ABOUT MARY LOUISE KELLY:
Mary Louise Kelly is a co-host of All Things Considered, NPR's award-winning afternoon newsmagazine.
Previously, she spent a decade as national security correspondent for NPR News, and she's kept that focus in her role as anchor. That's meant taking All Things Considered to Russia, North Korea, and beyond (including live coverage from Helsinki, for the infamous Trump-Putin summit). Her past reporting has tracked the CIA and other spy agencies, terrorism, wars, and rising nuclear powers. Kelly's assignments have found her deep in interviews at the Khyber Pass, at mosques in Hamburg, and in grimy Belfast bars.
Kelly first launched NPR's intelligence beat in 2004. After one particularly tough trip to Baghdad — so tough she wrote an essay about it for Newsweek — she decided to try trading the spy beat for spy fiction. Her debut espionage novel, Anonymous Sources, was published by Simon and Schuster in 2013. It's a tale of journalists, spies, and Pakistan's nuclear security. Her second novel, The Bullet, followed in 2015.
Kelly's writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, Washingtonian, The Atlantic, and other publications. She has lectured at Harvard and Stanford, and taught a course on national security and journalism at Georgetown University. In addition to her NPR work, Kelly serves as a contributing editor at The Atlantic, moderating newsmaker interviews at forums from Aspen to Abu Dhabi.
A Georgia native, Kelly's first job was pounding the streets as a political reporter at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In 1996, she made the leap to broadcasting, joining the team that launched BBC/Public Radio International's The World. The following year, Kelly moved to London to work as a producer for CNN and as a senior producer, host, and reporter for the BBC World Service.
Kelly graduated from Harvard University in 1993 with degrees in government, French language, and literature. Two years later, she completed a master's degree in European studies at Cambridge University in England.
RESOURCES:
"It. Goes. So. Fast.: The Year of No Do-Overs" by Mary Louise Kelly
TRANSCRIPTION:
Caroline MacGregor: You're listening to 89.1 WEMU. I'm Caroline MacGregor, and I'm speaking with Mary Louise Kelly, the co-host of NPR's award-winning news magazine, "All Things Considered," mother to two sons, Alexander and James, and author of her latest book, "It. Goes. So. Fast.: The Year of No Do-Overs," essentially about the conflict working mothers face between family and work. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us here on WEMU!
Mary Louise Kelly: It is my total pleasure! Thank you for having me!
Caroline MacGregor: You've experienced many bittersweet moments during your career as a journalist. You started at NPR as a national security correspondent and have worked extensively as a foreign correspondent. But with regards to your family, the realization that next year is not always possible, whether it's to attend those soccer games or important events, you realize that childhood has an expiration date. That hits you hard. Tell me about this, if you would.
Mary Louise Kelly: So, you mentioned soccer games. And I have two sons. They both have played soccer literally since they could walk. They would have one of those little peewee Nerf balls that they would chase around the kitchen. And by the time that I sat down to write this book, my oldest son was heading into his last year of high school. They both played on the same team--their varsity high school team--and they have regular soccer games, which was the highlight of their life, the focal point of their entire personhood. And those games were on weekdays, almost always at 4:00. 4:00 is also the exact hour that All Things Considered goes on air, which is about as direct a conflict as it is possible for a person to have. And I suppose it seemed that there were so many games. There were so many games like hundreds and hundreds. And I kept thinking, "I know I'm going to miss this one this week and next week." I'm in the host chair and I've got to do my job, but I'll figure it out next time, next time, next time. And the thing about a kid entering his final year of high school is you're out of next times. You are out of do-overs. There weren't so many games left, and it became this very specific way of thinking about the choices I had made, none of which seemed hugely. Not a single one those games was massively significant in the moment. But the accumulation of them add up to how you're choosing to live your life, how you choose to spend your time, what you are prioritizing. And it suddenly became very clear to me. If I'm not going to miss every single game, I got to make a change. And I got do it right now. And I gotta think about all of the choices I made that got us to here and all of the trade-offs that we're constantly, all of us, juggling. Whether you're a parent or not, we've all faced that situation of "I absolutely need to be in this place and in this other place at the same time." What do you do? So, that was what I wanted to write about. And I wanted to really grapple with it in real time. So, the book kicks off with fall of senior year soccer season, and the last chapter is about high school graduation and kind of the choices and trade-offs that we all made along the way.
Caroline MacGregor: I have to ask. How on Earth did you get time to write the book?
Mary Louise Kelly: Yeah, this was crazy because it is the very definition of if you're trying to be in two places at once and you have a demanding job and you have kids, "Oh, I know! Let's write a whole book on deadline and add that to the mix." I don't know. I was helped by the fact that it was the pandemic. So, some of the weekend obligations melted away and I would get up early and write. This is almost like me writing in my diary of what you're reading here. It is really in real time. I really didn't know how the book would end. I worried as the year unfolded and thought, "What if March is really boring? Like, do I have to write a chapter about it? What if nothing happens?" That never happened. There was always something. And sometimes, it was the little things. Again, not the big milestone moment. I feel like, as a mom, I did okay. So, I never missed a graduation. I didn't miss prom or a big birthday party or any of that. It's all these little things. And as a parent, it does go so fast. I'm talking about soccer games, but I could apply it to all the mornings that there were pancakes flipping in our kitchen, and it was the babysitter who was there, not me. And you keep thinking, "Well, I'll sort that out and I'll be there for the next time." And you don't realize those little kids in their fruity pajamas, you're going to blink. And they will have no interest in that. They're driving off with their friends to go to Chipotle. And you don't get that time back.
Caroline MacGregor: How did you deal with those guilt feelings that we all feel as mothers? You know, I'm the mother of two sons, too, and my sons are in rugby, actually. But the feeling of guilt--how did you deal with that?
Mary Louise Kelly: Oh, I mean, I deal with it every day, don't we all? But I am a journalist. I ask questions when I'm trying to figure something out. I try to gather facts and report. And one of the things that I go back to every once in a while, when I am having a day where I wrestle with the guilt is part of this. I cornered James, the son in question who is the senior in high school. And I put the question to him that essentially is at the heart of the book, asked, "Was there ever a time that you really needed me, and I didn't come because I was working?" He looked at me for a long moment. And then, he looked at the floor for what felt like forever, and I thought, "Oh my God! Like, what kind of litany of things is he compiling that he's about to lay on me here?" And he finally looked up and said, "Mom, I'm sure there were, but I can't remember any of them. And I got to go. And can I have 15 bucks for Chipotle?" Okay. I don't think the scarring went too deep. I think I was probably doing okay. He was doing okay. He seems to be turning out the way he's going to turn out, regardless of my input here.
Caroline MacGregor: If you're just joining us, I'm speaking with NPR's Mary Louise Kelly, host of the national news magazine, All Things Considered, and we are speaking today about her book, "It. Goes. So. Fast." And it's a look at a conflict that many mothers face between home and the workplace. You've had an incredible life as a journalist. You've worked for the BBC and launched NPR's intelligence beat. Is that correct?
Mary Louise Kelly: That is correct.
Caroline MacGregor: You reported for the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and National Security Agency. In your book, you talk about Paris being the straw that broke the camel's back. What happened?
Mary Louise Kelly: There were terror attacks in Paris back in, I want to say, 2015. And I had stepped away from the newsroom at that point. I had decided, "Look. I love my work, but it was just not working with my family." So, I had stepped away from NPR and was writing books full time. And I remember watching the Paris terror attacks unfold and perhaps that hit me particularly hard because I speak French. I had done reporting from Paris. I had a done a lot of reporting on counter-terrorism measures in Europe in the aftermath and years that followed 9/11. All I could think was, "Put me in, coach! Put me in! I wanna be on that plane. I wanna talk to people. I wanna understand what's happening. I wanna bring those conversations to an audience." I want to write about it. Like my kids, they seem to be doing okay. They're healthy. They're happy in school at this point. I think they were maybe in middle school at that point. And I thought this might be the time. So, I called and started saying, "You know, what if I brought my national security contacts and beat back?" And I was very lucky to start in what I thought would be a very quiet year on the national security beat--2016. I came back to the NPR newsroom. That, of course, turned out to be a presidential election year in which Russia featured very prominently. And so, I found myself on a plane to Moscow and here we are. It all worked out.
Caroline MacGregor: Well, you bring up Moscow, but in 2017, I believe you were thrilled to find out that you've been given the green light for an interview with the director of the SVR.
Mary Louise Kelly: Basically, the foreign intelligence service and equivalent of the CIA in Russia.
Caroline MacGregor: Yes. And that they changed the date in the middle of your long-planned vacation. That must've been absolutely gut-wrenching.
Mary Louise Kelly: If you can hear a noise behind you, Caroline, this is me beating my head against a wall, as I recall this moment. You know, we all think about the choices and trade-offs we make trying to be true to the people who we love and are responsible to in our lives, whether that's our bosses in the newsroom or kids at home. And I made a lot of choices where I said, "I can't take an assignment. I can get on this plane because I need to be home with my family." I made some decisions that went the other way. But that was a case where, yes, at the height of a lot of questions about Russian intelligence, the head of the SVR said he would give me an interview. That never happens. He doesn't give interviews to the foreign press very often. I set it all up. And then, at the last minute, they changed the date, and it conflicted with a major family commitment. And so, I found myself thinking, "I can't believe I'm doing this, but I am turning down this interview." They wouldn't transfer it to anybody else. I asked and asked and asked and asked to reschedule, and it has never again come around. So, that is one of those where you do what you can do. You do the best you can do. But, yes, 80/90-year-old me will beat her head against the nearest door every time I think of that--the interview that didn't happen.
Caroline MacGregor: But then, family, of course, comes first. And to use your words in the time we have left, quickly with regards to your book, what would you pass along to other working mothers in light of what you've experienced and your message in your book?
Mary Louise Kelly: So, I can only speak for me. One lesson is just to say not a single one of us has figured this out. It is not possible to be in two places at once, much as we may try and no matter how fortunate we are to have good help in the way of supportive partners or grandparents or babysitters, etc., there are still only 24 hours in a day, and something's going to give. I think the other thing for me is just that, very basic, it does go so, so fast. And I think about and write in the book about moments that I didn't know were going to be the last time. My sons now both tower over me, and they don't come sit in my lap when they want to tell me about what happened in their day. I can't remember the last time that happened, but there was a last time. And you don't know it in the moment. You don't it till you look back. But savor those moments. Savor the moments when you're so bone tired at the end of a long day, and they're begging for a bedtime story. And you're thinking, "Oh, God, please! Can I just turn out the light and crawl into my own bed?" because there's going to come a time when they stop asking, and you'll miss it. So, savor it!
Caroline MacGregor: Mary Louise Kelly, co-host of NPR's award-winning news magazine, All Things Considered. Thank you very much for joining me today!
Mary Louise Kelly: Thank you, Caroline! It was a pleasure!
Caroline MacGregor: You've been listening to 89.1 WEMU FM Ypsilanti.
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