Cokie credits the sisters; author of Founding Mothers grew up with strong women

National Catholic Reporter, Feb 4, 2005 by Jeannette Cooperman

"My mother always makes the point--she was educated by Sisters of St. Joseph--that you are always exposed to women who are running everything," she added. "That is such a strong message. I didn't see them having power in the church, but I saw a sort of alternate universe where you could be very seriously Catholic and care deeply about the teachings of Jesus without being particularly concerned with the comings and goings in Rome."

A few years ago, she wrote From This Day Forward with her husband, Steve Roberts. With candor and humor, they deconstructed their own "mixed" (he is Jewish) marriage. "I would never hold myself up as an expert," Roberts told NCR, "but I do agree with Steve, who always jokes that the way you can tell a good marriage is by the number of teeth marks on your tongue. Not dissembling, but not saying the first thing that comes to mind, either, because often that is hurtful."

Roberts quit her six-year gig as co-anchor, with Sam Donaldson, of ABC's "This Week," but she wound up as busy as ever, writing books and lecturing all over the country. "It's a constant balancing act, and at the moment I'm out of balance and I have to fix it again," she said, "because I'm working too hard." The realization hasn't stopped her from volunteering for Save the Children, however. In December 2003, she turned 60, and she wanted, finally, to do the kind of community work that women used to do as a matter of course.

Despite her fascination with the piecework of history, she'd never want to live in any era but this one. "There's never been a better time for women," she remarked. "The more you are able to get away from the drudgery of housework, the terror of childbearing, the repression of the village ... each passing era has made it easier. What's hardest now is internal rather than external. That's not to say that there aren't still many barriers. But one of the biggest problems now is balance."

That's equally true in the public sphere. These days, Roberts worries about the red-blue, liberal-conservative wedges driving the country apart. After World War II until about 10 years ago, she told NCR, there were many more people in the center: "You had a Democratic Party with a strong Southern conservative base and a Republican Party with a strong Northern liberal base. Now there are such homogeneously drawn districts and such safe seats that they never have to talk to each other, much less listen to each other. The political polarization--on the part of office holders more so than voters--is more than usual, and it's wildly exacerbated by the media. ... This is a country where we have no common religion, ethnicity, even language. What binds us is the Constitution and the institutions it's created, which means government and politics. You turn that into something that divides us, that's a little scary."

Asked what someone might highlight 100 years from now to sum up her life, she says she's done nothing remarkable on her own; only broken ground as part of an entire generation of women who made it easier for others to follow. Asked why the Sacred Heart religious are proud of her, she said, "I think they like that I'm commonsensical and give back. That I understand the value of what they have continually offered, and still do offer. And they like the fact that I write well." The low, warm chuckle. "They make you write and write and write from the time you are in diapers."