This Ivanka Trump Quote About Don Jr. Explains So Much About The Trump Kids

The Trump family is a very tight-knit one, and that is undeniable. But when I think of the Trump children, my mind immediately thinks of the first three — Don Jr., Ivanka, and Eric. I personally can't imagine what it must feel like to be a Trump kid. But from what I've gathered, their father's competitive spirit has definitely impacted the way they interact with one another. And this Ivanka Trump quote about Don Jr. explains so much about the Trump kids and their upbringing.

We don't hear Trump talking much about her siblings in interviews these days. But that doesn't mean that she hasn't taken a stroll down memory lane — and this particular quote explains so much about who the elder Trump kids are. In a 2004 interview with New York Magazine discussing how the toughness her parents imposed on their upbringing also inspired the three siblings' competitiveness, Trump said, "We were sort of bred to be competitive," adding that their father encouraged it.

Competitive? You don't say. Or at least, anyone who's seen Don Jr.'s combative tweeting style doesn't say it.

Trump also commented on her eldest brother's style in her 2009 book, The Trump Card: Playing to Win in Work and Life. "Don, Eric and I are always sizing up our 'competition' on the other side of the table to determine which one of us might be best suited to a particular negotiation," she wrote. And in terms of negotiations, she wrote, "My brother Don is always reminding me that you don't get what you don't ask for."

Clearly, the Trump kids were not handed everything they wanted on a silver patter — obscenely wealthy or no.

When you think about how long Donald Trump Sr.'s three eldest children have been in the public spotlight, it's kind of surprising that they didn't grow up with degenerate rich kid lifestyles. And that is something they attribute to the way Donald Trump Sr. and their mother Ivana have chosen to raise the three kids. In a 2004 interview with New York Magazine, Ivanka said,

Look, none of us are saints. We all like to have fun. But I think our parents have just been pretty tough with us. They’ve always made sure that we lived within some realm of reality. I don’t know how they figured it out, but they knew the perfect way to give us what we needed without it being gratuitous.

But even though Trump, Don Jr., and Eric grew up in this aggressive environment, they still share an undeniably strong bond. In the New York Magazine interview, Eric explained that going through their parents' divorce made these three siblings grow a lot closer. He explained,

Donny [Trump Jr.], in a way, is like a mentor. He kept tabs on everything that my grandfather taught him over the years and that I was too young to appreciate. And I’m definitely closer to Ivanka because of it. She took me under her wing and raised me, took me shopping, tried to make me cool.

Any divorce is surely hard for a kid to go through. So I can't imagine how difficult that experience and the subsequent media frenzy that followed must have been for the Trump kids.

So Trump and her brothers might not constantly gush about each other now that they have their own families and responsibilities to take care of. But that aggressive spirit that was taught to them by their father is there, and Trump's quote about how competitive the Trump kids were with one other explains exactly why they are so successful today.