by Ivana Trump
* * *
IVANKA
My parents went out nearly every night. After we had dinner and I had a bath, I’d get in my pajamas and would spend forty-five minutes with Mom in her large beautiful bathroom as she got ready. Her bathroom was on the sixty-seventh floor of Trump Tower and had a wall of windows with incredible views overlooking the city skyline. I’d sit on the edge of the tub and watch her get dressed and do her makeup.
Nowadays, going out in New York can be casual. But back then, in the eighties, things were more formal, either cocktail or black-tie. She’d go into her huge closet and pick out what she was going to wear, and then I’d help her zip up the back of her dress. We’d sit side by side at the mirror while she did her makeup. I’d put on her red lipstick while she did her blue eye shadow. Sometimes, I’d have to take a second bath because I looked like a clown with all her makeup on my face. No matter where she was going or how much of a hurry she was in, she always tucked me in on her way out the door.
* * *
AN ACTUAL SNAPSHOT OF THEIR LIVES
When Don was eight, Ivanka four, and Eric two, I met a woman named Jill Krementz at a party, who said to me, “I’m a freelance photographer, and I’d like to take a photo of your kids.” We’d done formal photo shoots with the whole family, including a famous portrait of the five of us posing on the white spiral staircase in the triplex, all of us dressed in red and black. But I liked Jill’s idea of doing a series of casual, candid shots of the kids at play, like a wildlife photographer catching animals and birds in their natural habitat.
So one afternoon, the kids wore their T-shirts and jeans and trooped off to Central Park with the nannies after school as usual. Jill came to the playground and just started shooting them from behind a tree, as inconspicuously as possible. The kids didn’t even know she was there for most of it.
I showed up at one point and observed the whole scene. The nannies were watching the kids. The security men were watching the kids. The photographer was shooting the kids. I was watching the nannies, the bodyguards, the photographer, and the kids. The children themselves were rolling in the grass, chasing each other, and having the time of their lives.
Just like I had been throughout my childhood, my kids were being watched, but their watchers had only the best of intentions. It was a grateful moment for me. I’d managed to give my children the same discipline and structure that my parents gave me, minus the anxiety and fear. When Jill asked me to pose for a few pictures with the kids, I was all smiles.
-8-
MINOR CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
Don got in trouble with me more often than the other kids, probably because he was the oldest. Ivanka and Eric would see me punish him, and they learned not to make his mistakes. One time, we were having a dinner with the Trump clan at Gurney’s, a famous resort and spa in Montauk. It was a special occasion, a celebration, and we were dressed up. Don wore a suit and looked very handsome. Ivanka was in one of her cute white dresses. Eric was just a baby but also in a tiny suit with a little tie.
You’ll never guess what the Trumps ordered for their entrées.
Anyway, the dinner was going on . . . and on. I sympathized with the kids, having to sit still for so long. I felt the same way, but when you’re out to dinner with the family, especially the Trumps, who expected children not to distract from the adult conversation, you behave.
Nowadays, nothing annoys me more than little kids screaming and running around when I’m trying to have a quiet meal with good food, wine, and conversation. The parents just smile, shrug, and say, “Kids will be kids.” At McDonald’s, kids can be kids. But not at upscale restaurants! Parents shouldn’t bring kids to nice restaurants in the first place, but if they do and can’t get them under control, they should leave.
At the Gurney’s dinner, Don started to act silly. He was making faces and playing with the butter, clanging his forks and spoons together, giggling. Everyone, including my father-in-law, looked at him disapprovingly.
I said, “Don, let’s go to the bathroom.”
I took him to an empty hallway and said, “If you don’t stop acting up, you’re going to get spanked!” I swatted him a few times on his behind just so he knew I was serious, and we went back to the table. He sat in his chair and didn’t dare cry in front of the whole family. It was obvious he’d just been punished. I could tell he was struggling to keep his chin under control. But he did, and he behaved for the rest of the night, and for every long dinner to come.
* * *
ERIC
Mom was not afraid to spank. If one of us messed up, he or she was punished, so we learned to behave. None of us have attitudes or egos. If we showed any hint of that or talked back, we’d be on the receiving end of her anger and disappointment.
She kept us in line, and she also gave us a lot of latitude. We went to R-rated movies, boxing matches, and concerts, as the only kids in the room. She wasn’t a soccer-mom type with an ever-ready bottle of Purell who chases down her kid because he touched a worm.
* * *
New Yorkers talk about traffic like war stories. At coffee or dinner with friends, they say, “Oh my God! The traffic back to Manhattan from the Hamptons on Sunday was a nightmare!” and everyone leans in to hear about it because they know they’ll get their turn to tell their own bumper-to-bumper horror story. The only antidote to traffic hell is bitching about it.
It goes without saying that traffic on the way home from your weekend house is a good problem to have. But it was still a huge pain in the ass. The Long Island “Distressway” on Sunday was like a parking lot. If you left at three p.m. after a barbecue lunch, you got slammed at Exit 56 by Jones Beach. If you left at six p.m., you got crushed right out of the gate. If you left at eight p.m., you stopped dead as soon as you crossed the bridge into Manhattan. If you left at eleven p.m., you wouldn’t get home until one a.m., which ruined the next day. But if you got up early and left on Monday at five a.m., you got stuck between fish and vegetable trucks the whole ride into the city.
We were fortunate to have a problem like this, but Donald and I hated it anyway. Sunday traffic wiped out the good feeling of a fun weekend. We talked about taking the helicopter to and from, but that was over-the-top, even for us. It says a lot about just how awful the traffic was that we decided to sell the cottage and buy a new weekend/summer house in Greenwich, Connecticut, only thirty-odd miles from Manhattan. It’d be a much shorter commute, about forty-five minutes from door to door.
I hired a real estate broker and we flew around the area in the helicopter so she could point out the estates that were available and tell me a bit about them. (I know how crazy that sounds. At times, I’d stop and think, I have a helicopter, and feel amazed at life’s twists and turns. I never took anything for granted, especially not our homes.) I’d get an aerial view and decide which ones to visit. I picked a mansion that was close to the Boat & Yacht Club and Manero’s Restaurant, with seventeen bedrooms, a dining room with a table that sat twenty, a living room as spacious as a barn, a solarium, a breakfast room, three large kitchens, a playroom for the kids, a ten-car garage, and a bowling alley in the basement.
* * *
IVANKA
Manero’s was a steak house in Greenwich, Connecticut, where we had a lot of family meals. We’d all order the same thing: steak and a big Caesar salad to share. I’d order a giant baked potato with massive amounts of sour cream, an unhealthy, ridiculous amount, like a whole pint just for me. That was my go-to order. It was a loud, busy place with waiters who sang “Happy Birthday,” very family friendly at a time when most restaurants didn’t do that. They were so into the bring-the-kids attitude that they had a sign on the wall that said, “If you deliver a baby at Manero’s, your whole family eats for free for the rest of your life!” or something like that. I would beg Mom to have another baby just so I could order those baked potatoes forever.
* * *
I decorated the entire house, choosing every carpet, strip of wallpape
r, piece of art, stick of furniture, and light fixture. Although the inside was gorgeous, the best thing about the property was its water borders on three sides—on one side, the Long Island Sound, and on the other two, a large pond. We also had an expansive deck overlooking the sound, and a dock for the speedboat. The boys spent more time on or around the water—boating, fishing with my father, swimming—than in the house itself.
On Friday afternoons, the nannies, kids, dog, and parakeet would pile into the back of the limo, and I’d get behind the wheel to drive to Greenwich. I felt like a bus driver. Driving a limo isn’t that hard. It’s just longer, so you have to make wider turns on Park Avenue. Other drivers on the highway would always take a peek as the limo went past. It’s only natural. When they noticed that Ivana Trump was driving, the other drivers did a hilarious double take. I’m surprised I didn’t cause any car accidents. Sunday traffic hell back to the city? It was completely avoided. Donald would take the sports car back early Monday morning before the highway got congested. If the kids had school, the nannies would ride in the limo with a driver. I’d take the seaplane right from our dock to Atlantic City to the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino and later to Trump Castle, where I was working at the time.
One weekend, I was stuck in Atlantic City until Saturday morning and flew in by seaplane alone. I always loved the final stretch of the ride to the house. The property would come into view slowly, and I could look directly into the glass-walled breakfast room to get a perfect view of my favorite chandeliers, a pair of identical Meissen porcelain beauties.
That day, through the seaplane windows, I noticed that the kids were in there. They had their own breakfast room that was infinitely more kid friendly, and the rule was that they weren’t supposed to go in the glass-walled room at all, let alone play there. As soon as I reached the dock, I jumped out and ran up to the French doors, and saw what was really going on. All three of them were scurrying around, picking up pieces of something on the table and the floor.
I looked up. One of the chandeliers had been shattered.
I must have screamed. The kids stopped moving and just stared at me, like deer in headlights.
“What happened?” I asked.
Eight-year-old Don explained that they were playing with a tennis ball, and it bounced off the table and hit the chandelier, breaking one of the china arms, which crashed down and broke into a thousand pieces.
“Who did it?” I was furious.
Ivanka, four, said, “Donny!”
I grabbed him and spanked the hell out of him. The whole time, he was saying, “It wasn’t me!”
I eventually found out the truth from Dorothy. Don was innocent. The real culprit was . . . Ivanka! She always wanted to play with the boys and prove she was as strong as they were, so she threw the tennis ball too hard. Even while her brother took the punishment for her crime, she didn’t admit her guilt, and Don didn’t tell on his sister.
I felt bad I’d spanked the wrong kid, but what could I do about it then? Spank Ivanka? My anger was gone already. Apologize to Don? Then he wouldn’t be the hero for his sister anymore. I let it go. Secretly, I was proud of him, and gave him extra love and ice cream for the rest of the weekend. For Ivanka’s part, her own guilt was punishment enough. She never blamed her brothers for something she did again (that I know of . . .).
• • •
The children were very well behaved. I wasn’t worried at all that they’d rebel when they hit adolescence because I kept them on a short leash as teenagers, too.
Ivanka likes to tell the story about the time she and some of her high school friends went to get their belly buttons pierced, and she had to decide on the spot whether to do it or not. She has said that, at the critical moment, she thought of how her father and I would react and didn’t do it. Good choice! If she’d come home with a nose or belly button piercing, a tattoo, or a shaved head, I would have killed her.
* * *
IVANKA
During my punk phase in the nineties, I was really into Nirvana. My wardrobe consisted of ripped corduroy jeans and flannel shirts. One day after school, I dyed my hair blue. Mom wasn’t a fan of this decision. She took one look at me and immediately went out to the nearest drugstore to buy a $10 box of Nice’n Easy. That night, she forced me to dye my hair back to blond. The color she picked out was actually three shades lighter than my natural color . . . and I have never looked back!
It wasn’t too long after this that Kurt Cobain, the singer, songwriter, and guitarist for Nirvana, committed suicide. It was a shock and I was distraught. Mom had no idea who Kurt Cobain was, and she sympathized only so much. After twenty-four hours of my crying inconsolably in my room, alone—major melodrama—Mom had to pull me out of there to go down to dinner.
* * *
When they were fifteen or so, the kids started to go out with friends at night. I gave them an early curfew of ten p.m. Ivanka made a case for pushing it to midnight, saying all her friends got to stay out late and that being the first to leave was hurting her social life.
That didn’t move me one inch. The real trouble with teenagers started after ten o’clock and I made sure my kids were home safe by then. And if they stayed out past curfew, they knew what it meant: grounded for life!
Over my dead body would Ivanka be like many of my friends’ kids, going to discos and staying out until four a.m. Those girls, and many of their one-tenth-of-the-one-percent contemporaries, had stacks of hundreds in their wallets and loose or no curfews. Of course they went to clubs, bought bottles of Cristal and Grey Goose, and took car services home at dawn. My kids didn’t have any money to blow on clubs, drugs, or car services. If you give kids money and cut them slack about bending the rules, it ruins them. I saw this in countless rich families around us in New York. Parents were lax about discipline, and the kids took advantage of it. Friends of mine would call me and complain that their child threw a party when they were away for the weekend and trashed the place. If I even so much as suspected my kids were sneaking around behind my back, breaking the rules, or lying to me, I would have been furious. They wouldn’t have dared. Following my rules was so internalized by then, it was automatic. A loud voice inside their brains yelled, “Do what Mom says, or else!” They knew I’d be waiting by the door at ten p.m. or that my spies—the nannies and security guards—would report back to me exactly when the kids got home. An early curfew for all three meant that they’d be home at ten p.m. together. While their friends were partying and doing drugs, mine were forming sibling bonds that are just as strong today as they were twenty-five years ago.
* * *
IVANKA
I know my mother thinks I never broke the rules or did anything she wouldn’t approve of, but there were many times during my teenage years when I pushed the envelope and would test the boundaries. My parents were strict, but there was still room to rebel like any other teenager.
* * *
I am shocked! I want to know exactly what she . . . actually, I don’t. She slipped some things by me? Fine. But whatever she did, it wasn’t so bad that she was arrested, or that we had to bail her out of jail, or that something awful was posted on the Internet that can’t be unseen. They steered away from risky behavior that would damage them or embarrass their parents. If anyone in our family showed up in the gossip columns for going to a wild party, it would be me.
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THE COMPETITIVE EDGE
Sports were a huge part of my childhood. As a teenager, skiing took me around the world and showed me a different way of life than I could have imagined otherwise. It also taught me how to face my fears, push myself to victory, and be humble in defeat—all lessons the kids needed to learn.
As soon as they could stand, I put them on skis. Ivanka and Don loved it from day one. They had no fear because they were only three feet tall. If they fell, it wasn’t far to the ground. Eric hated skiing at first. I remember one time, in the middle of summer when he was three, he said, totally out of the blue at break
fast, “I don’t want to go to Aspen. I don’t want to ski.”
I said, “You will go to Aspen, and you will ski.”
Discussion over.
My instincts told me that Eric would love it once he got better at it, and the only way to improve was to do it, so I made him persevere. I didn’t expect any of the kids to devote themselves to skiing the way I did or to practice eight hours a day. To them, it was a fun activity for us to do together. I saw it as much more than that.
In life and sports, you have to learn how to play, and win, by doing. The best lesson I could ever teach my kids was that you have to set a goal for yourself and work as hard as you can to achieve it. I never made it to the Olympics, but I got damn close. I’m proud of my record as an athlete. Playing sports gives you the desire to be the best. If you develop a competitive drive early in life, it’ll stay with you for forever.
* * *
ERIC
We spent practically every Christmas skiing out in Colorado. Obviously, my mom was an amazing skier. She put me on skis when I could barely walk and dropped me at a ski school called Powder Pandas. I wanted nothing to do with it at the time. It was cold. I was miserable. I didn’t get it, and I didn’t like being separated from the adults. She would promise to buy me an apple pie at McDonald’s afterward if I got through the whole day. I loved those, so I hung in there.