What It Means to Be Jimmy Carter's Grandson
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links."
When Jimmy Carter entered hospice care in February 2023, his family thought they had days left with him.
"Obviously we're not in charge, and God had other plans," his grandson, Jason Carter, tells T&C. "What that has done for us as a family is these last 18 months, it's given us a chance to have an enormous amount of reflection with each other, with him." He adds, "The whole world has had this opportunity for real reflection about him and my grandmother and their legacy. It's been a remarkable outpouring of love and respect, but also of admiration for what he actually accomplished, both in the White House and after."
The former president's health hasn't changed much while he's been in hospice, even following the death of his beloved wife, Rosalynn, in November of last year. "He's still really in the same physical situation he's been in for the 18 months," Jason says. "He's very physically diminished. He can't do much on his own, but he is mentally and emotionally engaged in what's going on around him and in the news. In fact, in the last several months, he's really gotten more engaged, just for whatever reason. Again, we're not in charge—that is for sure true."
The 99-year-old former president has been following the upcoming presidential election. In fact, Jason spoke at the Democratic National Convention about how his grandfather is holding on to vote for Kamala Harris this autumn. "He's excited to cast a ballot—for a host of reasons—for Kamala Harris," Jason says. "There's a lot of poetry to it, if you want to go down that line." (One poignant detail that comes to mind: Jimmy Carter was born just four years after women got the right to the vote, and he could be alive to see the first woman president.) Jason adds, "He also is excited to turn the page on this Donald Trump era that has really been defined by a meanness and a darkness that's very different than what Jimmy Carter has always been about."
The DNC was an interesting experience for Jason, who brought his sons—Henry, 17, and Thomas, 15—with him to Chicago. "They got to see some of the behind-the-scenes stuff and some of the high-energy parts of the convention, and it was a lot of fun," he says. "There's an enormous amount of enthusiasm everywhere right now within the Democratic Party. We're from Georgia, and my kids are hardcore Atlanta hip-hop fans. So they're watching this roll call, and when it gets to Georgia and Lil Jon comes out for his impromptu concert, it was awesome."
The public spotlight on the president's family has evolved significantly since Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter were in the White House. (Jason was just two years old when his grandfather was elected.) "When my grandparents were in the White House, my dad owned a grain elevator in Calhoun, Georgia, and nobody even talked about it, partly because it was boring," he jokes. Now, he notes, the first families find themselves in the spotlight. "For a long time, it seems like presidential families were all the same, even though that's not really true," Jason says. "Now—because of social media, because of people's ability to interact—we just know so much more and see so much more. It really highlights the remarkable aspect of what American family life is, which is incredibly diverse in a host of ways, not race, not gender only, but also all these other different ways you can be a family. I love it."
At the DNC, in fact, Jason connected with Jack Schlossberg, president John F. Kennedy's only grandson, and he's been in touch with some of President Joe Biden's grandchildren on social media. His children, too, spent time with Chelsea Clinton's family, he says. "Once you do that, you realize that all of these people who were president of the United States or who are going to be president of the United States, they're just regular people," he says.
He enjoyed spending time with Jack, in particular, as they have the unique shared experience of being eldest grandsons of beloved Democratic presidents. Though they are from different generations (Jason is 49, Jack is 31), and Jason has run for office and served in the Georgia legislature, while Jack is currently a political correspondent for Vogue, they understand each other. "We were joking about what percentage of the time we get asked if we're running for office," Jason says. "I bet you there's not a single person who's ever met [Jack] who didn't ask him when he was running for office—the celebrity that he has just demands that question. You confront it in a different way than others. We laughed, and I think we had a good talk about that." The two plan to stay in touch and even appear at events together, Jason says.
There's no one right way to move through the world as a child or grandchild of a president, he reflects. "There's a lot of grandkids in my family, and I have a lot of cousins, and we've all confronted the world in very different ways. And my kids have gotten to see a lot of different ways to be Jimmy Carter's grandchild," he says, "so it's a real blessing in that way. My family confronts the same issues that every other family confronts."
It's an ongoing process to understand what it means to be part of the Carter family in 2024. A question on the top of his mind, and one that he hopes his sons Henry and Thomas, too, are thinking about is: "What am I going to do with this life that I've been given?"
"We've tried to be really careful not to make them think that they have a special obligation other than to be themselves, to do what they can do. So my hope is that they're not trying to chase some legacy and instead they're living out their own. That's really been our goal."
This summer, their family traveled to Alaska. Discussions about Jimmy's wide-ranging legacy have surfaced since he entered hospice, including his role in conserving 158 million acres of land in the state with the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), which the former president called "the most significant domestic achievement of my political life." That achievement was top of mind for Jason and his family on vacation. "I have this picture of the boys standing in this National Park looking out on it, and their great-grandfather played this really important role in preserving it," he says. "You could sort of feel them taking in the idea that a person can do a lot with what they've been given."
Following the death of his grandmother Rosalynn, and as his grandfather continues to defy expectations in hospice, Jason's been reflecting on how they both dedicated their lives to service.
"The idea that they did what they could is a pretty powerful one," he says, "and they took advantage of every opportunity that they had to do good for other people. They come from a tiny town, and they have enormous respect for people at the end of the road, that sometimes others look at with pity and think, 'Oh my God, these poor people.' And my grandparents always looked at those folks with real respect for the power that people in those communities had."
It's clear that for Jason, to be Jimmy Carter's grandson is to be someone who is always working to made the world a better place. "I understand the impact on the world that a single human being can have," he says. "I recognize that I've been dealt a really powerful hand, and my goal is to take that hand and to play it as well as I can to do good in the world. At the same time, I know that I have to be myself, and I've never wanted being Jimmy Carter's grandson to do my day job, but it's something that makes me proud and excited to go out and figure out what I can do."
In the immediate future, that includes helping plan celebrations for Jimmy's 100th birthday—the Carter Center is hosting "Jimmy Carter 100: A Celebration in Song"on September 17 in Atlanta, ahead of his actual birthday on October 1—and doing what he can to elect Kamala Harris.
The first joint stop for Harris and Walz after the DNC was in South Georgia, where the Carter family is from. That choice, Jason says, was particularly exciting for him. "When you see Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in South Georgia, you see them campaigning in areas that Democrats haven't won in a long time, and make the case that, 'Hey, we're going to be the president and the vice president for everybody, not just folks in Atlanta, but everybody,' That message resonates in Georgia, but I also think it resonates across the country. That's what folks want: We want to be able to say, 'This is somebody who's going to represent our whole country.' And no doubt Georgia is in play, and I'm super glad to see them campaigning the way that they are."
He plans to campaign as much as he can this fall—alongside his oldest son, who turns 18 later this month. "This election is going to be close enough that the campaign matters, that people's individual contributions matter. I'm going to do what I can to help Kamala get elected, and we're going to be out with my newly minted 18-year-old voter knocking on doors and talking to our friends."
You Might Also Like
