A Couple of Gores Focus on Family

Al Gore ’69 and his wife Tipper joked about their marriage and his failed presidential bid in front of packed crowd at the Graduate School of Education Friday.

The Gores, who came to Harvard to talk about their jointly-written books, Joined at the Heart: The Transformation of the American Family and The Spirit of Family, had the 500-member audience in stitches throughout the evening.

Gore set an informal tone by introducing himself as “the man who used to be the next president of the United States of America.”

Joined at the Heart uses the Gores’ own story and interviews with a dozen families to discuss issues facing modern families. The accompanying book of photographs, The Spirit of Family, features both amateur and established photographers such as Annie Leibovitz and Nicholas Nickson.

“If you look at the raw statistics, you might come to the conclusion that the American family is falling apart,” Al Gore said. “We tried to shed light on the situation and dig deeper.”

He said their books “discard the mythology of the white picket fence.”

He said families now have to confront an array of issues foreign to families 40 years ago—economic pressure, new social norms and changes in education.

He said that while the family unit was at the center of people’s lives 100 years ago—people grew their own food and were schooled at home, for instance—that’s no longer the case.

These changes mean that families are working harder, he said, with less time to spend together. For instance, two-thirds of families don’t eat dinner together.

With this shift to a different definition of family, he said, in reference to the book’s title, “all that remains to the family is emotional intimacy, being joined at the heart.”

In an interview after the event, Gore said the book’s message is especially relevant to college students, since living away from home forces them to reevaluate the importance of family to their lives.

At a brief question-and-answer session, Gore fielded queries about the next presidential election, the Electoral College and his clean-shaven look.

He laughingly said that former President Jimmy Carter and his wife had warned the Gores not to attempt to write a book together.

“We didn’t have any problems,” he said, at which point his wife jokingly hit him on the arm.

“The experts say a marriage goes through three stages: one, romantic infatuation, two, power struggles, three, mutual acceptance,” he quipped. “I am in the fourth stage, abject surrender.”

Tipper Gore described her family as a cross between Ozzie Osbourne and Ozzie and Harriet.

Following the talk, the Gores shook hands and autographed books for audience members who waited in a receiving line that snaked up four floors in Askwith Hall.

Chris Dietz, a resident of Hopkinton, Mass., said she had attended the event not for the book but instead for any political comments the former vice president might make.

She said she wanted to condole with Gore over the “raw deal” he got in the presidential election.

“Families need a friend in high places,” she said, “and I do not feel they have a friend in the White House right now.”

Students who attended the event said they enjoyed the couple’s joking repartee.

“He was not as stiff as I expected and there was a great dynamic between him and his wife,” said Patrick J. Toussaint ’06.