Why JFK's Parents Hated Him So Much

There's a card in a Boston archive with John F. Kennedy's name on it, in his mother's handwriting. Scarlet fever. Whooping cough. Measles. Dental work. Shoe size. No affection — inventory. America called Rose Kennedy the most devoted mother in the country. Her second son grew up outranked, hospitalized alone, and told by his father not to worry if he turned out to be no genius. In 1941 the family showed what it did with a child who couldn't perform. The son nobody invested in became the only Kennedy who mattered, and his mother outlived them all to write his childhood. Start with the wedding, because the wedding already tells you what kind of family this was going to be.