most in their lives is The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch, which is about a young woman who takes control of her fate after a dragon burns down her castle and carries off her prince. She realizes she can write her own story.”
She continues, “I think it’s important we tell stories about girls and women, by girls and women, celebrating girls and women to our daughters so they can see themselves as doing anything and everything, and to our sons so they can equally see that too and understand their sisters’ and any girl’s dreams are just as important and valuable as their own.” Other books Clinton finds empowering for little ones are Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon and Dream Big, Little One.
In this culture of negativity, we ask how Clinton feeds her own brain — ya know, to keep herself sane and remind herself that the world isn’t all Twitter trolls and mean people.
“We spend lots of time with our kids, going to the National Museum of Math, the Museum of Natural History, kids’ concerts and the playground,” says the NYC-based Clinton. “Marc and I go to lots of theater. I read National Geographic and look at the most recent NASA photos or updates from the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust.”
And Clinton’s own reading list is bountiful — not unlike her dad and mom. “I love detective novels centered on female detectives and detective novels written by women,” she says. “So I love Amelia Peabody, Blanche White, Maisie Dobbs, Precious Ramotswe, Cordelia Gray, Bess Crawford and more and I also love Louise Penny, Barbara Nadel, Deborah Crombie, Donna Leon and more.” (Hillary turned to mystery novels to get her mind off the 2016 election results, according to What Happened. She inherited the love of the genre from her mother.)
In January, Clinton announced that she’s pregnant with her third child — so there should be opportunity to hit her favorite authors list while holding court in her glider with her newborn when he or she arrives. What is she looking forward most to the baby? Just “meeting our newest addition,” she says, as well as seeing “Charlotte as a big sister to two and Aidan as a big brother for the first time!”
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