Six ways HBO’s “Succession” hit me hard personally

Logan Roy, bully, entrepreneur, puppeteer

By Caitlin Kelly

If you haven’t watched Succession, this blog’s not for you!

If you have, you’re familiar with this filthy rich dysfunctional family — including three ex-wives and a young assistant who had so hoped to become the fourth Mrs. Roy, but — damn! — the old dude died right in front of her, in his private jet en route to Sweden to close a business deal.

I love this show, but some of its moments hit me hard personally, often echoing my own dysfunctional family.

Here are six:

It’s not a family in any meaningful sense of the word

Logan Roy has three ex-wives; one he dismissed to a psychiatric hospital; one, very English and very cowardly and the last, Marcia, whose venom comes wrapped in a husky French accent. He has four adult children, including one from the first marriage — Con, likely 10 to 15 years older than the rest, who has always felt unloved and excluded by his father. As the oldest of four adult kids of our own father, by two wives, and two affairs, with none of us who ever lived together, I’ve felt this as the only child of my father’s first marriage.

The daughter, Siobhan Roy (aka Shiv), always, always shut out of power

Logan Roy loves to play his needy and insecure children against one another

Painfully familiar. My father, now 94, has always favored his youngest, 23 years my junior and who refuses to have any relationship to me at all. The sister I haven’t met only shows up every few years and the brother closest to me in age has created huge success for himself — but our father never seems able to celebrate us.

Having someone die after you’ve just argued with them is haunting and painful

My last conversation with my late stepmother, who died at 63 on my husband’s birthday, was an argument. It was a truly terrible time, with a lot of long-repressed and ugly emotions finally blasting to the surface. When so much remains unaddressed for decades and any chance of reconciliation is suddenly gone, it is a terrible shock and leaves even deeper family wounds.

Kendall Roy, whose past conceals a terrible secret he fears might one day emerge

Money changes everything

We’re certainly not wealthy in Roy style — private jets, helicopters everywhere, multiple huge houses — but two of my male ancestors were very successful in creating their own business, and the money they made very much affected their offspring and how they view(ed) money. It’s a useful and familiar way to wield power, to bestow or withhold affection. It’s also weird to grow up around opulent spending (my maternal grandmother was a literal heiress) and never earn or acquire such means yourself. It was normal to have Granny’s chauffeur — Raymond — and her jewelers, Jack and Adrian — attend her annual Christmas party. So I get Tom Wambsgans’ admission, coming from a less wealthy family, that he actually does like money.

Tom Wambsgans, Shiv’s hapless husband

When a man as calculating and manipulative as Logan Roy dies, beware

I’ve never met my half-sister (5 years younger) and have no wish to. My two half-brothers have an off-on relationship. With no clear communication between all four of us, it’s quite something to navigate.

There’s so much the Roy “kids” still have to figure out — like what emotional intimacy and trust even look like

While the Roys are spoiled rotten materially, and are putative adults, there’s an awful lot about the real world they just don’t know and will finally and suddenly need to learn without their father’s protection and power. Surrounded from birth by bodyguards and helicopter pilots and maids and chauffeurs, paid people who say yes to almost everything, they also seem to have no friends anywhere. Every conversation is about getting, keeping or getting more money. Forget love or affection or the joy of something basic — like actually enjoying a pampered life in New York City, with every cultural richness literally on their doorstep. As Season Four progresses, its final season, they’re finally, for a while, able to love and support one another.

I finally, gratefully, have a relationship with one of my half-brothers. But that’s it.

As I always joke, there’s no Hallmark card for a “family” like ours.

An epidemic of American loneliness

My wedding day (first one!) in 1992…still very close pals with Marion, who I met in our freshman English class at

University of Toronto

By Caitlin Kelly

It’s now deemed so large a problem that U.S. Surgeon-General Vivek Murthy says it’s as damaging as smoking for our health:

From his recent essay in The New York Times, (my boldface added):

At any moment, about one out of every two Americans is experiencing measurable levels of loneliness. This includes introverts and extroverts, rich and poor, and younger and older Americans. Sometimes loneliness is set off by the loss of a loved one or a job, a move to a new city, or health or financial difficulties — or a once-in-a-century pandemic.

Other times, it’s hard to know how it arose but it’s simply there. One thing is clear: Nearly everyone experiences it at some point. But its invisibility is part of what makes it so insidious. We need to acknowledge the loneliness and isolation that millions are experiencing and the grave consequences for our mental health, physical health and collective well-being.

This week I am proposing a national framework to rebuild social connection and community in America. Loneliness is more than just a bad feeling. When people are socially disconnected, their risk of anxiety and depression increases. So does their risk of heart disease (29 percent), dementia (50 percent), and stroke (32 percent). The increased risk of premature death associated with social disconnection is comparable to smoking daily — and may be even greater than the risk associated with obesity.

I’ve blogged about this many times, but clearly it’s not just me!

I lived in Canada ages 5 to 30, with a year in Paris at 25 with 27 fellow journalists, ages 25 to 35; I was the youngest, at 25.

I never had a problem elsewhere making or keeping friends.

While I’m only in touch with three people from my Toronto high school and a few from university, I later made friends through my work, neighbors, friends of friends…

The photo above is testament to this…as Marion lives very far away from us in British Columbia but made the long journey to New York to join me then. We still email often and schedule long phone calls. Our lives have been very different (she has three daughters and two grandchildren) but also have some very deep issues in common.

In Paris, we all vaulted between English and French, our fish-out-of-water-ness much tougher for people from North America, India, Africa, South America and Japan than for the multi-lingual Europeans. Having had to leave behind home, friends, family, work, pets — everything! — for eight months, meant we became our own support group. There were some very awkward moments when our cultural differences — especially our haste — caused offense and we needed to apologize and explain. But some of the friendships we forged then remain so deep that decades later we’re still delighted to visit one another and stay in touch.

At 31, I moved from Montreal — where I had very quickly made two close female friends, both single, as I was then, who lived in the same apartment building — to small town New Hampshire. It was a nightmare socially: my then boyfriend (later husband) was a medical resident so he was gone a lot of the time and exhausted when home. There were no jobs and no ways I could detect to meet friendly people. There was no Internet then. The only people in our social circle were all married, pregnant or joggers….none of which applied nor appealed to me. I tried hosting a few people for meals, but only one reciprocated in my miserable 18 months living there.

I had never ever been so lonely and it very much damaged my mental health, which is one reason I insisted we move to New York.

Why does friendship feel so low-value in the U.S. ?

— precarious jobs force many people to prioritize work and income over everything else

— low-paid, non union jobs do the same

— a culture where so many people feel guilty if they’re not constantly being “productive”. Sitting for an afternoon with a friend, or several, over a glass of wine — as I’ve done joyfully in Paris, Croatia, Toronto and Montreal (and once in Manhattan!) — is seen as weirdly slothful

— a culture that fetishizes individual needs over everything else; few friendships seem to have the ability to weather/resolve conflict and move on

— people move around and lose touch

— the social triage of wanting to avoid COVID

— having Long COVID

— being exhausted by caregiving

— especially in a time of high inflation, few places exist that don’t cost money (like cafes, bars, clubs, restaurants) where people can just relax for a few hours in a quiet, attractive and welcoming environment and maybe strike up a friendly conversation with someone new

— if you didn’t attend any sort of schooling with someone, you seem not to exist. I find this so weird, especially since I arrived in New York at 31

— family takes precedence over everything after work, from feeding newborns to moving far away from old friends to live closer to grandchildren. Friends? An afterthought once all the usual ceremonies (weddings, christenings, graduations, etc) are done

— wealth is a huge dividing line. People with a lot of money seem to think the rest of us aren’t worth knowing. Whatevs

— racism

— politics, especially since 2016

— transactional “friendships” where, once they’ve gotten what they need from you, you’re dropped

— lack of curiosity. Without fail, my closest friends have lived outside their home countries and have traveled widely, whether for work or pleasure, people who, like me, have had a range of life experiences and faced the challenges of adapting to (and enjoying!) other cultures.

I am very aware these are generalizations and maybe too personal to me as someone who has never had one job here for more than a few years and made work-pals. Nor do we have kids, the way most people seem to make friends. My closest friends here I made through freelancing, two from church and one from spin class.

Canadians don’t fling themselves across the country the way Americans do, for work or education, and our social and professional circles are smaller, so maybe we just retain closer relationships for other reasons.

This has also been an issue for me because, as I’ve written here many times, I don’t come from a close or loving family, quite the opposite. We don’t do birthdays or holidays together or get together for special occasions. My late stepmother was clear she didn’t want me around much and my uncle and aunt, both long dead, lived in London and were busy with highly successful entertainment careers. My friends are my family.

Many of you might have very deep ongoing American friendships.

If so, I envy you!

I am really looking forward, in late June, to seeing old and dear friends in Toronto, my hometown I left in 1986, that I have known since my late teens — at university, through my work, friends of friends. I haven’t been back in a year. I even reconnected with one woman from Grade Five (!) a few years ago as she became a neighbor and friend of one of my good friends.

I’ll have lunch with four pals from high school there as well.

Can’t wait!

Do you ever find loneliness an issue?

How do you manage it?

The realities of the writing life

By Caitlin Kelly

So many people want to be known as a writer, preferably one with multiple best-selling books, maybe a movie or TV deal on top of that.

Hope is charming.

But the reality of writing for income is simply not that, for the vast majority.

If you want to produce freelance journalism, you need a steady supply of sale-able ideas, smart editors ready to reply to you quickly, pay you well, edit you intelligently and promote the work. That’s a lot to hope for in one person!

Despite the lone-wolf perception of freelancers like me, having a wide and supportive network of smart, generous peers is essential — we steer one another away from lousy clients, share pay rates, send work to others when it’s not one of our specialties (and vice versa.) We meet at conferences, join online communities like ASJA and Study Hall.

Journalism pay rates have dropped enormously to a “competitive” $1/word — banal in the 80s when $2/word was standard at every glossy magazine. Today that’s a wildly elusive rate and we’re all struggling with inflation.

I still write occasionally for The New York Times, at a pay rate unchanged since the 90s. But if I can do the story efficiently and have an impact, there’s value in that for me.

This is a powerful and candid piece from Esquire by memoirist Nicole Chung about the precarity of the writing life, especially fiction:

I became an editor by volunteering for an Asian American magazine, a nonprofit mission-driven labor of love where no one drew a salary. Ten to fifteen hours of unpaid labor a week in exchange for the editorial experience I wanted was, to me, an acceptable trade—nearly all my labor then was unpaid. I cared for my infant and toddler during the day, then went to writing class at night. I spent every spare moment I had and some that I didn’t pitching freelance pieces and working on my first book proposal.

Then one of my favorite indie websites hired me to edit on a part-time basis. The job started at thirteen dollars an hour, twenty hours a week, and after a couple of months I was brought on full-time and granted a salary in the mid-30s. I loved that role, the tiny team I worked with, our community of readers. I was responsible for editing and publishing two to three freelance pieces a day, reading and responding to hundreds of pitches a week, and handling social media. I found my confidence as an editor, as the volume of work meant I had no time for imposter syndrome. By the time that website shuttered two years later, my salary had risen to the mid-40s. My agent and I had finally managed to sell my first book for a small advance. The independent publisher that acquired it later offered me a job as managing editor of its digital publications, starting at a few thousand more than I’d made in my previous role. Again, I felt lucky, working and collaborating with fellow writers every day—it felt like a dream job.

People who want to sell their books — certainly fiction — face multiple challenges, from finding an agent to represent their work (or self-publishing) to finding a reputable publisher. There are scammers out there preying on the naive.

Even those of us who have been multiply published may have to find a new agent — a slog — and a publisher, another slog. Obstacles appear you could only dream of, like a friend whose new book has not gotten the publicity boost she very much needs due to a strike by workers at that publishing company — this, after a decade of her hard work on the book.

Then you face another serious challenge — getting the word out as far and fast and wide as humanly possible — to boost your book sales. This is where a wide network with some serious social capital can offer a real help; I called the host of a TV show I appeared on many years before to tell them about a friend’s new book. It may now get a second look.

As I wrote here earlier, my husband and I co-authored a book proposal and found an agent, but 30 publishers rejected it. We offer tremendous credentials and a huge potential audience…but no luck. I may try again, but have been too discouraged since January by this failure.

An interesting recent story finds that later-life journalists in their 60s, 70s and beyond, are now working as mentors and editors, still passionate about the essential value of journalism.

From Neiman Reports:

These retirees include everyone from a onetime local sportswriter in Washington state to former top editors at The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and Reuters, a retired senior editorial director at CNN, familiar names from NPR, the ex-editors of the San Diego Union-Tribune and Miami Herald, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalists, a retired AP bureau chief and a former top executive at Hearst. Many are in their 70s or 80s.

Many also share a collective frustration with the decline of the profession in which they spent careers that date back to a time when media organizations were flush with resources and influence.

“If you can do something to help reverse that tide, you do it,” says Walter Robinson, the former editor of The Boston Globe Spotlight Team, who has taken on a second career helping set up nonprofit community news sites, mentoring younger journalists, and serving on the board of a government accountability and First Amendment coalition. 

“I had a great run and a lot of good fortune, and I just feel I have an obligation to give something back,” says Robinson, who is 77, of his continued involvement in the cause of journalism. “A lot of people I know who are my age have the same impulse.”

I recently signed up to become a mentor with Report for America and am very much heartened that others want to keep our industry thriving in whatever way we can.

Two lovely signs of ongoing life for my two books…524 libraries hold a copy of Blown Away, according to Worldcat., arguably the coolest website in the world for authors — as it lists every library in the world with a copy of your book, beginning with those physically closest.

I am so honored to see it in the libraries, and law libraries, of major American universities like Harvard, Yale, Brown, George Washington University, Johns Hopkins, and many smaller colleges, including community colleges. This, not making a best-seller list, was always my goal. I wanted my intensive national research to help inform and guide possible policy decisions.

It’s held by libraries in New Zealand, Germany, Viet Nam, the Philippines and the Netherlands, to name only a few.

The other joy, annually, is a small check I get thanks to Canada’s Public Lending Rights program — which pays authors for the public use of their books in libraries.

It means a great deal to me to know my hard work has had some lasting value.

The surprising allure of generosity

By Caitlin Kelly

I’ve been hanging out on Twitter for a few years, but have never had a tweet go viral — more than 11,000 likes!!

This one did:

I recently got a NYT call for pitches, none of which worked for me at all — but was perfect for a friend, and one with a new book on that topic, now both soon to appear. This is what we all should be doing. It is rarely as zero-sum as everyone assumes. #freelance

I didn’t think much of posting this, as it’s nothing I haven’t said there many times before.

Maybe it was the “ooooooh!” allure of an elusive New York Times byline that caught people’s attention?

Maybe it’s just the luck of that fickle algorithm?

But it’s been really gratifying and satisfying to see it retweeted and liked and bookmarked.

At its best, Twitter can offer a bully pulpit.

It was nice when that specific writer outed herself in reply and thanked me but I was just happy to make that introduction; I know her and I know her work and I trust her to do work of NYT quality. I don’t just do it for anyone; referrals can wildly backfire if the person you refer is less than completely professional.

I recently signed up to be a mentor with Report for America, a program designed to encourage younger/newer journalists as they start their careers, some in small towns, others in larger markets. It’s a joy to be helpful.

I’ve also been really busy this week emailing fellow alumni of our Toronto high school to create a new annual award for a graduating senior for creativity, named in honor of a fellow student who was funny as hell and much beloved and whose later life was very much marked by severe mental illness, a terrible loss.

Three fellow alumni from our year, so far, have agreed to share the cost with me.

Thanks to the school’s guidance counselor, we’re figuring it out quickly and I hope to be up in Toronto June 28th to present the award with a fellow student, a dear friend of that student.

Without kids of my own or nieces or nephews to encourage, I feel it’s really important to encourage the latest generation…already so plagued with so many challenges like COVID and climate change as it is.

Our high school is still pretty upper middle class, but now more diverse racially and ethnically, and has some lower-income students — the $1,000 we will offer is still a nice amount.

Learning to say no

The Nova Scotia house I fell in love with — and had to say NO to for my financial health

By Caitlin Kelly

It’s sometimes very difficult for me.

I’ve been freelance for much of my life and career — which often means saying an immediate and hearty yes to work even if you’re ill or exhausted or grieving or might not even need the income right then, because there are always fallow periods when you need to have acquired some savings.

So saying No, or No thanks, or I’ll pass or It’t not a great fit for me can feel awkward and risky.

But — and pardon the cliche — I now see saying “no” (without offering endless explanations or reasons or justifications) as a primal sort of self-care.

Resentment and anger for reluctantly saying yes just corrode the soul.

So you have to get good at saying no, even when it feels like a dangerous choice.

Especially when something apparently alluring is offered and your gut tells you….don’t do it.

Women are often trained from early childhood to keep everyone happy, to avoid conflict, to keep the peace — which can mean saying yes to all sorts of things we really don’t want to do! That could be hosting or attending a family event, agreeing to do something that makes us seethe inside or accepting a lowball offer of work or salary.

Our eagerness to please and not offend or annoy or anger — especially if you were raised in a family that always made quite clear what they wanted — continues for decades, in our loves and marriage and friendships and work and medical settings.

When we know someone holds power over us — even if it’s our choice — it can feel very difficult to risk losing their affection or support or kindness.

I had a friend here in New York for many years, someone I thought would be friends for life. We laughed a lot, traveled together, were often mistaken for sisters. Then she married someone I really didn’t like, nor did he care for me. Invited to her destination wedding, I said no. The friendship ended soon thereafter.

I sometimes still miss her, but with hindsight I also saw more clearly that I was the more submissive one. I don’t miss that role.

With work, it’s tough to turn down any chance to earn income; freelancers only “eat what we kill”, with no guarantees. But sometimes we can tell it’s just not a good fit.

With offers of pro bono work, as one recently made to me, it’s even more of a calculation; I was told I could address a small group of professionals who might hire me for my coaching skills.

The offer was very flattering.

Might.

If the group had been 50 or more people, the odds of that happening would have been better.

If the person asking me wasn’t getting paid — but not paying me — maybe.

If the demands for more and more of my time before even doing the presentation had stopped, perhaps.

It became easy to say no.

It ended civilly and professionally…which doesn’t mean I feared some sort of verbal fistfight.

When you emerge from a verbally abusive family, saying no always feels like an unwise choice.

I’ve been asked many times, mostly by my father and late mother, to do things I really didn’t want to do — from signing a document to sell real estate I had no financial interest in to cooking and cleaning house when visiting.

I grew up ages eight to 13 in boarding school and camp so a conventionally intimate family life wasn’t really in the cards…so I don’t feel much obligation in return. I left home for good at 19 when my father sold the family home and moved to Europe with his girlfriend.

No one paid for my university education but some income from my maternal grandmother and what I earned from my own freelance writing and photography work.

Saying no when others have said it to me many times?

Easier.

Do you find saying “no” difficult?

A loss, and a gain

Ringing the gong. So grateful to be done and OK.

By Caitlin Kelly

Some of you have had cancer. Some of you have lost loved ones to the disease.

I got my breast cancer diagnosis of DCIS, stage zero (thank God) in June 2018, right around my birthday. I needed lumpectomy and radiation and five years of Tamoxifen, a pill that suppresses estrogen.

It was not unexpected as my mother had a mastectomy in the 90s…but lived for many decades afterward.

The disease has hit our family hard this year.

Last Saturday at 6:30 we lost a 45 year-old niece of Jose’s, my husband, after many years fighting cancer. She leaves behind a widow — whose birthday was the next day — and their teenage son.

Jess was a force of nature and deeply loved by a large community. Like all the Lopezes, she was very loving person and her joy in life, even through years of surgery and treatment, was obvious to all.

Ironically, though, cancer has also, unexpectedly, finally given me a relationship I had wanted for decades, with one of my three half-siblings. He and I never grew up together and he’s 10 years younger, and has had an amazing life, enjoying both personal and professional success. He still lives in Toronto, where we both, separately, grew up. I met him when I was 15 and he was five. We had a few awkward Christmases together but every attempt I made to get to know him better really went nowhere.

Until this year, when he was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.

I started texting and emailing him regularly, sometimes to offer comfort and support, sometimes to warn him of the emotional fallout of this disease, often much overlooked by healthcare workers focused on the physical and friends too damn scared or ignorant to keep showing up.

I dropped a former friend who said something cruel and stupid. I was truly shocked by some of the careless things people said to me. You quickly learn to tighten your circle of intimates!

The day you end radiation, in some hospitals, you ring a bell or a gong. It’s a powerful moment. You’re done! The whole staff comes around to celebrate it with you.

My brother’s hospital didn’t embrace this tradition, due to its extremely high patient volume — so I sent him a video of the disco classic “Ring My Bell!”

I also texted him the Monday after radiation ended —- and warned him it would be totally normal to feel scared and shaky and alone after so many months of hands-on care and multiple medical relationships. some of which do continue. He appreciated it immensely.

Anyone who has had the disease knows it pushes us very quickly into another world of unfamiliar language and procedures, daily anxiety (and sometimes terrible side effects and pain) while undergoing treatment and daily anxiety after remission for fear of recurrence. It’s a weird disease because so many people get variations of it, yet it’s also often deeply isolating because those who remain unscathed really have no idea what we go through. People make assumptions about our prognosis, either blithe or dire, often both inaccurate and hurtful.

Our bodies and souls are left forever altered; I still sometimes catch a glimpse of a small black dot on my upper torso — the tattoo inked on my skin so they could aim the radiation machine accurately — an attribute I also now share with my brother, for his only tattoo is a radiation landmark dot as well.

Luckily, after surgery and brutal amounts of chemo and radiation — my brother is (!) back to playing hockey, his great love.

We now speak, email and/or text quite often and we’re finally getting to know more about one another and our challenging relationship to our father, which bonds us further.

It really helps to know someone else who really knows our father and what life has been like as one of his four children, two of whom I have no relationship with at all.

I…have a sibling!

Do you have a role model?

One of my favorite books, on how to be a productive creative person

By Caitlin Kelly

It’s an odd thing to ask of fellow adults, perhaps — more common for young kids and teens to have someone older to look up to and possibly emulate.

I don’t have kids and fear the adulation so many youngsters now offer to celebrities, influencers and millionaires. The best people aren’t necessarily those with the fattest bank accounts. Fame and fortune are just easy, visible metrics.

I take a spin class at our local JCC with a teacher I knew was clearly in his late 70s. He’s whippet-thin, with nary an ounce of body fat. He also teaches fitness classes. I recently discovered he’s in his 80s. Amazing!

He’s also low-key, modest and very encouraging, all super admirable qualities in my book.

As I head into a quieter period of my life with less focus — finally! — on hustling for work, I relish finding older people whose lives and values I admire.

People with physical and intellectual energy, curiosity and liveliness, people still engaged in community, or community building. Where we live, (a place I enjoy), is also an expensive and competitive part of the U.S., which means most people are focused totally on getting and sustaining high incomes, raising their children to do the same.

Those priorities leave little time, room and interest in friendship, without which we can’t really see who someone is beyond the surface,

As former President Jimmy Carter enters hospice care at home, I know millions of us have long admired a man who spent decades helping others, often through Habitat for Humanity, a program that helps build housing for those in need. I wish we had more role models like him!

People like Paul Farmer, who spent years working as an MD in Haiti, or Peter Reed, a former medic recently killed at 33 by a missile — while volunteering in Ukraine.

Footballer Sadio Mane, like some other star athletes, has donated much of his salary to build a hospital and other facilities in his native Senegal.

People who choose to put themselves in harm’s way to help others are also extraordinary to me. I admit, I have tremendous admiration for the career journalists, like fellow Canadian Lyse Doucet of the BBC, who spend their lives bearing witness in some terrifying times and places.

Brave young women activists like Greta Thunberg and Malala Yousafzai.

I was also fortunate at 25 to meet a man I dedicated my first book to, Philippe Viannay, who died in the mid 80s, a few years after I won the fellowship in Paris he created for journalists from around the world to learn about Europe by reporting on it through four solo trips. He was a Resistance hero, helped found a major newspaper and sailing school and home for troubled boys. He was also a lot of fun! It was the greatest honor to know him and be liked by him. He came into my life when I was 25 and my own father, never an easy man, was often distant, emotionally and physically. It was deeply encouraging to meet and know someone so incredibly accomplished who — liked me! So I wasn’t simply admiring someone from a distance, but seeing up close how he comported himself in later life.

Social media can also create monstrous “role models” — like the wealthy Tate brothers, whose toxic influence on gullible teen British boys is so widespread that teachers are now addressing it.

This, from The New York Times:

In recent months, Ms. Stanton said, students have started bringing up Mr. Tate in class. They extol his wealth and fast cars. And for the first time in her 20 years of teaching, her 11- to 16-year-old students have challenged her for working and asked if she had her husband’s permission.

She has heard students talk casually about rape. “As the only woman in the room, I felt uncomfortable,” she said. Once, a student asked her if she was going to cry. At home, even her own three sons seemed to defend Mr. Tate.

“He is brainwashing a generation of boys, and it’s very frightening,” she said. “They seem to think he is right. He’s right because he’s rich.”

In the Midlands, Nathan Robertson, a specialist who works with students who need additional support, said that in the past year, he had regularly heard Mr. Tate broadcasting from students’ smartphones. Many in a class of 14- and 15-year-olds he worked with cited Mr. Tate as a role model. When the topic of abortion came up in class, boys began laughing, he said, and called feminism poisonous. Some said that women did not have any rights and that men should make decisions for them.

Many people see someone in their own family as a role model.

I have mixed feelings about my own parents…both born wealthy to difficult parents of their own. My mother’s mother married six (!) times, twice to the same man (my grandfather, who I never met) and my mother, desperate to flee, married at 17, never attending university, then or later.

So I did admire my mother’s spirit of adventure — she later traveled the world alone for years, living for a while alone in New Mexico, Bath and Lima, Peru. She was self-taught and read widely and deeply. She could be a lot of fun. In our good years, we laughed a lot. She offered her time as a volunteer to hospice patients in the hospital.

My father, an award-winning film-maker, is similar — their marriage lasted 13 years before divorce. He, too, loves to travel, is artistically talented as well, and was often gone for weeks working — in Ireland or the Arctic or Mideast. He is perpetually curious and has a wide range of interests, even at 93.

So in some senses, they are role models for me.

The qualities I most admire, in anyone:

Resilience

Bravery

Modesty

Compassion/Empathy

Kindness

Humor

Curiosity

A ferocious work ethic

I admit, I most often look to people who are fairly talented and highly accomplished at their work or in using their talents. But it’s not about their wealth or fame or public adulation. Too often, people who’ve hit the heights are quite happy to leave needy others behind.

We all need people to look up to, people whose behavior and demeanor set a high bar we can aspire to.

Who are your role models and why?

What have you kept from your early years?

This little bear used to sit deep in my uniform shirt pocket during my years at boarding school. Invisible comfort and companionship.

By Caitlin Kelly

I read very few newsletters — already inundated by Twitter, two daily newspapers, a dozen monthly magazines and, when I have an ounce of attention left, books.

But I really enjoyed the latest one from an American journalist, Anne Helen Peterson, on the boxes her mother kept for her from her teens — a time, she writes, so much more memorable to her than her 20s and 30s.

She writes beautifully about what it felt like to go through those boxes and reconnect with her much younger self; I’d guess she’s in her mid to late 30s.

An excerpt:

That big plastic storage bin was allowed to sit undisturbed because my mom lives in a small town in Idaho with a basement approximately the size of my current house — as is the Idaho way. But now she is moving to a place with NO BASEMENT, and some tough decisions have to be made. By me.

I spent the day after Christmas pouring out the contents of these envelopes, taking pictures with my camera and, as an old friend of mine used to say, with my heart, and allowing that heart to be towed in so many unanticipated directions. Because turns out: I was an excellent archivist of my teen self.

The corsages, sure, but that’s classic memory book stuff. I’m talking about movie stubs and campaign pins, about 9th grade English notebooks and printed-out (and pencil-edited) drafts of college admissions essays.…

All archives are, to some extent, narratives: edited stories of the self or others. What I kept then was a story of myself that felt precious and still, at that point, untold. I wasn’t saving in the hopes of someone else discovering who I was. I think it was much more a case of ensuring my future self’s attention. The artifacts were the grammar that made the story readable.

I envy her terribly!

I lived with my father and his girlfriend (later wife) ages 14 to 19. I have very few artifacts of those years: my high school graduation yearbook, some photos. I struggle to think of much else.

My family of origin was never one to keep stuff for others…my father sold the house we lived in and went to live on a boat in the Mediterranean when I was 19 and in my second year of university. I took my wooden trundle bed and wooden desk to the studio apartment I moved it with me. And my stereo!

I really treasure the photo below.

I was maybe six or seven and sitting in the backyard of the last house I shared with my parents before they divorced. It was a big house on a beautiful, quiet street — Castlefrank — in one of Toronto’s nicest neighborhoods, Rosedale. I never lived anywhere like that again.

Luckily, my husband Jose (a photo archivist for the USGA) was able to take this one precious very faded color photo and bring it back for me.

My mother left behind several thick photo albums, but, typical of our relationship, I know very few of the people in them. She never spoke much about her life to me. I do have images of her — slim, gorgeous — modeling for the Vancouver Sun, and a spectacular photo of her that I love.

Cynthia being glamorous.

My stuff? Not much. I moved a few times and only years later found a set of excellent encyclopedias that had been in storage while I was boarding school and camp.

I still fondly remember some items from my teenage-dom — a thick caribou skin rug my father brought back from the Arctic which shed horribly, a poster and a fantastic embroidered sheepskin coat, wildly bohemian and wholly out of place in my white, suburban-ish high school. But I own none of these.

Oddly, a little embarrassedly, I still own and treasure a few stuffed animals from my childhood — like the elephant I found in my London hospital bed after my tonsils were removed. Faded but much beloved, she sits in our bedroom still.

Baby Elephant!

Because I moved around a fair bit and neither parent even had a basement — let alone the willingness to store any of my stuff in it — I’ve definitely lost some very precious teenage things, like a green and white Marimekko notebook in which I wrote my prize-winning poetry and some songs. That one really hurts. I had a storage locker here in New York, but I lost track of the payments for it — and they sold everything in it.

Do you still own treasured items from your early years?

Who, if anyone, will want or value them later do you think?

A matter of trust

By Caitlin Kelly

It’s foundational to everything we do, from earliest childhood to later years — we (have to!) place our trust in medicine and health procedures, in the men and women who pilot airplanes and drive subway trains and schoolbuses, in the chefs and cooks who prepare our meals when we eat away from home — and the health inspectors whose role it is to make sure it is safe.

If you live in the U.S. and follow news — which some of you don’t — a big story of late has been a shocking, relentless barrage of lies from a newly elected Republican congressman from Long Island, George Santos.

From The Daily Beast:

The perplexing series of alleged lies from George Santos, the Republican congressman-elect from Long Island under investigation by county, state and federal prosecutors, have continued to roll in this week—with each “embellishment” as shocking as the last.

Among the new claims under scrutiny in the last 24 hours: Santos’ high school education, his claim to be half-Black, a claim that his family’s Jewish last name was Zabrovsky, and that “9/11 claimed” his mother’s life after she’d “fled socialism” in Europe.

Basically everything he told voters is a lie. And…he will still be sworn into office.

HOW?

I think about trust all the time because trust in journalists — my career since university — is very very low.

This causes endless problems if voters believe a pathological liar like Santos — but not the reporters who uncovered those lies.

It’s a problem when people shriek “Fake news!” when they hear things they don’t want to, like COVID running rampant still.

It’s a problem when we keep sending our hard-earned tax dollars to governments that don’t do what they said they would, further eroding our trust in them, which, for Americans especially, seems subterranean at best.

From the moment a writer proposes a story, there’s a level of trust between them and their editor, whether they’re on staff or freelance. A staffer can be disciplined, suspended or fired for lying while a freelancer can lose access to a coveted market; The New York Times, for which I’ve written more than 100 stories, periodically sends every freelancer its long and detailed ethics code, and those who break it are out.

But there are legendary stories of lying reporters and their names are known to those of us in the industry, like Janet Cooke and Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair, all of whom were — of course — much lauded for brining in powerful stories and every ambitious editor wants material like that. Until they turn out to be false.

Every time I ask a source to speak to me, they generally agree quickly and kindly, which, in itself is a sign if trust that I’ll behave professionally; my website makes clear I have a long and solid career in place as testament to that. Only once, and it was interesting, was I told “oh hell no!” when I tried to get sources, by an agency that helps teens on Riker’s Island accused of crimes. Only after pleading my case to them face to face did I win the interviews, which are in my first book “Blown Away: American Women and Guns.” I’m proud of having won these stories, as they were untold and powerful and I’ve never forgotten them — and I’ve done thousands of interviews in my career.

That took trust.

We live in an era of easy, quick and profitable manipulation — of words, ideas, images. A few years ago the news agency Reuters invited a group of New York journalists (arguably pretty savvy) to listen to a powerful and frightening presentation about how easy it now is to alter images, whether video or still. It was deeply sobering to know how much energy is spent trying to sort out the garbage. My husband, Jose, is a photo editor for The New York Times, and it’s also his job — like every news editor now — to sniff out fake images. Staff photographers and longtime freelancers have earned their trust, Many photos arrive through a photo agency like the AP, Getty and and Reuters, to name three major ones — by the time they’re looked at for publication, they’ve been vetted by many editors who’ve already vetted their photographers.

Trust requires a long unbroken chain.

In 1997, as I think I’ve written here before, I became the victim — one of many! — of a skilled and determined con man who had duped many people in Chicago, done time and moved to New York where he picked up again. I won’t get into all the grim details, but it was a lesson for me, for anyone, in what behaviors inspire our trust and why.

He was physically attractive.

He dressed well.

He was very intelligent and engaging.

He was (of course!) initially charming — later creepy and threatening.

I fell quite ill the day before I was to fly from New York to Sydney Australia alone, hoping to research my first book — he brought me a pot of homemade soup.

How can one — when should one — mistrust kindness?

Read The Gift of Fear, a must-read book for every girl and woman — which includes charm and niceness as warning signs.

Are you wary by nature or experience?

The best of 2022, hopes for 2023

By Caitlin Kelly

That last post wasn’t my cheeriest!

Some of my happiest moments of 2022:

The view from my friend’s cottage

In late May I flew to Toronto, my hometown, for the first visit in 2.5 years, catching up with dear friends there; even though I moved away permanently decades ago, I stay in close touch with about half a dozen of them. I was invited to a cottage on Georgian Bay only reachable by boat…six adults, a cat and a dog and all our supplies! It was very beautiful and quite cold! The cabin I slept in had no heat so I wore a wool hat and a very heavy wool blanket.

Big Sur, CA

My tiny perfect room at Deetjen’s, Big Sur

In June, my birthday month, I finally spent a solo month driving from San Francisco to Los Angeles — a lifelong dream only made possible thanks to a wholly unexpected inheritance from my late mother. Along the way, I stayed with a pal in a town near SF, with another in Santa Rosa, had meals with nine other pals, some I had never before met — but have known for years only through social media. It was a real joy, after so much social isolation and loneliness trying to avoid COVID, to sit and chat for hours. I reconnected with two dear friends, both former colleagues of my husband Jose at The New York Times. I had lunch with a woman who became a friend after we cooperated on an exclusive story for the Times…with 150 emails between us by the time the paper flew me from NY to San Francisco to write about Google. I hadn’t been back to that city in a decade, or L.A. in 20 years. I fell very hard to California — such beauty! I cried on the way to the airport the day I left. What a joy it all was!

A great visit with Jose in November to Montreal and a hotel four hour drives’ northeast of the city on the north shore of the St. Lawrence. We live within a mile of the Hudson River — but this was a whole other sort of river! I loved speaking and hearing French again; I lived in Montreal as a Gazette reporter, in Paris at 25 and have been back to both places many times since.

A few days upstate in Saratoga Springs visiting very good friends, former Times colleagues. The hot springs did seem to help my arthritic hip!

I enjoyed some well-paid and really interesting work writing for a non-profit foundation that gives money for academic research. It allowed me to interview three brilliant, passionate and accomplished researchers. Loved it.

Jose continues to enjoy good health and has plenty of steady well-paid work, which has lightened my workload. I’m so grateful! I started writing and selling my photos at 19, hustling hard for decades. It is a great gift to just do a lot less.

Three dear friends each came to visit. We love our pals who live far away — one in Portland, Oregon, one in Milwaukee (both former students of The New York Times Student Journalism Institute) and my pal Scott, who lives in Pennsylvania. It was great to finally catch up with them, even though one of them fell desperately ill for about 24 hours — and so did we! With one very small bathroom, it was a bit of a horror movie. It wasn’t COVID or flu. Maybe norovirus.

Completely new, a much stronger relationship with one of my two half-brothers, 10 years younger, who fought stage 4 cancer and looks likely to be OK. We met when I was 15 and he was 5 but spent very little time together, even though we lived in the same city for decades; we had different mothers and never lived together. I had very early stage breast cancer (no chemo) in June 2018 so I have some idea what he’s been through and made sure to call and text him often. I’m surprised and glad (however a terrible way to get there) we have a deeper friendship now.

A lovely surprise — a C1 rating after my written and oral tests from Alliance Francaise (C2 is the highest), i.e. expert.

As you can tell, renewed and strengthened friendship remains my life’s greatest gift (beyond Jose and good health!)

For 2023 I hope:

For good health for me and Jose — and you!

Continued freelance opportunities

The health and income to allow me to travel more

To study and practice my French and Spanish

Mentoring journalists working at Report for America

A publisher for our book proposal (20 rejections so far, 16 more to go…)

What were some of your year’s highlights?

Hopes for 2023?