Notable Virginians describe life in the spotlight

Barack Obama Inauguration 2009 Special Report

Presidential Inauguration Committee

Once again, the White House will become a place to raise children.

Michelle Obama has said her first order of business is getting daughters Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, settled. But if the attention they've received thus far is any clue, these girls will spend their formative years in a very small, heavily guarded fishbowl.

"I would say that first, my parents told me never to do anything you don't want to see on the front page of The New York Times," said Lynda Bird Johnson Robb, former first lady of Virginia and daughter of former President Lyndon B. Johnson, who was in her 20s during her father's term. "That's fairly restrictive."

Life in the White House comes with lots of ceremonial to-dos and dinners (Amy Carter will never live down bringing a book to a state dinner), stomaching criticism and avoiding prying press.

Decades after her time on Pennsylvania Avenue, Robb still easily recalls scrutiny over what she was doing, whom she was dating and how annoyed reporters grew when they learned that her courtship with a young Marine Corps aide at the White House, Charles S. "Chuck" Robb, her future husband, had eluded them.

Then there was the time an article turned up about her losing a fake eyelash in an elevator.

"Now please tell me why that's big news. It's just foolishness," she said.

On the upside, living in the White House presents opportunities are unmatched. But the attention to her personal life grew irritating, she said.

"I wanted my privacy. That has nothing to do with being in the White House. [At that age,] you don't want your own father and mother asking you questions."

Some presidents' children, including Chelsea Clinton and George W. Bush's daughters, fared generally well evading the attention, while others relished toying with it.

Alice Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of Theodore Roosevelt, was famously spirited and a favorite of the press. She would interrupt her father, and when an annoyed guest once suggested that she be disciplined, Roosevelt said: "I can either run the country or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both."

Tad Lincoln loved to watch the Union soldiers protecting the mansion, and he would dress in a uniform sized for him and fire a toy cannon into the door of the Cabinet Room. He once harnessed a pet goat to a kitchen chair and rode through the East Room, much to the dismay of a group of female visitors.

Robb's years in the White House helped her understand her daughters' transition into Virginia's Executive Mansion during her husband's term as governor, from 1982 to 1986. The girls, including oldest daughter Lucinda, attended public schools but tried to stay under the radar.

"Just as Susan Ford had the opportunity to have her high school prom in the White House, Lucinda had her Sweet 16 party in the governor's mansion," Robb said. "Couldn't be a prettier place to have it."

Anne Holton, Virginia's first lady, also knows firsthand what it's like for her children. Holton lived in the mansion from age 12 to 16 when her father, A. Linwood Holton, was governor. She moved back in 2006 after her husband, Timothy M. Kaine, was inaugurated.

Holton tried to soothe Robb's concerns before she moved her family into the mansion, and she recently gave Michelle Obama some advice on family life in the White House: "Have fun."

"Particularly with respect to the kids, that there's an awful lot of burdens to this world, no doubt about that, but hey, there's some fun chances, too. You get to meet amazing people . . . so enjoy it a little bit," Holton said she told Obama.

Holton, her sister and two brothers drew national attention in 1970 when they reported to the predominantly black Richmond schools, and her children also attend city schools.

Kaine's two sons and daughter maintained the same friends, which eased their transition. But they have security, and the Kaine boys learned to drive in the family's pickup truck with Holton riding shotgun and a state trooper following behind.

Former Virginia first lady Susan Allen, who remembers whisking down the mansion stairs from the family's upstairs quarters to greet groups with peanut butter on her skirt, said having young children may be easier than raising teens in an executive mansion.

Her children made their own fun, pitching tents in the guest house and collecting cockroaches that lived in the tunnels, among other things. And they still had chores — they made their beds, though maids would come after them and straighten, and cleaned toilets.

"I just felt it was really important that they not forget that when we left that wonderful, magical place of living in the governor's mansion, life would be back to normal," said Allen, who raised a son and a daughter in the mansion.

Annella Kaine, the youngest of the Kaine children, was the same age as Malia when Kaine moved into the governor's mansion. Holton agreed that children that age lead lives that are slightly more containable.

Allowing teenagers the independence they seek to test limits and experience rites of passage can be trickier, and the burdens at the state level are dwarfed by those at the federal.

"I can say that looking back on it, I loved my days there," Robb said. "You surrender certain opportunities, but by the same token you have so many wonderful opportunities, at least I found."

"We really had a lot of good family time together in the White House days."