Why Donald Trump's Mother Couldn't Help But Ask, 'What Sort of a Son Have I Created?'

Donald Trump often hops from one simmering controversy to another. But there was a moment that topped it all when his mom, Mary Trump once sheepishly asked her first daughter-in-law, "What sort of a son have I created?" The Scottish-born mother of the President-elect said this in light of her fourth child's failing professional and personal life. 

According to a report by Vanity Fair, Mary was deeply affected by her son's crippling marriage with Ivana Trump during the decade of the 80s. The mother of five was covered widely for a short period with her family amid the chaos. She was dejected to the core when it was revealed that her son played a crucial role in all the paparazzi photography.

Mary, according to Patch, asked Ivana the question when Donald was being linked to Marla Maples despite being married to his first wife. At the time, he would sleep in his apartment alone when his empire was nearing a dead end. "Trump isolated himself in a small apartment on a lower floor of Trump Tower. He would lie on his bed, staring at the ceiling, talking into the night on the telephone." 

According to Politico, Mary was generally absent from the life of her children and Donald wasn't quite close to her. A childhood friend of the real estate mogul, Mark Golding, once claimed, "When I would play with Donald, his father would be around and watch him play. His mom didn’t interact in that way." Similarly, Fred Jr.'s friend, Lou Droesch, shared, "We rarely saw Mrs. Trump. But we did see a lot of the housekeeper." Another insider familiar with the matter shared, "Donald was in awe of his father, and very detached from his mother." 

In his book, Great Again: How to Fix Our Crippled America, the businessman-turned-politician wrote about his mother; the passage reads, "The values she gave to me were strong values. I wish I could have picked up all of them, but I didn’t, obviously." Speaking to his biographer, Tim O'Brien, Donald once said, "My father was more directly related to me. My mother was a wife who really was a great homemaker. She always said, ‘Be happy!’ She wanted me to be happy." Years later in his book Think Big, he wrote, "My father understood me more and he said, ‘I want you to be successful.’"

Though not much has been spoken about Mary by her family. Eric Trump, her grandchild once said, "My grandmother was an amazing woman who was strong, smart, charismatic, and incredibly loving. She had an amazing smile and an incredible sense of humor. Looking down, there is no doubt that she would be unbelievably proud of my father and all that he has accomplished."

This article originally appeared 3 months ago.