Friday, May 23, 1997

Latest adventures of the Kennedy clan

By Ellen Goodman

BOSTON - Now Massachusetts women have another grudge to hold against the Kennedys: Mom has to drive the baby- sitters home.

In case you haven't been following the Latest Adventures of the Kennedy Clan, let me fill you in. You remember the Founding Philanderer, Joe? Remember the Brothers K, whose reputation with women ran the gamut from Judith Exner to Marilyn Monroe? The Cousins K have turned up enough black sheep to make people wonder whether their problems with women are coded in their DNA.

We will pass over William Kennedy Smith, acquitted but not forgiven of the Palm Beach scandal. This time it's Joe II and Michael.

Joe Kennedy the congressman and would-be governor is not in political trouble for breaking his vows, but for trying to expunge - excuse me, annul - his first marriage. His first wife's book against annulment had some unhappy little tidbits about how Joe the K tried to browbeat and then deny her.

This might have faded except for the story that came right on its heels: the Tale of Brother Michael and the family baby-sitter.

It appears Michael, the family campaign manager, had a five-year involvement with the daughter of friends that began when she was 14 years old. Call it statutory rape or an "affair," but it ended Michael's marriage to the daughter of Frank Gifford, whose own marriage, by the way - well, enough of that.

The Michael and Joe stories have little in common except clan, politics and a growing sense, especially among the state's women, that we've had quite enough of these boys.

But back to the car keys. So far the most widespread fallout of the so-called Baby-Sitter Affair has been a nervousness on the part of perfectly respectable men. With lechery all across the media, they don't even want to get in the car with the sitter.

Assorted fathers in my sample have concluded (1) that every 15-year-old regards him as a potential sexual predator or (2) that if his hand lingers too long while passing out the money, he'll be accused of making a pass.

I don't mind men getting a little nervous. It kind of balances things out. But there is an edginess, bordering on paranoia, going around these days. And not just around the Kennedy clan.

In the wake of sexual harassment scandals in the Army, male officers now say they can't be alone in a room with a female soldier. After any schoolteacher is found guilty of sexual assault, other teachers decide they can't even touch, let alone hug, a student.

When there is a report of campus date rape, some undergraduate is sure to say you can't even kiss a girl these days. And in business, some men think you can't be a mentor without being regarded as a molester.

To all of this, may I say: Snap Out Of It. This is as exaggerated as the number of missing children on milk cartons.

How many false accusations are there in this world? Let's remember the most heralded "recant" in the Army sex scandal was when a few military women held a news conference to say they were urged - but refused - to cry rape.

For years, we've tried to teach daughters to go through the world neither naive nor cynical, neither numbingly dumb nor terminally suspicious. If women can negotiate this terrain - and most do - so can men.

I suppose there's bound to be some gender unease every time a creep pops into the headlines. In a way, the reports are progress. The problem is the reaction, or the overreaction.

Today there's an urge to send men and women back to their own corners. In the Army there's a call to resegregate the sexes. In schools, there are second thoughts about "male role models" in the classroom. In transporting the sitter, it's girls only.

One of the great pluses of the generation of change has been friendship. The camaraderie of dorm mates and co-workers, the loosening of roles, has helped us to see each other through some prism other than sex. Michael Kennedys notwithstanding, familiar coexistence is what builds trust.

As for the designated driver? First of all, may I suggest we open up the baby-sitter club to include more boys.

Second, nice guys share the wheel. Maybe the sitter has been reading the newspaper, maybe it's midnight and raining, but this is dad's chance for a teeny-weeny political act. Grab the keys and, um, go be a credit to your sex.

The Boston Globe Newspaper Company