As the twig is bent so grows the tree, a poet said.What is experienced in youth — the “formative” years — inevitably shapes the adult, with some studies even suggesting personality is pretty much set for life by age 6 or 7.Which brings us to Caroline Mulroney, contender to lead Ontario’s Progressive Conservative party after the abrupt departure from that post of Patrick Brown.Seldom has Ontario been presented with a would-be premier who is quite so famous but about whom so little is really known.In the weeks until the leadership, the battle will be on between supporters and opponents to define her and for Ontarians to appraise and understand her.In that exercise, as her leadership campaign begins, and because many children of celebrity find their growing-up unusually well-chronicled, perhaps no field is quite so worth investigating as Mulroney’s gilded childhood.If the formative process of leadership is passage through a personal crucible, it’s unknown yet what Caroline Mulroney’s might have been, or whether she’s had one.She has never known a moment’s material want in her 43 years. One biography of the former PM quotes a family friend as saying mother Mila Mulroney provided the equilibrium for her husband and family, but spent incredibly.“I’ve been there and seen her . . . spend $800 on a designer outfit for one of the kids. It’s incredible.”What is known is that Caroline is a first-born, the older sister, in fact, to three brothers. In a family of more modest means, she likely would have become the deputy mother, tending to the siblings.Though she likely did some of that — first-borns being sticklers for order, rules and high standards — there was staff at 24 Sussex Dr. to ensure it wasn’t too onerous.As a child, Mulroney had that greatest of gifts, growing up — from age 10 to 19 with the PM’s residence for a home — amid love, watching a fath ...
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