Whether someone grows up like Tara Westover — without a formal education and living in the Idaho mountains — or in a more “functional” family, “you’re going to have some kind of emotional inheritance,” Westover said.
“But the reality is even that inheritance doesn’t have to be permanent, and there are ways to address and deal with those things,” she said.
That’s something Westover is still figuring out for herself, she told Utah Valley University President Astrid S. Tuminez Thursday. Westover discussed her New York Times best-selling memoir, “Educated,” and answered questions from Tuminez and audience members virtually as part of UVU’s presidential lecture series.
Westover did not step foot in a classroom until she was 17 years old. She was raised by survivalist Latter-day Saint parents in Clifton, Idaho, who opposed public education. Westover motivated herself to go on to study at Brigham Young University, which is owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She earned her doctorate at Trinity College in Cambridge. She is now a senior research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School.
In her book, which was published in 2018, Westover describes her isolated childhood and violence she experienced from an older brother. Her parents have disputed Westover’s account.
When asked Thursday about her mother’s book, “Educating,” which provides an alternative take, Westover said, “My version doesn’t have to be the only version, and I’m really comfortable with the idea that there are other ways of looking at it.”
“I mean, it’s not my way of looking at it,” Westover said. “But I think part of respecting yourself, actually, and your ability to have your own ideas is respecting other people’s right for the same.”
Westover remains estranged from about half of her family, including her parents, she said.
“I think people always assume ... that the goal should always be reconciliation. And for a lot of people, that probably is true. But I think for me, I think the estrangement has been a really healthy, good thing” and “was the right answer for me,” Westover said.
As for whether there will be a movie based on her book, Westover said, “I haven’t sold the film rights, so that would be rather shocking if it were.” She has received offers, but she still is deciding how she feels about the idea and what she wants to do.
Westover said she gets asked about how she thinks her life would be different if she went to public school growing up, or if she was raised in a different family, but she said that’s “impossible” to answer. Instead, she said, “you have to reckon with the life you have.”
“A friend who had a really difficult upbringing said to me recently that she realizes so many things about the way she was, they were not her fault, but they were her responsibility,” Westover said.
When asked how education has changed her perspective on religion, Westover said it’s always made sense to her that you should treat people well and not cause suffering unnecessarily.
“Religion is one of those things that I think if you are struggling with it, it’s good to just give yourself time,” she said.
Westover was raised in a “really, really devout family,” which she described as “way more extreme than mainstream Mormons,” and said it took her time to figure out how to not disappoint her parents while also being honest with herself.
There are things Westover learned from her parents that she said she appreciates, including her curiosity, devotion to hard work and passion for reading.
Westover has defined education “a bunch of different ways,” but she said she sees it as “getting access to a lot of different points of view and using that wealth of knowledge and information and perspective to try to build your own mind in some meaningful way.”
“We give kids this idea that their life is theirs when it comes to ice cream or the color of their shoelaces. But the life of the mind is just totally passive, and you don’t get any say, and you just do what other people tell you. And then we are annoyed when kids don’t experience education as joyful and discovery,” she said.
Westover encouraged listeners Thursday to figure out what types of books they are interested in and explore what makes them want to learn more.
Lately, Westover said, she has been delving into psychology and technology, including how social media is based on a business model that “depends on making you hate people who aren’t like you” and “by showing us caricatures of each other.”
“Because if you engage with a story, then they make money. And the things that drive engagement, love does it. ... But nothing does it as much as hate and disgust and anger,” she said.
She gave the example that “if you’re a Democrat, they’ll find the most objectionable person on the right that they can, and they’ll show that to you over and over. And if you’re a Republican, they’ll find the most objectionable person on the left.
“We’ve lost the ability to believe that people can disagree with us and have honorable intentions,” Westover said. “...That’s something that we have to reconcile with as a society, but we also have to reconcile with it as individuals.”
Becky Jacobs is a Report for America corps member and writes about the status of women in Utah for The Salt Lake Tribune. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by clicking here.
