A lot of people say that Eleanor Roosevelt wasn't a good mother. And there are two pieces to that story. One is, when they were very young, she was not a good mother. She was an unhappy mother. She was an unhappy wife. She had never known what it was to be a good mother. She didn't have a good mother of her own. And so there's a kind of parenting that doesn't happen.

And she [Eleanor Roosevelt]loves being a star. And she loves being a teacher and a leader and a mentor and a big friend. Also, she's tall. She's one of the tallest girls in the school. And she's an athlete. And she writes many years later, at the end of her life, she writes that the happiest day, the happiest single day of her life was the day that she made the first team at field hockey. And I have to say, as a biographer, that's the most important fact. I

And during the campaign of 1936, she writes that she and her brother would always rather be out doing things when they're sick, rather than take to their beds. And I think Eleanor Roosevelt always responded to pain by doing more, by doing something, by being active. And I think she just couldn't bear to look at her childhood grief. And she didn't.

She [Eleanor Roosevelt]wants a life of her own. Her grandmother could have been a painter. Her grandmother could have done so much more than she did with her life. And Eleanor Roosevelt decides she is going to do everything possible with her life. She's going to live a full life.

And you can really see in all of these issues that are priorities for Eleanor Roosevelt, where the compromises are painful, the compromises are hard, and the difficulties between them really begin to loom very large by 1936, by 1938.

She really is a completely different First Lady. Eleanor Roosevelt was not going to suffer and withdraw in the White House. And I think he's a very different President. He does not want his wife to suffer and withdraw in the White House. And they really are partners. They're partners in a big house where there are two separate courts, and they both know they have two separate courts. But these are courts that are allied in purpose, united in vision.

It's right around this time that her Grandmother Hall dies. And Eleanor Roosevelt is responsible for making all the funeral arrangements. And there are a couple of things that she really understands, as she contemplates her grandmother's life and makes the funeral arrangements. One, she's really talented, an organizational woman. She knows how to do things. She begins to compare her life to her grandmother's life. And it's very clear to her that being a devoted wife and a devoted mother is not enough.