President Donald Trumphas often called himself a “great father” and for the most part, his adult children,Don Jr., 40,Ivanka, 36,Eric, 34, andTiffany, 24, seem to agree. (His youngest son,Barron, 12, hasn’t yet spoken out on the subject.)
Here are some of the family’s most illuminating quotes on fatherhood, Trump-style.
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- He hesitated to give Don Jr. his name because “what if he’s a loser?”
In her recent memoir,Raising Trump, the president’s first wife,Ivana— who is mom to Eric, Don Jr. and Ivanka — recalls Trump balking when she suggested naming their firstborn son Donald Jr. “What if he’s a loser?” Trump said, according to Ivana.
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- In 1990, a young Don Jr., upset about his parents’ divorce, reportedly told his father, “You don’t love us!”
As Trump’s very public affair with Marla Maples made tabloid headlines in the early 1990s, then-12-year-old Don Jr. blamed his parents’ split on his father.
“How can you say you love us? You don’t love us! You don’t even love yourself. You just love your money,” Don Jr. reportedly told his father, according to aVanity Fairarticlepublished at the time.
(Don Jr. later toldNew Yorkmagazine in 2004, “Listen, it’s tough to be a 12-year-old. You’re not quite a man, but you think you are. You think you know everything. Being driven into school every day and you see the front page and it’s divorce! THE BEST SEX I EVER HAD! And you don’t even know what that means.”)
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- But Ivanka said that, “bizarrely” enough, the divorce brought her and her siblings closer to their father
Ivanka reflected on her parents’ divorce in a 2004 interview withNew Yorkmagazine, saying, “Bizarrely, it also made us closer to Dad. … Every morning before school, we’d go downstairs and give him a hug and a kiss. We didn’t take his presence for granted anymore.”
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In a 1994 episode ofLifestyles of the Rich and Famous,Trump spoke about the attributes Tiffany, then 1, had inherited from him and his second wife,Marla Maples.
“She’s got Marla’s legs. We don’t know whether or not she’s got this part yet but time will tell,” he added, holding his hands in front of his chest to represent breasts.
- He said men who take of their kids are “acting like the wife”
On theOpie and Anthonyshow in 2005, Trump said changing his children’s diapers was just “not for him.” “There’s a lot of women out there that demand that the husband act like the wife and you know there’s a lot of husbands that listen to that… I’m really like a great father but certain things you do and certain things you don’t,” he said. “It’s just not for me.”
- His first wife,Ivana, confirmed that Trump has “never changed a diaper”and was too busy “making the business” to play with his kids
Ivana said onThe Ray D’Arcy Showlast year that Trump “loved the kids, but he would not really be the dad who would take them for a stroll in the Central Park in the stroller or go and play soccer with them or do something like that. He was always on the phone making the business.”
- His idea of good parenting is “supplying the funds”
- Marla Maples said that when it came to raising their daughter, Tiffany, Trump was generous with his money — but not his time
“Her daddy is a good provider with education and such, but as far as time, it was just me,” Maples once told PEOPLE ofraising Tiffany largely on her own. “Her father wasn’t able to be there with day-to-day skills as a parent. He loves his kids. There’s no doubt. But everything was a bit of a negotiation.”
- During a 2006 appearance onThe View,he infamously said that “if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her”
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- Trump said he was “less” proud of Tiffany than his other children
In November 2016, Trump toldFox & Friendshow proud he was of all of his adult kids, but “to a lesser extent… Tiffany.”
“I’m very proud, because Don and Eric and Ivanka and — you know, to a lesser extent ’cause she just got out of school, out of college — but, uh, Tiffany, who has also been so terrific,” he said. “They work so hard.”
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- He’s competitive — even with his children
In a 2004 interview withNew Yorkmagazine, Ivanka said she and her siblings “were sort of bred to be competitive.”
“Dad encourages it,” she added. “I remember skiing with him and we were racing. I was ahead, and he reached his ski pole out and pulled me back.”
Donald Trump Jr. looks on as his father, Donald Trump, gives a political speech in 2016.Ethan Miller/Getty
- Don Jr. wishes his father was more “understanding”
Asked in that same interview whether there was anything he would change about his parents, Don Jr. said, “My father could be more understanding of things he doesn’t . . . understand. You know? If I want to go fishing rather than play golf, it’s always like, ‘Why would you go fishing all weekend? I don’t get it! It’s crazy!’ ”
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- Trump once called himself a “really good father, but not a really good husband”
Trump made that self-assessment in the sameNew Yorkmagazine story, adding, “You’ve probably figured out my children really like me — love me — a lot.”
- He had trouble finding time to spend with his kids
He also toldNew York, “The hardest thing for me about raising kids has been finding the time. I know friends who leave their business so they can spend more time with their children, and I say, ‘Gimme a break!’ My children could not love me more if I spent 15 times more time with them.”
- Don Jr. and Eric confessed that Trump wasn’t exactly the best father figure
“Donnie’s always been my friend, a mentor,”Eric said of his older brotherin 2006. “In a way, he raised me. My father, I love and I appreciate, but he always worked 24 hours a day.”
AndDon Jr. told a reporter in 2004, “My father is a very hardworking guy, and that’s his focus in life, so I got a lot of the paternal attention that a boy wants and needs from my grandfather.”
source: people.com
