- Children of US presidents are in the public eye almost as much as their parents.
- Some first kids follow their parents into politics, while others steer clear of the limelight.
- Many remain involved with their parents' foundations and presidential libraries.
Children of US presidents are in the public eye almost as much as their famous parents. Some first kids have followed their parents into politics, while others have preferred to stay out of the limelight.
As evidenced by Hunter Biden's ongoing firearms trial, even adult children of presidents aren't exempt from public scrutiny.
Here's what every living child of a former US president is doing now.
Melissa Stanger, Melia Robinson, and James Pasley contributed to previous versions of this article. It was originally published in 2015 and has been updated annually since 2021.
After John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, Jacqueline Kennedy moved the family to Manhattan.
Caroline Kennedy went on to attend Radcliffe College and Columbia Law School, according to Encyclopedia Britannica.
Kennedy was the first woman to serve as ambassador to Japan, AP News reported. During her tenure, former President Barack Obama strengthened his relationship with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. She resigned from the job shortly after President Donald Trump was sworn in in 2017.
The former attorney also serves as president of the JFK Presidential Library and has written bestselling books on constitutional law, American history, and poetry.
In 2019, she presented House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award, The Huffington Post reported.
Caroline is married to American designer Edwin Schlossberg and they have three children.
Lynda Bird Johnson married Chuck Robb, who went on to serve as the governor of Virginia from 1982 to 1986 and the state's senator from 1989 to 2001.
The bride wore a gown designed by Geoffrey Beene, embellished with buttons at the high neck and down the princess-line seams.
The former Virginia first lady is the oldest living child of a US president at 80 years old. In the '70s, she chaired the President's Advisory Committee for Women to help carry out former President Jimmy Carter's mandate to promote gender equality, according to the White House Historical Association.
Johnson Robb, whose father signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act, spoke at the 50th anniversary ceremony of the March on Washington and attended the remembrance banquet for the 50th anniversary of the "Bloody Sunday" assault in Selma, Alabama.
She has openly supported same-sex marriage, and she and her sister, Luci, told Katie Couric in an interview in 2014 that she believes her father would have, too, The Huffington Post reported.
In 2019, the Johnson sisters christened a warship bearing their father's name by smashing champagne bottles against the ship, AP News reported.
Baines Johnson married Patrick Nugent in 1966 in a gown designed by Priscilla Kidder.
The couple held their ceremony at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and their wedding reception in the East Room of the White House. They had four children and divorced in 1979.
Baines Johnson then married investor Ian J. Turpin in 1984.
Baines Johnson and Turpin took the helm of LBJ Asset Management Partners in the late '80s and completely turned the business around during the economic crisis.
In 2020, she took part in a Facebook live event supporting Texas Democrats, the Austin American-Statesman reported.
Tricia Nixon and Edward Finch Cox met at a high school dance in 1963 and dated throughout college, according to the Richard Nixon Foundation.
Their wedding was the first to be held outdoors in the White House Rose Garden.
Nixon Cox accompanied her father on many campaign stops and state trips during his presidency, but has largely steered clear of the spotlight since.
Trisha serves as a trustee of the Richard Nixon Foundation, according to the foundation's official website.
She and Cox celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 2021 with an event at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, The Orange County Register reported. They have one son, Christopher.
In the summer of 1969, Nixon Eisenhower led tours of the White House for people with impaired vision.
"Children and adults felt the scaled serpent legs of the wooden Empire sofa in the Red Room, enjoyed the smoothness of the silk tassels on the draperies in the Green Room, and touched the cool silver of the two-hundred-year-old coffee urn that had belonged to John and Abigail Adams," she wrote in a biography of her mother titled "Pat Nixon: The Untold Story," according to the White House Historical Association.
A staunch supporter of her father after the Watergate scandal, Nixon Eisenhower went on to establish a career as an author.
In addition to writing a biography about her mother and a cookbook for children, she and her husband, David Eisenhower, authored a memoir about her grandfather-in-law called "Going Home to Glory: A Memoir of Life with Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961-1969."
She also chaired the President's Commission on White House Fellowships from 2002 to 2006, according to the Nixon Foundation.
Michael was also a student at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, an evangelical seminary in Massachusetts, according to the Gerald Ford Foundation.
Michael Ford, who went by "Mike," returned to his alma mater, Wake Forest University, in 1981 as associate dean of campus life. He retired in 2017 after 36 years, Wake Forest Magazine reported. He serves as a trustee of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation, according to its official website.
During Ford's presidency, Jack studied at Utah State University and worked as a park ranger at Yellowstone National Park during the summers, according to the Miller Center at the University of Virginia.
Jack grew into a successful entrepreneur. The startup he cofounded, California Infotech, provided electronic information kiosks to shopping malls, author Doug Wead wrote in "All the Presidents' Children." He also helped launch Outside magazine.
After appearing at half a dozen Republican National Conventions, Jack served as executive director of the San Diego host committee for the RNC in 1996, the Hartford Courant reported.
In 1989, he married Juliann Felando.
Known as the "charmer of the family" according to the Miller Center, Steven worked as a ranch hand in Utah, Montana, and Idaho instead of going straight to college.
Steven joined the cast of the television soap opera "The Young and The Restless" in 1981, playing P.I. Andy Richards. After six seasons and a role reprisal in 2002, he has since appeared in a number of films, including "Armageddon," "Black Hawk Down," "When Harry Met Sally," and "Transformers."
Ford ended his tenure as chairman of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation in 2014, though he remains on the board of trustees. He continues to honor the legacy of his father's administration giving speeches across the country. His most requested talks are "Inside the White House and Hollywood" and "Getting to the Top with Character," according to Red Propeller Speakers Bureau.
The youngest of the Ford children, Susan lived in the White House full-time. Her senior class raised all the funds for the prom, including the fee for bands Sandcastle and the Outerspace Band, and elected her prom queen, Vanity Fair reported. It remains the only prom to have ever been held in the White House.
Susan also took up photography under the mentorship of White House photographer David Kennerly, according to the Miller Center.
Ford Bales worked as a photojournalist for the Associated Press, Newsweek, Money Magazine, Ladies Home Journal, the Topeka Capital-Journal, and the Omaha Sun, according to the White House Historical Association. She has also written two novels set in the White House, "Double Exposure: A First Daughter Mystery" and "Sharp Focus."
Ford Bales launched National Breast Cancer Awareness Month in conjunction with her mother, and she succeeded her mother as chairwoman of the Betty Ford Center, according to the Gerald R. Ford Foundation. She has also called for better efforts to identify causes and cures to heart disease, after suffering a sudden cardiac arrest herself in 2013.
She married Charles Vance, one of her father's former secret service agents, in 1978, The Washington Post reported. They had two children before divorcing in 1988. She later married attorney Vaden Bales.
She served as a trustee of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation from 1982 until her retirement in June 2023.
Jack and his then-wife Judy had a young son of their own, Jason James, when Jimmy Carter took office.
In 2006, Jack ran for the first major office the Carter family has sought since 1980. He sealed the Democratic nomination for a US Senate seat in Nevada, but was unsuccessful against an incumbent Republican senator in the general election.
Jack spent most of his career in the investment and finance industry, The New York Times reported. He has been married twice and has two children.
He attended his father's inaugural ball with his then-wife Caron Griffith in 1977, where they were interviewed by American gossip columnist Rona Barrett.
Chip worked as president and CEO at Friendship Force, a not-for-profit that organized international exchanges for homestays, The Intelligencer reported.
He has been married three times and has a son and a daughter, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia.
His son James Carter IV — the grandson of Jimmy Carter — made headlines during the 2012 presidential election after he helped unearth the infamous "47%" video that ostracized nominee Mitt Romney. James Carter IV later received a thank-you note from former President Barack Obama, CBS News reported.
Jeff and Annette met at Georgia Southwestern University and married in 1975 during Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign. They spent the first years of their married life in the White House.
"While living in the White House, Jeff and Annette helped host everybody from Bob Dylan to Pope John Paul II," their son Josh wrote in Annette's obituary in September 2021 published on the website for Josh's podcast, Unchanging Principles. "In some of Annette's favorite White House memories, she greeted the cast of Star Wars after the release of 'A New Hope' and John Travolta after he starred in 'Saturday Night Fever' and 'Grease.' These experiences were quite extraordinary for Jeff and Annette's first few years of marriage."
Jeff co-founded Computer Mapping Consultants, a firm that became a consultancy for the World Bank in 1978 and held foreign government contracts, The Bryan Times reported.
He and Annette had three children together. In 2018, their 28-year-old son Jeremy died from a suspected heart attack.
Amy had a pet Siamese cat named Misty who accompanied her to Camp David and took up residence in her doll house.
Amy became a political activist in the '80s and '90s, and she was even arrested at a CIA recruitment protest. She later received a master's degree from Tulane in art history and wed computer consultant James Wentzel in 1996. At her wedding ceremony she was not given away, saying she did not belong to anyone, People magazine reported. She had one child with Wentzel, a son named Hugo James Wentzel. They later divorced, and she married John Joseph "Jay" Kelly in 2007. They share another son, Errol Carter Kelly, the Americus Times-Recorder reported.
Amy worked with her dad on the 1995 children's book "The Little Baby Snoogle-Fleejer," which Jimmy wrote and she illustrated, about a boy who befriends a monster, but she has otherwise stayed out of public life.
He is the last living child of Reagan's first marriage.
After a stint working in aerospace, the powerboat-racing enthusiast found his niche as a political radio talk-show host, according to his official website.
In his retirement, Michael writes op-eds for outlets such as The Washington Examiner, contributes to Newsmax Media, and serves as president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation.
Michael has been married twice and has two children.
During the 1980s, she appeared in TV movies such as "Curse of the Pink Panther" and "For Ladies Only," as well as shows like "Romance Theatre" and "The Love Boat."
She didn't always have the easiest relationship with her parents — she wrote a tell-all memoir detailing "her father's emotional abandonment of her, her mother's cruelty, and the family's bitter rivalries, uncontrollable rage, and dark secrets," according to the book's Amazon listing.
Patti married Paul Grilley in 1984, People magazine reported. They divorced in 1990.
Davis has opened up about struggling with a number of personal obstacles, including drug addiction, self-harm, and an eating disorder, and published more than half a dozen works.
She blogs regularly on her website and in 2017, wrote an editorial for The Daily Beast on her father's shooter called "Don't Let My Dad's Shooter Go Free." In 2019, she told Yahoo News her father would be "horrified" about democracy during the era of President Donald Trump.
She released her latest memoir, "Floating in the Deep End: How Caregivers Can See Beyond Alzheimer's," in 2021.
In 2023, she wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times expressing regret for publishing her tell-all memoir that "flung open the gates of our troubled family life."
As a member of the Joffrey Ballet, Reagan Jr. danced in John Cranko's ''The Taming of the Shrew'' at City Center, Frederick Ashton's ''Illuminations,'' Mr. Cranko's ''Pineapple Poll,'' and Antony Tudor's ''Offenbach in the Underworld.'' He left the ballet company in 1983, The New York Times reported.
Reagan Jr. tried his hand at a number of careers before arriving in journalism and joining MSNBC as a political analysis contributor. He has expressed strong opposition to Trump.
Unlike his father, Reagan Jr. has very liberal political views. The "unabashed atheist" recorded a comical PSA for the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which ran during Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" in 2014, the Los Angeles Times reported.
He married Doria Palmieri, a clinical psychologist, in 1980. She died in 2014, and he married Federica Basagni in 2018, The Daily Beast reported.
George W. Bush campaigned for his father in 1988 and purchased the Texas Rangers baseball team a year later. He served as governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000.
George W. Bush served as the 43rd president at the start of the war in Iraq. He was criticized for his handling of the "War on Terror," Hurricane Katrina, and other challenges, The New York Times reported.
He has mostly steered clear of politics since leaving office, but he called for the end of the partial government shutdown on Instagram in 2019. Bush posted a photo featuring him and his wife, Laura Bush, handing pizza over to their Secret Service detail, who were working without pay.
In 2021, he revealed that he wrote in Condoleezza Rice's name on his 2020 election ballot.
"She knows it," he told People magazine. "But she told me she would refuse to accept the office."
He also gave the maximum allowed political contributions to Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, two Republicans who supported impeaching Trump over the January 6 Capitol riot.
Today, he is enjoying retirement as a grandfather and an artist. In 2021, he released a book of paintings titled, "Out of Many, One: Portraits of America's Immigrants." His friendship with former first lady Michelle Obama has also made headlines.
Jeb transitioned from corporate life to public office in the '80s, first as the chairman of the Dade County Republican Party and eventually as governor of Florida.
Jeb frequently wrote letters to his father during his presidency with various requests, ranging from suggestions for appointees for United States attorney to meetings with Motorola. The New York Times reported in 2015 that Jeb's requests often served to reward supporters and build out his own political connections.
During his presidential campaign, he released 33 years of tax returns — the most ever made public by a presidential candidate — as a sign to voters that he valued transparency.
Since his presidential run, Jeb has been spending time teaching, first as a visiting fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, then teaching a class at Texas A&M before being named presidential professor of practice at the University of Pennsylvania, the Tallahassee Democrat reported.
He published an op-ed in the Miami Herald in 2020 calling for a "student and parents 'bill of rights' that secures their right to access, quality and transparency."
He married Columba Garnica Gallo in 1974 and they have three children.
Neil earned a bachelor's degree and an MBA from Tulane University. He founded the educational software company Ignite! Learning in 1999 after struggling with dyslexia as a child, KHOU 11 reported.
In addition to Points of Light, Neil chairs the Barbara Bush Houston Literacy Foundation, the Bush China US Relations Foundation, and several property development companies and consulting firms.
Neil married Sharon Bush and they had three children. In 2003, they divorced and he married Maria Andrews in 2004, CNN reported.
His family gave him the nickname "Marvelous," The New York Times reported.
Marvin is president of the Washington, DC-based investment firm Winston Capital Management, Bloomberg reported.
Marvin made headlines during the 2016 presidential election when he endorsed Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson over Trump after his brother Jeb's exit from the race, The Washington Times reported.
He married Margaret Conway in 1981 and they adopted two children.
The private Camp David nuptials were Dorothy's second wedding. Koch previously worked as an aide to Rep. Richard Gephardt, a Democratic congressman from Missouri.
"I think every once in a while, even a president's family is entitled to something private," President Bush said, according to The Washington Post. "And certainly when it comes to the marriage of a daughter, that's the way we looked at it."
Dorothy is involved in a number of charities and philanthropies, and she serves as the honorary cochair of The Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy, according to its official website.
She published "My Father, My President: A Personal Account of the Life of George H. W. Bush," a memoir of her life as the 41st president's daughter. She also helped found a wellness company called Bright Bold & Real that educates people about mindfulness and holistic living.
She and Koch live in Maryland. She has four children, two of whom are from her first marriage.
The Clintons asked the media to give Chelsea privacy outside of public appearances, CNN reported, but she still faced intense scrutiny and ridicule from the likes of Rush Limbaugh and "Saturday Night Live."
She began studying at Stanford University in 1997.
Chelsea is currently vice chair of the Clinton Foundation, where she champions the group's advocacy work in global health and childhood obesity. She previously worked as a special correspondent for NBC News and earned two master's degrees, one in international relations from Oxford and one in public health from Columbia University, according to her bio on Columbia University's official website.
Chelsea has written several children's books, and she's active on X discussing public health and dealing with bullies.
While her mother, Hillary, lost the presidency to Trump, Chelsea said a future for her in politics was a "definite maybe," The Press Association reported in 2018.
She and her husband, Marc Mezvinsky, have three children.
Barbara and her twin sister, Jenna, campaigned for their father and gave a speech at the 2004 Republican National Convention.
"Jenna and I are really not very political, but we love our dad too much to stand back and watch from the sidelines," Barbara said in the RNC speech according to a transcript published by Democracy Now. "We realized that this would be his last campaign, and we wanted to be a part of it. Besides, since we've graduated from college, we are looking around for something to do for the next few years. Kind of like Dad."
Within five years of graduating from Yale, Barbara cofounded Global Health Corps, a nonprofit that recruits young professionals to fight for better access to healthcare around the world. Before that, she worked at a children's hospital in South Africa and interned for UNICEF in Botswana.
Barbara's political views differ from her family's. She spoke out in support of same-sex marriage in 2011, The New York Times reported. She was also a noted Hillary Clinton supporter during the 2016 election, attending a campaign fundraiser in Paris, CNN reported.
In 2017, she and her sister, Jenna Hager Bush, released a memoir called "Sisters First" about growing up in a political dynasty.
In 2018, Barbara married screenwriter Craig Coyne at the Bush family's Walker Point compound in Maine, People magazine reported. They welcomed a daughter in 2021.
After working as executive-in-residence with Eric Schmidt's Schmidt Futures, she transitioned to leading the social responsibility department at the NBA, AP News reported.
The younger of the Bushes' twin daughters, Jenna earned a degree in English and worked as a teacher's aide at a charter school in Washington, DC. She took a leave of absence in 2006 to work for UNICEF in Latin America before returning to the school, according to Lean In.
In 2008, Jenna released a book inspired by her work with UNICEF called "Ana's Story: A Journey of Hope."
She began working as a correspondent for NBC News in 2009 and was announced as the new host for the 10 o'clock hour of the "Today" show in 2019, People magazine reported.
Since taking over at "Today," her monthly book club has been so successful that it prompted Entertainment Weekly to dub her the new "book club queen."
She and her husband, Henry Hager, have three children.
Malia attended Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC.
In a 2015 appearance on "The Rachael Ray Show," Michelle Obama said that Malia's Secret Service detail taught her how to drive "because they wouldn't let me in the car with her."
Malia's interest in the entertainment industry began in high school. She interned on the canceled CBS series "Extant" in 2014, and she spent the summer of 2015 interning on Lena Dunham's HBO series "Girls," according to The Hollywood Reporter.
After graduating high school in 2016, she took a gap year where she interned at the now-defunct film studio The Weinstein Company, Newsweek reported.
In 2021, Donald Glover reportedly asked Malia to join the writing staff of his new Amazon show, "Hive," about a "Beyoncé-like" figure.
In 2024, she made her directorial debut at the Sundance Film Festival with a short film called "The Heart," which received lukewarm reviews.
Sasha also attended Sidwell Friends School, where she became close friends with President Joe Biden's granddaughter Maisy Biden. Sasha and Maisy played together on the school's Vipers basketball team, which Obama briefly coached before a rival team complained, Obama wrote in his memoir, "A Promised Land."
In 2016, Sasha worked in the takeout window at Nancy's, a seafood restaurant on Martha's Vineyard, with six Secret Service agents in tow, the Boston Herald reported. Her and her sister's reaction to meeting "Deadpool" star Ryan Reynolds also went viral that same year.
She moved back home at the beginning of the pandemic and continued taking her college classes online, but Michelle Obama told Stephen Colbert on "The Late Show" that both Sasha and Malia eventually had enough quality time with their parents and moved out west.
"By the summer, we were like, 'OK, that's enough of you. I have nothing else to say,'" she said. "Our youngest, Sasha, who's not as talkative as our older one, is just like, 'I really have nothing to say to you. I just don't. I'm not even trying anymore.'"
Sasha graduated from USC with a degree in sociology in 2023, Essence reported.
As executive vice president, Trump Jr. focused on expanding the commercial and real estate side of the business and appeared on "The Apprentice."
He played a key role in his father's election campaign, making $50,000 speeches on his behalf and famously meeting with a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower in June 2016 to get "dirt" on Clinton.
He and his ex-wife, Vanessa, with whom he shares five children, finalized their divorce in February 2018, and he began dating former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle that May.
In March 2021, Trump Jr. and Guilfoyle sold their house in the Hamptons for $8 million and purchased a $9.7 million home in the gated Admirals Cove neighborhood of Jupiter, Florida, about 20 minutes from Mar-a-Lago.
In January 2022, Guilfoyle posted a photo with Trump Jr. where she appeared to be wearing a diamond ring on her left ring finger. Guilfoyle confirmed their engagement in an Instagram post calling Trump Jr. her fiancé in February 2022.
In 2022, Trump Jr. was named — along with his father and two of his siblings, Ivanka and Eric — in a civil lawsuit filed by New York's attorney general Letitia James, who accused them of overvaluing the former president's assets by billions of dollars to banks and insurers. The defendants are fighting back against the lawsuit, claiming in 2023 that the Trump Organization can't be sued because the name is branding shorthand, not a legal entity.
Ivanka Trump served as a White House advisor to her father beginning in early 2017. In 2018, she was criticized for using a personal account to send hundreds of government-related emails, The Washington Post reported.
Before that, she worked at the Trump Organization with her brothers, but she resigned to avoid any conflicts of interest. She also had her own Ivanka Trump fashion brand, which she shut down in 2018.
In her early life, she modeled for brands like Tommy Hilfiger and Versace. She later appeared on "The Apprentice" as well as an episode of "Gossip Girl".
She is married to real estate developer Jared Kushner, who was also an advisor in the Trump White House. They have three young children.
Ivanka and Kushner reportedly bought a $32 million empty lot in Indian Creek Village, Florida, known as Miami's "Billionaire Bunker," in December 2020. They then signed a lease for a "large, unfurnished unit" in the amenities-packed Arte Surfside condominium building in Surfside, Florida, for at least a year, The Wall Street Journal reported. They reportedly also added a $24 million mansion in Indian Creek Village to their Florida real estate profile, The Real Deal reported.
The Abraham Accords, which Kushner helped broker in August 2020, normalized relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco. During a visit to Israel in October 2021, Ivanka and Kushner met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and attended an event at the Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem with former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Ivanka cooperated with the House committee investigating the Capitol riot, appearing for eight hours of questioning in April 2022.
In 2007, Eric created a charitable foundation to raise money for St. Jude Children's Research hospital in Tennessee, but he later stopped fundraising to avoid confusion around donations in the wake of his father's run to be president, NPR reported. In 2017, the foundation came under fire when a Forbes report alleged that thousands in donations were funneled to the Trump Organization. A spokesperson responded, "Contrary to recent reports, at no time did the Trump Organization profit in any way from the foundation or any of its activities."
In 2014, he married Lara Lea Yunaska. They have two children.
The New York attorney general is investigating the Trump Organization's financial dealings, and 2022 court filings detailed the AG office's accusations against the company, including improperly inflated property values. Donald Trump has denied all wrongdoing and accused the probes of being politically motivated.
Eric was subpoenaed in the investigation in late 2020, but he invoked the Fifth Amendment right more than 500 times when they were deposed in 2020, New York State Attorney General Letitia James' office said, according to court documents.
In March 2021, he and his wife, Lara Trump, bought a $3.2 million estate in Jupiter, Florida, inside the Trump National Golf Club gated community.
Eric has also made regular appearances on Fox News criticizing President Joe Biden's leadership.
Tiffany is the only daughter from the president's second marriage to television personality Marla Maples.
When she was 14, she released a single called "Like A Bird," and she said she was considering becoming a professional singer on "The Oprah Winfrey Show." She was later profiled as one of the "Rich Kids of Instagram."
Tiffany graduated from Georgetown University's law school in 2020.
She married Michael Boulos, a businessman whose family owns a multibillion-dollar conglomerate of companies in Lagos, Nigeria, at Mar-a-Lago in 2022.
Barron was the first boy to live in the White House since John F. Kennedy Jr.
While living in the White House, he attended St. Andrew's Episcopal School in Maryland, where tuition costs about $40,000 a year.
In 2017, he took his classmates to meet his dad at the White House.
Barron, who Trump says is now 6 feet 7 inches tall, graduated from high school with the class of 2024. He will be a Florida delegate at the 2024 Republican National Convention.