Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man by Mary L. Trump; Read Free Book Online Page B

but unlike most people who work hard, he was rewarded with government grants, the almost limitless help of highly connected cronies, and immensely good fortune. Fred didn’t need to read The Power of Positive Thinking in order to co-opt, for his own purposes, the most superficial and self-serving aspects of Peale’s message.
    Anticipating the prosperity gospel, Peale’s doctrine proclaimed that you need only self-confidence in order to prosper in the way God wants you to. “[O]bstacles are simply not permitted to destroy your happiness and well-being. You need be defeated only if you are willing to be,” Peale wrote. That view neatly confirmed what Fred already thought: he was rich because he deserved to be. “Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities!… A sense of inferiority and inadequacy interferes with the attainment of your hopes, but self-confidence leads to self-realization and successful achievement.” Self-doubt wasn’t part of Fred’s makeup, and he never considered the possibility of his own defeat. As Peale also wrote, “It is appalling to realize the number of pathetic people who are hampered and made miserable by the malady popularly called the inferiority complex.”
    Peale’s proto–prosperity gospel actually complemented the scarcity mentality Fred continued to cling to. For him, it was not “the more you have, the more you can give.” It was “the more you have, the more you have.” Financial worth was the same as self-worth, monetary value was human value. The more Fred Trump had, the better he was. If he gave something to someone else, that person would be worth more and he less. He would pass that attitude on to Donald in spades.

C HAPTER T WO The First Son
    F reddy’s status as the oldest son in the family had gone from protecting him from Fred’s worst impulses as a parent to being an immense and stressful burden. As he got older, he became torn between the responsibility that his father had placed on him and his natural inclination to live life his own way. Fred wasn’t torn at all: his son should be spending time at the Trump Management office on Avenue Z, not with his friends out on Peconic Bay, where he learned to love boating, fishing, and waterskiing. By the time Freddy was a teenager, he knew what his future held and he knew what his father expected of him. He also knew that he wasn’t measuring up. His friends noticed that their usually laid-back and fun-loving friend became anxious and self-conscious around Fred, whom Freddy and his friends called “the Old Man.” Solidly built and standing six feet one, Fred was an imposing figure with hair slicked back from a receding hairline who rarely wore anything but a well-tailored three-piece suit. He was stiff and formal around kids, he never played ball or games of any kind with them, and it seemed as if he had never been young.
    If the boys were tossing a ball around in the basement, the sound of the garage door opening was enough to cause Freddy to freeze. “Stop! My dad’s home.” When Fred came into the room, the boys had the impulse to stand and salute him.
    â€œSo what’s this?” he’d ask as he shook each boy’s hand.
    â€œNothing, Dad,” Freddy would say. “Everybody’s getting ready to leave soon.”
    Freddy remained quiet and on high alert as long as the Old Man was home.
    In his early teens, Freddy started lying to his father about his life outside the House to avoid the mockery or disapproval he knew the truth would bring down on him. He lied about what he and friends got up to after school. He lied about smoking—a habit Maryanne had introduced him to when he was twelve and she was thirteen—telling his father that he was going around the corner to help his best friend, Billy Drake, walk a nonexistent dog. Fred, for instance, wasn’t going to find out that Freddy and his buddy