Stepping Into the Fishbowl : As Chelsea Clinton is about to find out, it’s not easy being a President’s daughter. Some First Children have coped well; others have had nothing but problems.

As the candidate, Bill Clinton took it on the chin for reports of infidelity and draft dodging. As the candidate’s independent wife, Hillary got it for being “uppity.” Now that they have survived, it’s Chelsea’s turn.

At issue is her appearance.

“Her hair is fuzzy and she has braces,” Hunter College High School student Samantha Shapiro wrote in the New York Times last month. “She has that ‘I’m in limbo between Jr. Miss and Misses at Bloomingdale’s’ look.”

Shapiro wrote to applaud Chelsea’s normality, calling her “a true pre-pubescent vision of awkwardness.” Shapiro also found Chelsea a metaphor for her father: “pleasant, a tad confused and at a bit of a crossroads.”

Others are nastier. Among the public’s mostly friendly letters to the President-elect was one from a Colorado Springs, Colo., woman saying: “America is in shock. Your daughter is uglier than Amy Carter.”

In the tabloid Weekly World News, an article titled “Why Are Democrats’ Daughters So Ugly?” allows that Chelsea may be the best of a bad-looking bunch, “but she’s no Tricia Nixon.”

Unsurprised by these digs, other children who grew up in the White House say this is the reality Chelsea, now 12, will probably endure until she’s at least 16. (So far, the Clintons have sheltered their daughter from media inquiries.)

“Certainly she’ll survive it,” Julie Nixon Eisenhower recently told KFI talk show host Hugh Hewitt. “But it’s not going to be easy.”

Observers note that Chelsea has suddenly become the world’s most-watched child, vulnerable not only to personal attacks but to all else that goes along with fishbowl living, at a developmentally tender age when children are trying to forge their own identities.

“What’s difficult is that the attention focused on Chelsea will be enormous, and, let’s face it, how can you have a normal life with the Secret Service?” asked Eisenhower, 44, who has been in the nation’s eye since 1953, when her father became vice president.

“You can’t even go to the drugstore to buy a personal item or go for a walk,” Eisenhower said. “It’s incredible.”

One way to cope is to remain above it all, she said.

“I have talked to a lot of First Family members, and how most of us cope with things is to try to keep informed. But when you know about stories that have been written about your family, you don’t read them.

“That’s called self-preservation.”

On the other hand, James (Chip) Carter said it’s hard for First Family children not to hear what’s being said about them or their parents. But the children need to learn not to take it personally, he said.

He remembers his parents telling family members: “This is written about you, but they’re really out to get us. Bill and Hillary will have to say, when (the media) are blasting Chelsea, ‘They are blasting Mommy and Daddy.’ It doesn’t have much to do with Chelsea.”

Like Chelsea, Carter and his siblings had previous public exposure as governor’s children, which helped ease their transition to Washington, he said: “It’s not exactly like coming out of the cold into the White House. She’s had people dote over her for years. . . . “

Carter said that as a young bachelor, he enjoyed living in the White House: “It was an inexpensive date. You could bring them to the White House, watch movies in the theater downstairs. There’s a bowling alley downstairs. I got to be pretty good.”

Carter, 42, a merchant banker in Atlanta, said he has been able to use the permanent label of “President’s son” to his advantage. “It has helped me in my business to a large extent. I can generate press if I want to.”

His sister Amy, 24 and living in Atlanta, will not agree to interviews, but she too uses the press to make news for causes she believes in, he said. “She’s been arrested five or six times making a stand for issues she thinks are important,” Carter said. “The last time, she was dressed as a missile lying in a shopping center in Memphis.”

Many politicians’ children seem to thrive under all the attention and access to “things one would only dream of,” said Charles Figley, a family scholar at Florida State University who has studied children of celebrities and politicians. “Flying in Air Force One. Meeting heads of state. Every imaginable celebrity or star you would want to meet. Having the ear of one of the most powerful individuals in the world for your generation. . . .”

But some do not thrive.

Two years ago, David Walters, a husband and father of four, was elected to his first public office--governor of Oklahoma. In the midst of political controversy, his oldest child, Shaun, 20, was arrested on a minor drug charge.

“It led to an enormous amount of news stories about the son of the governor,” said Bill Crain, Walters’ press secretary. “TV stations staked out his apartment, tried to catch him coming and going. They turned out in force for his arraignment.”

Shy and introverted, Shaun had never liked the limelight, Crain said. In addition, he had been on prescription medication for depression since he was 12. “He overdosed one day,” Crain said. “He was in a coma a couple of weeks before he died.”

The youth’s suicide caused much soul-searching for the governor and for the press. Walters has said he never would have run if he had had any idea of the consequences. In addition, Crain said, the state’s news media have become more sensitive about covering a politician’s family.

Several First Family children have also suffered anguish and despair. According to the report “All the Presidents’ Children” by former White House staffer Douglas Wead, the sons and daughters of American Presidents have higher-than-average rates of alcoholism, divorce and accidental death.

The oldest son of John Quincy Adams is thought to have killed himself, and sons of John Adams, William Henry Harrison and Andrew Johnson died as alcoholics, he wrote.

Nevertheless, Wead concluded that for most of the Presidents’ children, the years spent in the White House were the happiest of their lives.

What makes the difference between thriving and crashing?

About 60% of the difference has to do with the parents and their sensitivity to and time spent with their children, Figley said.

Chip Carter said first families must “fight for those moments when everything is normal.” But he added that the Clintons may find they have more quality time in the White House than in the governor’s mansion: “When you go upstairs, you are out of the fishbowl. Then it’s only you and your family, so you’re together a lot. His office is there at the house, and Chelsea will have free rein to go around.”

A child’s self-confidence contributes another 20%, Figley said, adding that it is “a lot to ask” a 12-year-old to be completely self-confident.

The rest, he said, is just “luck,” which depends on the trends of the time, the ethics of the media and whether the public believes private lives of public figures should be out of bounds.

Chelsea has a good chance of thriving, Figley added: “She has been in politics all her life and is rather sophisticated.” In addition, as an only child, she has probably been treated as a “junior adult” and may have more coping skills, he said.

“If she is (successful), she will be helpful to future generations of children who find themselves in the same situation.”