The Salem News

Barbara Walters' daughter recounts troubled youth
Thursday, November 21, 2002
By ANNA SCOTT
Correspondent

The following reprint is courtesy of the Salem News

MARBLEHEAD -- Jacqueline Danforth expected nothing less from herself than society's version of perfect -- something she said probably stemmed from having a famous successful mother -- television journalist Barbara Walters. Danforth ran with a street gang, slept around, spent all day in bed and hung out in the infamous Studio 54 in New York City at night.

"My mother had no idea," Danforth said. "It wasn't talked about then like it is now."

Last night at Marblehead High School, Danforth opened up about the pressures of being an adolescent female in a society that uses Photoshop to trim inches off a covergirl's waistline. Danforth told the group of about 100 mostly girls and mothers how she succumbed to drugs, promiscuous sex, poor self image and eventually ran away from home when she was 16. She told them how she became withdrawn from her parents without ever letting on, and started feeling out of place in her own family because she was adopted. Eventually, she crashed.

Suffering from depression, she hitchhiked from New York City to a small town in New Mexico, where she lived with a family that let her do all the drugs she wanted and stay out all hours. When her mother found out, Walters sent someone -- "an ex-Green Beret" laughed Danforth -- to pull her out and take her to an alternative school in Idaho.

There, she learned something that changed her life: she learned how to talk.

"In this day and age we all have a tendency to judge each other," said Danforth. "I started to look at people as human beings."

Her message seemed to resonate with students.

"You never hear adults talk about things like she did," said Marblehead High junior Sarah Evans. "Everyone should think about (troubled teenagers) because if you're not that kid, your best friend is that kid or your best friend's sister is that kid."

Danforth's visit was arranged through the school's guidance counselor Judy Luise, who knew two Marblehead High students who attended a program for troubled teenagers in Maine which is run by Danforth. Inspired by her own breakthrough as a teen, Danforth started New Horizons for Young Women in northern Maine. For about $20,000, at-risk girls spend 6 to 8 weeks camping, skiing, hiking, bonding with each other and talking to therapists. The program aims to instill self-acceptance.

"Most of us have been trained to want the house on the hill," said Danforth. "The goal in life is to be a good person."

Danforth had a few messages for parents, too.

"If you have a kid in this world, that is your first and foremost obligation."

She said her own mother was not able to prevent Danforth from being swallowed by teenage pressures because Walters was "breaking the way for women." No one took a maternity leave, she said. And taking your kids to work was unheard of.

Danforth urged parents to spend time talking to their kids, and not to be embarrassed by having a troubled teenager.

"Teenage girls are looking at things that aren't real," Danforth said, referring to the way the media manipulates images of women. "And it's only getting worse and worse instead of better and better." Marblehead High junior Morgan Harris agreed.

"She summed up everything I felt about body image and how women are portrayed," Harris said, adding "it makes me think about the outcast, and that there are people who have problems, and just need someone to talk to." Return to News