Why I Care About the Cuomo Family

Chris Cuomo, born in 1970, is a little older than my son.  I wish I could send him chicken soup.  I’m sure it would make him feel better!

A few years ago, chef Daniel Rose, then running his Paris restaurant, Spring, told me he was coming down with a cold. I brought him a container of my soup — and he went on to win a Michelin star!

My daughter Jen would now say, “It’s all about you. Mom.”  She would be right.  I digressed; I also name-dropped.  But in my defense, when I spent time with Daniel, he felt like a son, too.

You take yourself wherever you go…  We see this pandemic through our own prisms of experience.  I draw from reading and research, but everything I write is, in a sense, “about” me.  It is filtered through the multiple lenses of my own history and curiosity.  A friend once teased me that if an editor sent me to cover a war, I’d come back with stories about soldiers’ relationships.

In this ongoing saga of horror and ineptitude and uncertainty, Chris and his older brother Andrew are reassuring and competent.  They love, they listen, they learn, they won’t give up.  Most importantly, they come from a strong family.

Being the “baby” of my family — 11 and 9 years younger than my sister and brother — I relate to their dynamic.  Being a Jewish mother, how can I not worry about the boys — we need them.  I also appreciate their sibling banter.

But you don’t have to be a Jewish mother to love the Cuomos. Everyone I talk with says, “Did you watch Governor Cuomo this morning?”  The hashtag #presidentcuomo has been trending on Twitter.  Randy Rainbow’s parody love song “Oh, Andy” has gone viral.  Who can resist lyrics like this:

If we’re on Earth, for what’s it’s worth, I hope they make you king. You run my state, while I gain weight, with grace and dignity. 

Randy admits that he’s still “into” Chris, who was his first love.

In his at-home broadcast, Steven Colbert declares that our collective obsession with the Cuomos is getting “weird,” but he also reassures:

It’s OK, these feelings are perfectly natural. Many Americans experience moments of being at least Andrew-curious, if not fully Cuomo-sexual. 

I’m not quite a Cuomosexual  (which my auto-correct changed to Homosexual!) — but I find the family compelling.  You could say, I’ve become Cuomo-curious.

BTP — before the pandemic — I wouldn’t have thought to Google the family.  But my Cuomo-curiosity got the best of me.  At a time like this, we need good leaders. We need also need good families.

As New York reporter Steve Fishman observed in “The Cuomo Family Business,

In the Cuomo household, public service was the only route to respect, and the family heeded the call.

The piece appeared in July 0f 2010, a few months before Andrew became Governor of New York.  It focused mostly on father and oldest son — their rivalry and their unconditional support.

As a New Yorker, I of course remember the father, Mario. who died in 2015.  I admired and respected him, too.  I knew less about their mother Matilda.  Fishman noted that Matilda, then 78, “helps lead Mentoring USA, an organization she started that provides guidance and tutoring for the underprivileged.”

I imagine that Matilda, who is now 88, must be experiencing the Italian Catholic version of kvelling!  The world turns to her two boys for inspiration and information.  Her daughters have also distinguished themselves.

According to Wikipedia, Margaret, the first child is “a noted physician and radiologist,” Maria, #3, is a “producer of social impact films and chairwoman of the charitable foundation Help USA,” and Madeline, #4, is an attorney.

The Cuomos aren’t perfect.  But their values are commendable.  We need sons and daughters who will look back on their parents’ lives and lessons and feel the way Chris does in this video he made after Mario’s death: