California's First Lady | Maria Shriver | Talks at Google

So I'm very excited to welcome Maria Shriver to Women at Google. This was when we started the series. She was my first official invite. And so it took us a while, but she nicely made room for us on her schedule. So Maria was born in Chicago. She is the only daughter of Sergeant Shriver and Eunice Kennedy, who was the sister of our president, John F. Kennedy and his brother, Robert Kennedy. So, so obviously from a political family. She's obviously currently in a political position in the current state of California. And she's also the mother of four children. Maria started her career as a journalist, worked at both CBS and NBC where she anchored the weekend edition of the news, and then took a leave of absence in 2003 when her husband became the governor of the state of California. She's also authored five best selling books and I'm going to read the titles. What's heaven? 10 things I wish I'd Known Before I Went out into the Real World. What's Wrong with Timmy? What's Happening to Grandpa? And one more thing before you go. I think Maria, who I've had the pleasure of knowing for years, is one of the best examples we have of a woman who has accomplished so much across so many areas of life as a wife, as a mother, as a philanthropist, as a woman with her own career. And we are thrilled to have her here. So please join me in welcoming Maria.

I have two little corrections to make. Please.

I got it wrong already.

My uncle is Senator Ted Kennedy, who's an actual ongoing senator and a very good one at that. And you mentioned that I took a leave when my husband was elected governor. I was fired. The bio said took a leave.

But we'll have an opportunity to explore that.

Yeah. Anyway, those I just, I always, it's nice to mention the truth.

So we're going to do this the way we always do. We're going to have a conversation. I'll start out by asking Maria questions about her life and her experiences. And then we're going to open it up to the audience here for questions and answers. So we're going to start up with a pretty special family, a real history of service to politics. Obviously your uncles and your current uncle, but also your family. Your father, Maria's father started the Peace Corps, Head Start, Job Corps and Legal Services. Your mother started the Special Olympics. How did this affect you growing up with this kind of public service commitment?

Well, I think, you know, it's when you grow up in a family like that, it's the only thing, you know, I mean, I knew that having 100 disabled people in the backyard, mixing with people who were in the cabinet and the governor was, you know, government wasn't, quote, normal, but it was my reality. And both of my parents were advocates for people who were poor, who were disabled. They believed in service, and they lived it and breathed it and talked about it nonstop. And so it was expected growing up like that, that you would also be of service. All four of my brothers run nonprofits today. I was always raised with the belief that you have to do something, that it was your obligation. And I think when you grow up in a family like that, the challenge is to find your own self. When the, quote, family is what's put out in front and you have to kind of serve the family. Serve the motto of the family, the family, the family. And it's a struggle sometimes to figure out what's your place in it and are you entitled to a life separate quote from the family? So I feel, you know, I have four brothers. I have a kind of an extended set of cousins that I was really raised with, more like brothers and sisters. But I feel very blessed that I was raised by two parents who challenged me and continue to do so. But it wasn't a place that you sat back and, like, relaxed, you know, wasn't, you know, a chilled out family. It was not that.

So with this family as background, how did you get interested in broadcast journalism?

Well, I was trying to find my way out, actually, in truth. And I. When my dad was running for Vice President in 1972 with George McGovern, I traveled with him on the campaign. And I found myself more comfortable in the back of the bus, in the back of the plane with the journalists who were rowdy and funny and competitive and a little off a lot of the time. And they seemed to be having more fun in the back of the plane than in the front of the plane. And so I just started hanging with those people. And I thought that journalists had a huge impact on the way people saw politics and the way they felt about politics. And I thought, you know, I don't want to go into politics. I want to have something to do with it. So this was my way of finding my own niche in a family that could be overpowering. And it was a way to do something that was different, and yet it was a way to still affect the way people felt, whether it was about politics or many of the issues that I was interested in.

So you spent 25 years as a journalist. Maybe you'd like to share with us what were the highs? What were the lows? What did you learn from the experience?

Well, you know, journalism when I started was very, was very different than it is today. And I remember when I first I started in local television and I started listening to the police radio and being an intern and logging people's tapes. And then I was a sound woman, and then I was a producer and a writer. And then I worked my way up to actually going on the air. And it was a great, I think, is a great profession. You have huge ability to impact people's lives. You have huge ability to teach people and bring them, communicate to people, bring them information about issues that they might not have known about. I see less of that going on in journalism today than when I started. But it was a great place to come out of college and work in that environment. It was seven days a week. It was competitive. You got to travel all over the world, work with really fun, smart people, do something different every day. It was creative. I liked to write. So it was a good place for somebody like me who was worried that I couldn't find it. You know, I didn't want a job where I sat at a desk and Google wasn't even in existence or any of that kind of thing. So it was a place that I thought, well, you know, I can, I get this. I like to write, I like to meet people, I like to travel. I like things that are fast paced. I like the idea of you have an idea and you can get it on the air immediately. So journalism for me was a good fit.

And so you said, and you corrected my intro, that you didn't take a leave but you were fired.

Yeah, well, I was asked to take, I was asked to leave. And I, you know, when my husband decided to run for governor, it was kind of a shock to me. It actually was a shock. And so when he announced, then I was hopefully. That wasn't a shock when he announced. Well, the whole thing was a shock, but you're not getting that for free. That's a big book. But I'm still working that through.

We'll invite her back for authors at Google, right? That's right.

That's a book signing. But so when, you know, after the day after he announced, they called me and said, you know, you have to take a leave immediately and you know, you can't be in a campaign and be working at NBC News. So I understood that and I said, okay, well, you know, when this is over, right after the election, I'll come back. And they're like, okay, you'll come back. So, so then he won. And then I was like, huh? You know, and that was a surprise.

We got that for free.

Yeah, I got that for free. And then I thought, okay, now I'll go back. So I called and I said, you know, I'm ready. I'm coming back the day after. And they're like, well, just wait. Wait till, you know, the inauguration. Just wait. And I said, okay, well, like the day after the inauguration, I'll come back. And they're like, okay. And I called the day after the inauguration. I said, I'm ready to come back. And they were like, well, you know, we have to think about it. You know, they haven't seen this before and, you know, it might be a problem. And so then a kind of a series of conversations went on. You know, what was, quote, ethical, what was right, would I be talking to people in politics? You know, you're not supposed to be involved in the news. And so this went back and forth and they just felt it was much more comfortable for them that I not work there anymore as long as he was governor.

So do you have plans to return after that?

No, actually, I went back to them this year, actually at the end of the year. And I said, okay, now this is ridiculous. I should be able to come back. I've never had a conflict before and I've always been in a, quote, political family. And I've covered Republican conventions and Democratic conventions and they were actually a new administration at NBC News. And they worked with me actually this year to find a way for me to come back. And I actually thought I would go back after Arnold was reinaugurated in January. And then the more I thought about it and I was watching the news and watching how it had changed, I decided that it wasn't for me. And so I actually quit and just said, you know what, this ship has sailed. And it's not for me at this part in this time in my life and to try to find something else to do. I think it's a challenge. I want to work. And so I've done a couple of Larry Kings, I'm going to do a couple of hours for Oprah. So I'm trying to kind of go back to work and I think and try to balance that with I have three teenagers and then a nine year old and, and balance it with the other things that are in my life. So I think, you know, once you leave a career and you, if you've worked in a career for a long time, as I'm sure many people here know you have a certain amount of built up goodwill in that career you can do a lot of. And then if you try to start over, it's much harder, particularly if you're 50, to start over and figure out, you know, how to reinvent yourself, how to forge a new trail, how to start a kind of uncharted course. There's no job description for unemployed journalists. First lady, Democrat. All of my stuff is like kind of, you know, there's no roadmap. You know, Democratic first lady, married Republican governor, four kids. You know, it's always a little bit confusing. So I try to kind to make it up as I go along.

So your other career, which also didn't have a roadmap, was one as a writer. Why did you decide to write? I know you've written one adult book and several children's books.

Well, I've actually written two adults books. I started writing. My first book was a book called what's Heaven? Which is a children's book about the issue of death. And I wrote it only because I tried to do it as an hour for NBC News and the then president of NBC News, who was not the president of NBC News, who told me to leave, but the other one before that, the heads of news divisions change rapidly. But he told me that I couldn't do an hour on the issue of death because it was a downer and nobody would watch it, et cetera. And I kept trying to rewrite the, you know, how I thought it was an important hour to do. And he said no. So I said, oh, well, you know, blankety blank, you I'll go and write it as a book. And that's the only reason I became a writer of books, because he told me, you know, I couldn't do it as an hour. And then when I wrote what's Heaven, they said to me, well, you know, children's book. And so, you know, you'll be lucky if it sells like 15,000 copies because nobody buys children's books. And so I said, Really? 15,000? That's so little. And they were like, well, that's what children's books sell. And it came out in 1999 and it's gone on to sell over a million copies. And I think that what I discovered, and I think rarely a day goes by where someone doesn't come up to me about that book and adults bought it as much as children because death is one of those issues that so many of us don't talk about. And certainly I grew up in My family, when there were kind of very public assassinations, and nobody spoke about it because I think people have a difficult time talking about the subject. And I think I was working out a lot of things that I wished had been said to me when I was young. And I found that the book was very helpful for me. And it stemmed from a conversation that my daughter had with me when my grandmother died. She started asking me questions about death and what was happening to my grandmother. So I started writing down her questions and her answers, and it's pretty much 90% of what she asked me and what she said. She answered her own questions. But what I realized was that she was looking for a forum in which to talk and in which to kind of work out her own feelings and answer her questions in a safe environment. And so I thought that I could do more of those on subjects that were also difficult for people to talk about. So I did one on the issue of disability, which is called what's Wrong with Timmy? And then I did one on what's happening to Grandpa on the issue of Alzheimer's. My father has Alzheimer's. And I think that was also very much a personal journey for me to kind of answer the questions for myself about what was happening to a man who was so brilliant and knew the answer to every question. And to watch somebody that you love kind of fade and their mind fade in front of you with no kind of roadmap or explanation. I thought, you know, millions of people are dealing with this, and there was no book there to explain to children and or grandchildren of people who were, you know, dealing with those issues. So I wrote those children's books about that. And then I wrote a book about kind of going into journalism and called 10 Things I Wish I'd Known Before I Went out into the real World, which were things about thinking that, like, oh, my God, if you get fired, the world's over, or, oh, my God. All these things that I thought that I knew turned out to be, I didn't know at all. So I wrote about that, and I wrote about trying to combine work with motherhood, and I wrote about failure and about passion and about who you work for being more important than what you actually do. So I wrote a book about that, and then I wrote a book about graduating from high school as another passage of time. What was your question?

It was a great answer.

My question was, how did I become a writer? Because somebody told me no. That's the short answer. I think it was a great answer.

So now you're no Longer a journalist, as you said, potentially an ongoing writer. But you're doing a lot of philanthropic work, which obviously runs deeply in your family poverty.

Not really philanthropic, because I don't. I'm not giving out money. I do service work, which is different. You know, somebody asked me to serve on a panel the other day with, as a philanthropist. I said, you know, I'm not. I mean, I give, you know, I write checks for different organizations that I support, but I'm not a. They said, you know, you, Ted Turner. I'm like, he's giving out a billion dollars, you know, for my local whatever. But I, you know, I do do service. And as I said, I was raised on service. So it's always been just a natural part of my life. And so whether, and I think, you know, the backbone of service so often is women. And so I'm the kind of chairwoman of the California Volunteers, which is the goal is trying to get Californians to volunteer in whatever organization they feel that they want to, you know, get involved in. So we've developed a website where you can go on and put your, you know, your zip code and it'll give you a simple way to volunteer in your community, depending on what you want to do. If you play the piano, you can go play the piano in a home for Alzheimer's patients. If you like to mentor a child, you can do that if you have one hour. Here's a great way to volunteer with your kids. Here's a beach that you can clean up. There's all sorts of different ways that you can get that you can give back. So I do a lot of that. You know, I work for the Special Olympics. I'm on the board. I, you know, I'm on the board of Best Buddies, which is my other. I do all this stuff for my brothers because they all run non profits. So I'm constantly. My other brother runs a thing called Best Buddies, which pairs kids in high school and colleges with people with intellectual disabilities and gets organizations to hire people with intellectual disabilities. I work on the Special Olympics. My other brother, Mark, runs Save the Children, which deals with issues of child poverty here and after school care here in this country. And my other brother Bobby, who's a friend of yours, runs Red, the organization with Bono, which tries to encourage people to buy products with the goal of raising money for the Global Fund to Cure, Help Cure AIDS and get medicine to particularly women in Africa who are suffering from aids. So I do a lot of that and I do, you know, the California volunteer stuff and other things in my role as first lady.

So one of the things I think people here talk about and think about is there are so many great organizations that you can do. Both of us, philanthropist and in service, and so many opportunities, I think, to do things here at work and other things. What advice do you have for people on how to. How do you pick your focus areas?

I think your passion, what are you interested in? And I think because there are so many organizations, it's really important to find something that fits your heart. I'm a big believer in finding what it is that feels true to you, that might fit with some experience that you had where you feel that you can be helpful and to really concentrate on that. So if you don't feel something for an organization just because your friends are involved with it, if it doesn't feel like a fit to you, then you shouldn't do it. And there are so many things out there that can fit you, and I think that's a pretty good barometer for life. Find out what's true to you, what feels real to you and which gives you a connection, and not worry about what the other person next to you is doing.

So one of the, when we asked in advance for some questions, we got a lot of questions for you about work life balance. And as we were sitting down before, I asked, I'm going to ask you about work life balance. And Maria had a great answer. She said, oh, there's no such thing. So can you. That's a ridiculous question. So maybe you can elaborate on your views on that for now.

I, you know, spent, as I say, I have four children. And when my, you know, when I was having my first child, I was anchoring two shows at NBC and I asked another president of NBC to move my anchoring job, the weekend anchoring job to Los Angeles because I said it didn't matter where you sat at the desk, you know, as long as you did the news. And it was correct. It shouldn't matter if you're in New York or la. And so he explained to me that Los Angeles wasn't serious and therefore you couldn't do the news out of California. This was 17 years ago. And so I, you know, quit both of my anchor jobs because one also involved me commuting every week to Washington. And I struggled all the time when I was having my kids. Where's the balance? Where's the balance? And I listened to Sandra Day o', Connor, who came to the women's conference that I do two years ago, and she said, you know, when your children are little, there is no such thing as balance. And you keep trying to think. I think it's a disservice to other women to say, I got it under control, because you don't. And I've never met, you know, I've met women who will sit out and say like this, oh, I got it under control. And then they'll whisper like, so don't have it under control. I haven't, you know, I don't think that it exists. I think you end up feeling bad all the time, guilt ridden all the time, wondering all the time, what am I doing right? I'm not spending enough time here. I'm not, you know, I had a lot of angst when my kids were really little and it's a different kind of angst now that they're teenagers. But I think it's, I think it's a, you know, really, I think the more we're honest with each other about it's, you know, balance. Balance implies that you have, you know, that it's equal and that you're living kind of in harmony. And I've never met in the quiet of a room a woman who's doing that really. And I think that so to say, oh, yes, balance is possible if you get it one day, great. But to think you're going to have it instead of feel it and feel good about all of that, I think it's great if you can do it. But I think it's wrong to say that it's possible. If only you had a great caretaker, if only you had a company like Google that make daycare possible for you, or if you had this maternity leave and it was this long, then you'd have balance. I think balance is really kind of in your heart and your soul and your being. And it's really hard to do it if you're having kids and trying to work and trying to be of service and trying to take care of aging parents and trying to be a good citizen and trying to be a woman and trying to figure out what all that means and who are you? You know, it's a lot and I think most people I know struggle through it.

And how has that struggle changed for you? You already mentioned here and before we were speaking about the difference when children are young and children are older and.

Some of the people having aging parents, maternity leave. And I said they should actually give maternity leave when your kids are teenagers.

Right. Because that's when you really need it.

Well, I think it's really. I have to Say, you know, it's challenging, you know, and it's a different kind of challenge. You know, I find when your kids are young, it's a physical challenge a lot of the time, but this, when your kids are teenagers, it's emotionally challenging, it's intellectually challenging. And if you're not there, someone else is going to fill that bucket. And so I think if your kids know you're there and know you're into it and you're trying, that's a big thing and that's really hard. If you're trying to, you know, start a career or be on top of a career, or do really well at a career and be at home at dinner and check out who they're talking to on the Internet and what are they doing on the Internet, who are they talking to and who are they going out with and what do they actually feel like. My 13 year old son won't really talk to me unless the lights are out and he's in bed and no one sees him talking to me. So I have to be home. So if I want to get anything with him, I have to make sure the lights are off and I'm talking to him in the bed. He's going to kill me if this ever goes out. So I think all of that is kind of what they're feeling. I think that's, you know, when I wrote my books, that was really what I'm trying to do is elicit conversation between parents and kids because there's so little time for that and it's so powerful to be able to talk to your parent, find out what they think, what your child thinks, you know, what's going on in their emotional life, I think is the greatest challenge for a parent today. To really know who they are, what they're thinking, what they're feeling and to be able to nurture that and help them on that road. You got to have time. And even though we're all, you know, with the, you know, all this, these technological gadgets makes supposedly, you know, helping us with our time and helping us stay connected, I find we're more disconnected as human beings than ever before and we have less time almost than ever before with all of these kind of things that are supposed to make your life simpler. I can't turn on the TV in my house, I can't barely figure out the phone any. Everything that's so fancy takes me away from the really kind of basic things that I think you need in your life and you need time. And so that's what we were talking about, you know, I thought that they should give maternity leave, but you said that's. I shouldn't.

We'll work on it.

Yeah, you're going to work on that.

So I want to ask the last question and then open it up so the audience has a chance to be part of these conversations with you, which is, what advice do you have for people who tend to be younger, starting out their careers or later in their careers? For women, for men? What advice do you have for us?

Well, I would, I don't think I'm in the position to give advice because I don't, I don't. You know, somebody said to me, you should do a show on motherhood. I said, my kids could turn out to be total wackos. You know, I, you know, you're in the. I have no clue, you know, and I couldn't begin to kind of tell you, oh, do this, do that, don't do this, don't do that. You know, I can only say what I say to my 17 year old, which is, take your time before you get married, Married somebody that you like to laugh with and, you know, find your own sense of self and spend the time to do that. I think my generation of women were so busy, were daughters of the kind of women's revolution, and we came out of the gate, out of college thinking, you know, you have to be kind of a version of a man, that if we could succeed at everything, we'd be happy. That would be it. That would be the brass ring. You know, you'd be partner at a law firm, run a company, have 20 people working for you, 100 people, thousand. Then you'd really be happy. And I think, I think you'll. If you really honestly talk to a lot of women who are in their 50s, they would say to you it wasn't what it was cracked up to be. And I think that's the honest truth, that there's a lot more to life than trying to be a feminine version of a man, trying to do a job like a man, and trying to go out there and think that happiness lies in financial success or material success or having it all. And I think everybody's path is different. I think everybody's path needs to be honored. And I think one thing that women can do is honor other women's choices better than perhaps we have in the past. I often found that when I was having children and trying to balance, often found men more supportive of me trying to balance than other women. And so I've, in My own life tried to be very supportive of other women and not judge, you know, not judge someone to be a good mother or a bad mother. Not judge someone in how they choose to live their life. Not choose someone, judge people. And I think that's a really great thing for all of us, whether we're men, women, people in general, not to judge people by the labels that society puts on them. So that's the only advice I would have is to try to lose the labels. Slow down. I myself have found that I actually, the slower I operate my life, the better. And that's after a lifetime of operating my life at a. A thousand miles an hour.

So questions, we're remoting to other offices, so try to use the mic or scream loudly.

This is shy. Oh, good.

No, it will not be a shy group.

It's not a shy group.

It's not a shy group. It's never a shy group.

Okay. Never shy group. Okay. I can't hear.

Unclear. It's on.

It's on. Okay, thanks for being here today. I have two questions for you actually. The first is you mentioned that news reporting is different today than when you were doing it. So I'd like to know how. And the second question is, as Cheryl said, you have done a variety of different things. What have you found the most satisfaction in?

Well, I think that the answer to your first question is I think that with the advent of Cable, you know, 24 hour news, that there's such an appetite for information that it seems to me as a viewer completely celebrity driven. And I kind of made up my mind that I didn't want to go back into the news division after watching the Anna Nicole Smith frenzy. I just was flabbergasted by that and how it was across the board. It was so all encompassing. And I just thought to myself, this isn't where I want to work and this isn't how I want to spend my time. And so I'm not, you know, there are certainly, you know, great shows and there are great journalists, but I just felt like for me at this point in my life, that's not how I wanted to spend my time and what I've liked the best or what I like where I am right now actually in my life, which is I'm trying a different approach. I'm trying to do. Do things slower. I'm trying to spend more time actually present in my life. I felt that, you know, I came out of college, I graduated from Georgetown, I went right into journalism, I worked seven days a week. I Was, you know, just working all the time, trying to work my way up the ladder. I did every job that came around. I just thought like, you know, being a workaholic was the be all end of. That was great. And then I got fired the first time from CBS News and I was shocked and I thought my life was over. And oh my God. And then I became obsessed about working my way back up. And then I was like, oh, I have to write a book. And then I have to write five books and then I have to have pop out four children. And then I, you know, and I, you know, people would say, do you remember this? I'm like, I don't remember. It's like a blur. And I, and I think to myself, what was that about? You know, what was I doing? And so now I'm actually trying to be present. And you know, really I was just saying to Cheryl, you know, part of what I've tried to do is, you know, actually not do a lot of stuff like this and really just, you know, be present for my children. Present for. I have two aging parents and you know, ask myself all the time, how do I want to spend my life? How do I want to spend my time? What do I. What you do feels right to me. And I used to always think that that was self centered and, or selfish. And now I think that that's a great act of self love. And so I actually find myself in a pretty good place.

Thank you.

The Kennedy family, famous and influential with the Democratic Party. And now, of course, you're married to an influential Republican governor. Could you talk a little bit about how really.

Surprising that's a book.

Could you talk about how those, how that blends in your household, how that influences your family and also what influence you think you have on our rather centrist Republican governor? Well, it's a challenge, I think, you know, once again, there is no roadmap for a, you know, a bipartisan governor and spouse in the country. You know, I looked around, I was like, is anybody else doing this? And there wasn't really anybody else doing that. And so I think in the beginning it was a bit of a shock in my family, to put it mildly. But I think, you know, it was, it's a really, I think, important thing if you get rid of the labels and actually look at the person, it's somewhat eye opening. And I think that's a good thing to follow, as I was trying to say for life. And you know, I remember people would say to me, oh, I can't possibly Vote for Arnold because he's a Republican. And I'd say, well, do you agree with him on this? Do you agree with him? And they're like, well, yeah. And I'm like, so you're not voting for him because he's a Republican, but you agree with everything. And they'd be like, oh, oh, well, I guess that, oh, I don't know. But so I think, you know, I think that him being of a different party has made me look at people of a different party in a different way and to try to look at who they are and what they say as opposed to the label. Because I grew up in a system that, you know, people who were of the other party were like, oh my God. And then I, like, married one. I was like, oh, my God. And then he went into politics and then it was like. So I think it, it makes you kind of step back and say, you know, who is the person and who is the person separate from the label. So I think it's. And I hope I've been, you know, helped him to look at things in a different way. He's helped me to look at things in a different way. So I think it's been good. I hope it's good for the state and I think. But he would have to say if it's been helpful to him politically or not. I don't know.

Thank you. I'd just like to start out by saying I'm really impressed with your down to earth and candid answers. So thanks for coming to Google.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

So I followed politics for a number of years and I've always been curious about the role of the first lady and how she might influence the policy decisions that her husband might be making. So would you care to share on your experiences?

You've always been curious about the role of First Lady. Well, me too. Me too. I've really struggled with the role of first lady to the point where I've actually tried to really drop that title because I keep, you know, like, what is that? And what does that mean in 2007? And, you know, that was one of those things where I kind of tried it on and, like, didn't kind of fit in any incarnation for me. And it's a. I think it's a role that needs a massive extreme makeover. The first lady role, I really do, because it is a job that you get by marriage. You are not supposed to be influential, but then what kind of marriage are you in if you're not influential? You don't exist as a line item budget. Therefore, you know, you're not really supposed to be there, but you get 1,000 requests to be there every week. You're supposed to kind of look a certain way, act a certain way, and if you kind of go out of the box a little bit, you get your hand slapped. If you go over here, you get your hand slapped. So I found that it's really better to just drop the title and conduct yourself as a woman and conduct yourself as with the life experiences you bring to the role and to embrace that. So for me, you know, I brought a certain sense of, you know, political understanding. I kind of understood campaigns. I understand political people. I brought a lifetime of journalism. I brought my motherhood. I brought my professionalism. And so I think you bring that to the table and you try to conduct yourself in as modern way as possible. So I don't agree with everything that my husband says. I agree with a lot of the things that he does. And that's okay, because I don't know very many people who agree with everything that their husband or wife says. And I don't know many jobs where, when your husband gets a job, you're supposed to then, like, have a job, well, walk around behind him and nod and say, I think to myself, what is that? You know, So I try not to use the title anymore, and I don't like it because I think it's. It's also a divider. You know, I'm a first lady. You're not with that. I don't know. So I just like Maria. And, you know, that's really my goal is to be myself, to be me. And I think Arnold knows, you know, I tell him when he's doing a great job. And I.

You know.

I try to, you know, bring my experience or different points of view to the table, just like I think anybody else does. So, but I think actually, I think this presidential campaign is going to be really interesting when you look at the role of the spouse, because for a variety of reasons, and I think actually we will see an extreme makeover as more women come to that role who have worked and who have had a very different life experience. It won't be okay for them to fit a model, and it certainly won't be okay if it's an ex president.

An ex president.

Yeah. And so I think that that will. I think if you look at the spouses of the people that are running for president, you will see very different kinds of people coming to that role. Some who might want to continue Working. And I think, you know, if you're a first lady, you should be entitled to have a job. This is not a paying job. And you should be entitled to live your life. Just because your husband's been elected doesn't mean you have to become some sort of, like, nodding caricature that you should be able to have an independent life, have your own thoughts, have your own opinions, be, you know, truthful and secure enough to say them. And I think it'll take. The public is going to have to adapt to that. And I think that the more women or men who are in this role express themselves might be a little shaky for some handlers in the beginning, but I think it's an important thing towards, you know, remodeling that role.

Thank you for coming. As I'm approaching having my first child same day as Cheryl, as you, I'm coming upon the anxiety of figuring out the balance or lack thereof, as you speak, as you mentioned earlier. And I was just curious when you were, you know, having, when you had your first child, like, how did you go about, you know, negotiating for what you thought was right or deciding, you know, how you were going to spend your time so that you at least tried to, to get both or many parts of your life?

Well, that's a very, it's a very good question. And I was like, just a ball of anxiety. I had no clue how to do it. And there was really no model because the other women who in journalism had gone before me either didn't have children or had had to just work 24 7. And really, they're really the only two women who were in journalism who had children. Barbara Walters had a daughter, and Linda Ellerby, who was and still is kind of my hero, had two children. And they always explained to me that there was no choice. You couldn't even ask for anything. So I tried asking to have my show move. That didn't work out. Then I tried to keep one of my anchor jobs, but I lived in California and the job was in the. That didn't work out. So I threw out a lot of stuff and none of it really worked out very well. And then I got more and more anxious, and then I had another kid right away, which. And then I got even more and more. Then I tried working out of my house, and then I tried kind of bringing up job sharing or flex hours, but that was a while ago, and that wasn't really an option. So I went back to work full time and I tried to kind of work on hours as Opposed to daily shows, which seemed to give me a little bit more balance. But I think I spent a lot of my kids early years in angst and not really figuring it out. I think the marketplace is very different today because people do job share. There is such a thing as flex hours, I think in companies like this that are very kind of innovative when it comes to child care. Maternity leave journalism was so competitive that I knew if you didn't go back to work right away, someone would take your job. And so I wasn't strong enough, I think, in my own self not to go back to work right away. I wasn't strong enough to sit it out and go take my job. And because I really used to my job, I think in many ways to define me. And I was scared of being a mother. I didn't really know what I was doing. And so I think if I were to give any advice on that is to just chill, really, because it's time you'll never get back. There is no right way. You know, I think knowing what you want and being able to voice it is really important. And to think about. I never really kind of thought about it. I was, you know, I worked right up until the day I gave birth. I was traveling all over and I was, I thought, oh, I'll just come back, everything will be the same and I'll just live in denial. And, you know, But I think if you actually think about it and think about what works for you and your family, you're much better off. And I think the marketplace, as I say the workplace is very different today. And I would actually really think, and I'm serious about thinking about having time when your kids get older, when they're 13, 14, and not just think, I need the time now, but really plan like where you're going to be when your kids are 13 or 14. Because I think nobody told me that. And so I think that that's also something. But good luck. Thank you.

So guys, we'll take the last three questions.

Okay, so apparently you're going to have a very long career ahead of you. And although you don't have a clear roadmap at this, although you don't have a clear roadmap at this point in terms of equal opportunity, do you think there will ever be a day you get to tell your husband that you have to quit your job? Because I want to do this?

No. Okay. But if it comes, I'll come back here and tell you how it goes. Maria, thank you so much. But I actually, let me Say I see my brothers who are younger and I think that younger women, I give them a lot of credit because I remember when my kids were little and I'd go to the park, there weren't any men there. And now I see so many active fathers and every time I see it, it just thrills me because I think it's so important for men to be involved in their children's lives. They bring so much to the table. And I always marvel when I watch, you know, men out with their kids. And I think that often men don't get enough encouragement. And I also see men bending in a way, you know, men who are in their 30s and 20s being so much more open to their wives careers or moving for their wives and being much more about, you know, what's good for you is good for me is good for us. And I have to say that I think men, that's a great thing that men are doing. And I think that they were either raised by great women and they saw their fathers perhaps doing that, or younger women are demanding it, speaking up more about what they feel they're entitled to than women in my generation. And so I think I know a lot of young women who say, I'm going to go take a job at Google and if you love me, you'll come with me. And they come. I'm always like, whoa. I think the more men are encouraged to do that, the more they're encouraged to participate in fatherhood. I think it's such a blessing for a child and I always try to encourage. I'm an only daughter with four brothers and I think it's so important for men to be involved in their daughters lives, not just their son's life. Because I often saw a lot of men like when I take my son to football practice, all of a sudden there's all men on the sidelines. And when I took my daughter there weren't that many men. But I think that men sometimes don't get the encouragement or it's underestimated their influence, particularly in a daughter's life. And I think men should be encouraged as much as possible to participate in the upbringing of their children, in the development of their children, to be told that they matter, in the creation of their child, women. So I think, you know, their choices of men have so much to do with their fathers and I think that they can really help their children see the world in a very different way than just than a mother. Or having male role models in your children's lives I think is a big Thing that, once again, women, daughters of the women's revolution were. That never kind of got talked about much, you know, the role of the father and, you know, you know, was that of value and should he be putting equal time in. And, you know, we were kind of said that we're gonna do it all. We're gonna work, we're gonna raise the kid, we're gonna bring home the bacon. You know, there was that ad, I'm gonna fry the bacon, bring it home, and do all of that sort of stuff, which, you know, it's ridiculous, but, you know, so. But I don't. I don't anticipate you know, being able or going to my husband and saying, you know, I'm gonna. To go work in New York now for two years, so quit your job, like, tomorrow. I don't see that happen.

Good.

Well, that's good to know because we need him for a couple more years. Thank you so much for coming. It's so inspirational to hear you talk about motherhood and being a parent and your sort of life and politics. You did mention the election earlier, and I don't know, I'm sure you know this because Cheryl probably told you, but we are fortunate enough to have most of the presidential candidates coming to Google. We just had Governor Richardson from New Mexico here yesterday. And I'm curious. You've been through an election. You know what the mudslinging's about.

We all read it.

It's challenging. What is your take, given where your family was in politics and the values that you upheld with what's happening with this election? And what do you think we as voters need to be aware of?

Well, I think that the challenge for us, not just as voters, but as individuals today with so much information coming at you, is to really be able to know what you think. So few people know what they think of Bill Richardson or Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton or John McCain or, you know, anybody, you know, Mitt Romney. Because we're inundated with people telling us what to think of them. You think this, they behave this way. They said this, they're that. And I think it's very hard for a voter today to step back and go, what's true? What do I actually believe? What do I really think of this person? Because we're so used to people telling us what we think. And more and more people, you know, go to television shows that reflect what they think already or what they think they're thinking. So I think it's very challenging today to know what you think, not just about a political person, but what you think in general about anything, that's your own opinion as opposed to somebody telling you. And I think people have become, when it comes to the negativity or mudslinging, I think the electorate is pretty sophisticated now about that sort of thing. Kind of they can weave their way through what's true. But I think it's a challenge with websites and people printing stuff all the time, and I think that's a big challenge for journalists today. You know, everybody's in such a hurry to put everything on the air that people don't check it out and they don't have the time. I think the Duke case is a great example of everybody rushing on a story and. And nobody really having the time to sit back and think, you know, what's actually real here, what's true, what are the facts. You have, you know, the smoking gun. You have the Drudge Report. You have everybody's got a cell phone. People are listening in on people's conversations. You know, I've gone into the bathroom. People say, can I take a picture? And they have a cell phone and you're in the bathroom. I think there's a real challenge, actually, with the Internet and journalists, journalism and video cameras and videos and cell phones, you know, about privacy. You know, what privacy is any person here entitled to? Are you entitled to kind of make up your own mind, think your own thoughts? And I think that's really kind of something that I would like to see talked about more. So I think this election is also started, like, way too early. I worry that we're going to be like, you know, voter fatigue, and I worry about voter apathy, and I worry about why more people don't vote, and I worry about young people being cynical about politics. And I think also the more, if you have children, the more you can talk about current events. My parents talked about current events every night at the table, which I think was a great blessing. And I try to do that with my kids, and they don't like it, but they're like, oh, here you go again. Here you go about this or that. But I try to read from the paper and talk to them about, you know, what's alleged, what's real, what do they actually think, as opposed to their kids in their school told them this. So I think. I think this election will be interesting on so many levels, and I think it's so critical, so critical on so many levels, and a great opportunity for the United States. I think it's a critical juncture for this country to have the right leadership and the right message. And so I, you know, I always try to encourage people. People to vote, and I try to encourage young people to go work for somebody in politics. I've never had a passion myself to run, but I also give a lot of credit to people who do, because it is brutal, and it's brutal on your family, and it's brutal on the person themselves. And, you know, you just get beaten up 247 for no pay, and your family and everything you've ever done, everything you've ever said comes out. And you really have to have a strong backbone. And I worry sometimes about the negativity. You know, a lot of people who are talented don't want to run because of that. And I think one thing that Arnold has done extremely well is show people that you can be in political life and have fun and have joy and get things done and not worry about labels. And I think it shows a whole new generation of people that you don't have to work your way up in a system that you can come in from other parts of your life and you can, you know, work in Google, you can work in a nonprofit that there's no set way to run for office, or no set thing you have to do, no set school you have to go to to run. And I think that's been a great thing that he's been able to accomplish. And show people that it's about the passion, the drive, the vision. And I think that's what people crave. And I think people want people who aren't rigid and who say, you know, I'm open to having different points of view. I'm open to having people who may not agree with me. And I think that is the sign of someone who's secure in themselves if they have different opinions around them. You know, people always said, you know, when Arnold first came, they're like, oh, my God, he has Democrats in there. And I thought, you know, that's so interesting, because there's no other profession in the world where you only have people of one party in the business. And, you know, I never kind of understood that. And I think that every political person should have people from different parties, because how do you ever know what other people are thinking? Or how do you ever have alternative viewpoints if you don't have people in your inner circle that have different viewpoints? If everybody all has the same viewpoint, you know, I think that's a pity. And so I think that's another great thing that he's done. Is he's had people who are Democrats and independents and Republican all sitting at the same table arguing and talking and throwing out ideas. And I think that's the way things can get done. And you also begin to see people not as the enemy, but as someone who might have a good idea.

So you have the honor of the last question.

Yeah, that's it. That's a wrap, baby. Oh, no. Oh, she has the last.

Oh, I missed the. Yeah, not her. One more. This is the last question. I promise. Three more.

So I actually read your book 10 Things I Wish I had Known Before I Entered the Real World the summer after I graduated college, and it really helped put things into perspective for me at that time. So I thank you for that.

Thank you.

And so my question is, if you had to write your sixth bestseller, I guess, 10 Things I Wish I had Known Before I transitioned from podcast journalism into being a non first lady of California, what would point number one be?

That's a very good question. I'm playing around with that. I've gone 10 things I wish I'd Known About Motherhood, marriage, and me. 10 things I wish I'd Known Before I became first lady. 10 things I wish I knew known before I turned 50. I have about 10 versions of that in longhand in my. In the little books I carry around with me. But I think, you know, I think the most important thing is to, you know, I think, be compassionate with yourself and to expect that you're going to be different at 50 than you are at 40, 30, and 20. You're going to have different ideas and goals when you're having your first child to. When you have three teenagers. And I think that, you know, to expect yourself to change, to embrace that you'll change and to embrace kind of who you are and not feel like you have to, you know, do it the same way Cheryl did it or do it the same way that the girl sitting next to you did it or the guy sitting next to you, that you have this great opportunity to just be yourself. And, you know, and that's something that no one else has. And it's a lifetime of getting that right. And to not be afraid of getting it wrong, not be afraid of changing, not be afraid of struggling, and also to understand that no one. No one has it right. And I think that's the one thing I used to always look at. Oh, that girl on the COVID of that magazine, she's got it right. Or that woman, she's run, she's got it right. And there's no such thing. And everybody struggles. Everybody's looking for a place to belong. Everybody's trying to find their home. Everybody's trying to kind of do the right thing and be their authentic. And I think that's really, that's a great thing if you can figure out who you are and what makes you happy, what makes you feel loved and what brings you joy in your life. That's the achievement of a lifetime, I think. And that's what I say to my kids. And my daughter said to me in fourth grade, you don't get an A for being a good person. And I, you know, as I said to her, you're so smart. She got like a C on a report. You're so smart. She goes, I said, plus, you're like a good human being, you're fantastic. And she said, mom, you don't get an A for being a good person. And yet, like I look at her and at 17, she's got much more self awareness and self assuredness than I ever had. She knows herself much better. She knows what makes her happy. She's got a better take on men, she got a better take on her life. And I think to myself, if she can continue that, that is a huge success as an individual to know who you are and know where you want to go and be aware that it's going to change and be okay with that and find somebody to share your life with who's also okay with that. No money can buy that.

So please join me in thanking Maria.

Ok, thank you, thank you, thank you.