She hopes her children will live their own lives rather than other people's expectations of them. "That's a huge thing, especially for women who, I think, spend a lifetime trying to please their parents, their boyfriend, their husband, their children, their job, and really come to their own life usually quite late in life. And I'm trying with our daughters to say, 'This is your life. I can give you advice. Your father can give you advice, but the sooner you trust your own gut and make your own decisions, the better you'll feel.' " Maria Shriver, daughter of Peace corps Founding Drector Sargent Shriver, is a writer, journalist and first lady of California.
Maria Shriver writes "Just Who Will You Be? Big Question. Little Book. Answer Within"
Work in progress: Shriver's new book is about finding identity
By Dixie Reid - dreid@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PDT Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Story appeared in SCENE section, Page E1
Maria Shriver lost her job as a TV journalist when her movie-star husband became Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Her bosses at NBC News feared a conflict of interest and asked her to resign.
She also felt she lost her identity.
"It kind of stopped me in my tracks, from this climb I had been on since I was 21 years old," she said Monday in a telephone interview from her Los Angeles home. "I had been working, always thinking of the next thing, the next thing, the next thing, and all of a sudden, the next thing went away, and I was sitting there with no specific career, no specific goals to make me feel that I was successful.
"It forced me not only to slow down but to re-evaluate what I'd been doing, why I never got that 'Oh, I did that' feeling of accomplishment."
Shriver did some soul-searching after her nephew asked her to speak at his high school graduation. She fretted about how she, a middle-aged woman floundering herself, could inspire young people.
She came up with the notion that it's never too late to become the person you want to be. That idea is at the heart of her latest book, "Just Who Will You Be? Big Question. Little Book. Answer Within" (Hyperion, $14.95, 94 pages).
Shriver will be in Sacramento on Wednesday for two book-signing events: noon at the California Museum for History, Women & the Arts; and 7 p.m. at Borders Books on Fair Oaks Boulevard.
"Just Who Will You Be? is the No. 2 advice book on the New York Times best-sellers list.
"It just shows you that whenever you think you're the only one feeling something, or you think no one else is possibly dealing with something, how wrong you actually are," said Shriver.
"I'm so happy that the book is doing so well, and it's exciting that it's appealing to so many generations. I thought, 'Oh, it's just for high school students,' but people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s are coming up to me and saying, 'This is my story. This is me. How did you know?' "
Shriver, 52, admits in the book that she is "kind of famous." And indeed she is. She is a Kennedy on her mother's side. President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert Kennedy were her uncles. Her mother, Eunice, founded the Special Olympics, and her father, Sargent Shriver, founded the Peace Corps.
Since becoming California's first lady, Shriver has devoted her energies to, among other things, supporting the California Museum and expanding its scope, and working on poverty and women's issues.
She and Schwarzenegger have four children: Katherine, 18; Christina, 16; Patrick, 14; and Christopher, 10.
When Shriver called Monday, she had just returned home from her morning carpool duties.
Two high-profile parents raising kids can be a challenge, but, she says, "It's the only way I know, so I try to raise them with as much love as I can. I was raised that way."
She hopes her children will live their own lives rather than other people's expectations of them.
"That's a huge thing, especially for women who, I think, spend a lifetime trying to please their parents, their boyfriend, their husband, their children, their job, and really come to their own life usually quite late in life. And I'm trying with our daughters to say, 'This is your life. I can give you advice. Your father can give you advice, but the sooner you trust your own gut and make your own decisions, the better you'll feel.' "
Shriver, who jokes in the book that she's fueled by Starbucks coffee (three shots of espresso over ice) and that she had lived "the Kennedy legacy with my teeth and my hair," is a popular first lady-author-celebrity.
This will be her third appearance at the Sacramento Borders store. One time, she attracted more than 1,000 fans.
"She's drawn the biggest crowd we've ever had there," said district marketing manager Vicki Lorini. "She is so sweet and so easy to deal with. We get guidelines from her people, but there are no special requests. No blue M&M's. Just water."
Security is paramount, and Shriver will be positioned somewhere in the store where she'll be safe. Fans are welcome to take photographs but will not be allowed to stand behind her to have a photo made with her.
And if she has the time, she will personalize her book inscriptions and chat with her fans.
"I hear people say, 'I was the preacher's daughter, I was the doctor's daughter.' I think people have to find their 'aha' moments at different times in their life," Shriver said. "They have to find what moves them at different times.
"If someone had told me four years ago that I would be writing this book, I would have said, 'Are you kidding?'
"It shows you should never say never, and it shows you don't know where you're going to be. It shows the importance of now, the importance of being open to life, to change, to all of that."
