Vol. 16: Hunter Biden and the myth of 'good' families
What Tolstoy didn’t know about the Roosevelts and the Bushes
“All happy families resemble each other; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
So declared Leo Tolstoy in his famous opening sentence of Anna Karenina (1875). And such generalizations about happy and unhappy families — not to mention rich and poor families, or good and evil families, or functional and dysfunctional families — are immensely appealing for authors and journalists. But did Tolstoy really know what he was talking about?
Far be it from me— a mere former editor of Family Business magazine— to question a celebrated literary icon. But just between us: Do you know any wholly happy or unhappy families, or thoroughly good or bad families?
Granted, some individuals are more consistently capable and reliable than others. And some people are generally happy while others are miserable, regardless of their financial circumstances. Everybody knows this. But families are complex, constantly shifting organisms that defy simplistic labels.
Einstein’s parents
Most of us mistakenly generalize about dynasties like the Kennedys, Fords, and Bushes. We admire the Rockefellers, Adamses, and Roosevelts for their apparently long traditions of public service, the Waltons (of Wal-Mart) and the Pritzkers (of Hyatt Hotels) for their ingenuity, the Sulzbergers (of the New York Times) and the DuPonts for their stewardship, the Rothschilds and the Tatas for their synergy. We shake our heads sadly at seemingly dysfunctional families like the Mondavis, the Guccis, and the Kochs. Some employers hire people on the basis of whether they came from “good” or “bad” families.
But if all family members act alike, how come Albert Einstein’s parents and siblings never amounted to much? How come J.P. Morgan Sr. was a world-beating financial titan and his son J.P. Jr. was an empty suit? How do you explain the fact that virtually every U.S. president has had some sibling or child whom he wanted to hide in a closet?
Dwight D. Eisenhower, for all his moderate internationalist credentials, had an isolationist conservative older brother named Edgar who belonged to the John Birch Society. Theodore Roosevelt and his cousin Franklin rank among America’s greatest presidents; but Teddy’s son Kermit killed himself at age 54 after fighting a lifelong battle with alcohol and depression, and FDR’s three sons were constantly mired in legal and political scandals and divorce courts. Ronald Reagan’s dancer son Ron mortified his conservative parents by drawing unemployment compensation between jobs. No doubt you recall Jimmy Carter’s beer-swilling brother Billy, and Bill Clinton’s equally embarrassing brother Roger (whose Secret Service code name was “Headache”). And, of course, Jeb Bush, the recognized leader of the Bush family’s third generation, had to contend with his smart-aleck brother George W.
(On second thought, scratch that last example: George, not Jeb, became President. But you get the idea.)
The Scaifes and the Bulgers
These musings are prompted by the continuing sad saga of President Biden’s second son Hunter, whose entire life often seems to be one long cry for attention from his more accomplished father and older brother. In the course of a long struggle with drug addiction, Hunter was discharged from the U.S. Navy Reserve shortly after his commissioning due to a failed drug test. His own memoir recalls that for long stretches in 2018 he smoked crack “every 15 minutes.” Beginning in 2014, when his Dad was vice president, Hunter served on the board of Burisma Holdings, one of Ukraine’s largest private natural gas producers, drawing up to $50,000 a month despite his ignorance of the gas business. He’s currently mired in a contentious child support battle with an Arkansas woman who is the mother of one of his daughters. Since late 2018, Hunter’s tax affairs have been under federal criminal investigation, much to the delight of Republicans in Congress who’ve sought to tie Hunter’s mischief to his father.
But the fact is, rogue offspring and siblings like Hunter Biden aren’t the exception, they’re the rule.
William Bulger was a respected lawyer and educator who spent 18 years as president of the Massachusetts Senate and then became president of the University of Massachusetts; his brother James “Whitey” Bugler Jr. committed multiple murders as boss of Boston’s notorious Winter Hill Gang. Richard Mellon Scaife generously supported right-wing political causes; his sister Cordelia Scaife May generously supported liberal political causes. Edwin Booth was considered the greatest Shakespearean actor if the 19th Century; his brother John Wilkes Booth murdered Lincoln. And of course Queen Victoria’s grandchildren— King George V, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and Tsar Nicholas II— produced the ultimate cousin rivalry: World War I.
Predicting the next Bill Gates
But enough with these yummy anecdotal examples. Recent academic studies have reached a similar point: There’s often greater personality and income variation within families than there is between families.
For example, we commonly equate middle-class families with a college education. But according to several studies, if one of your children earns a bachelor’s degree, there’s a 50% chance that another of your kids won’t.
Or consider income disparities. We customarily tend to classify families as rich, affluent, middle-class, or poor. Yet three-quarters of income inequality in the U.S. actually occurs within families, according to Dalton Conley, director of the Center for Advanced Social Science Research at New York University. “If we lined up everyone in America in order of income, from the poorest person to Bill Gates, and tried to predict where any particular individual might fall on that line,” Conley suggests, “knowing that person’s sibling would help us very little.”
The Bidens represent a prime example of Conley’s thesis: As Adam Entous reported in The New Yorker last August, Joe Biden grew up in a blue-collar household, but his father grew up in a 10,000-square-foot mansion with a ballroom.
The answer to who succeeds within families, as Conley puts it, “turns out to be not all that different from explanations of who succeeds across families: the timing of economic shocks to the household, gender norms, even cultural changes taking place in society.”
In other words, if you’re a 50-year-old first-born male, you’re likely to have more in common with an unrelated 50-year-old first-born male than with, say, your 40-year-old kid sister.
Hunter’s many burdens
How can this be? I would explain it this way: No matter how accomplished a family may seem, the siblings instinctively carve out their own niches within the family. Maybe one will be the team leader, another will be the lone genius, another the supportive team player, another the hippie, another the rebel, another the artist, and so on. The more numerous the siblings, the greater will be the variations among them, because each sibling naturally yearns to establish a unique identity.
What’s the lesson here? Don’t become too smug or complacent about your membership in a “successful” family, and don’t get too downhearted if you think your family’s dysfunctional.
Teddy Roosevelt and FDR made good use of their remarkable gene pool, but their children were overwhelmed by the same legacy. Hunter Biden struggled with similar burdens, not to mention the inescapable shadow of his younger sister (who died in an auto crash that Hunter survived) and his older brother Beau (who died of brain cancer at age 46).
So how would Tolstoy classify the Bidens? I wonder.
Interesting - one only has to look at the British Royal Family for a start, going back to Edward who admired Hitler, and the unwise Prince Andrew. I don't include Prince Harry in this.
Line of the week: "And of course Queen Victoria’s grandchildren— King George V, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and Tsar Nicholas II— produced the ultimate cousin rivalry: World War I." Thank you for this column, Dan. It makes me feel better about being the drudge of the family.