Former first lady Laura Bush offers advice for her successors
Former first lady Laura Bush on Monday is offering some advice for others who take on that role in the White House.
"Start with what you know," Bush said in an interview on "CBS This Morning." In her own case, as a librarian and teacher in her career, she opted to focus on literacy and founded the first national book festival as first lady.
Bush will appear at a forum Monday with the first lady of Namibia, whom she worked with as part of the First Ladies Initiative at the George W. Bush Institute, which urges leaders' spouses to use their status to improve health care and education for women and girls.
She said she had a "huge advantage" in watching her mother-in-law Barbara Bush serve as first lady, which "had a huge influence on me."
Asked what her proudest achievement was as first lady, Bush said she hadn't thought about that before, but mentioned the beginning of the U.S.-Afghan Women's Council to shine a light on the women in Afghanistan who'd previously been left out of public life.
As first lady, Bush said she was sometimes able to do normal things like going for "walks on the National Mall" with a baseball cap. At the same time, she said "there's a slight sigh of relief" when you leave the White House because you don't feel responsibility all the time anymore.