Elizabeth Smart said she is confronting a new reality as a mother: her three children, though young, know the outline of the story that made her a household name.
Smart told the Daily Mail that questions from her eldest daughter, Chloé, began when the child was about three years old after Smart was preparing to deliver a victim impact statement in an effort to keep one of her abusers behind bars. "She was asking where I was going and why I was dressed up," Smart said. "It led to me telling her: 'Not everybody in the world is a good person. There are bad people that exist, and so I'm going to try to make sure some bad people stay in prison.' That kind of started it - and it's just grown since then."
Smart said all three of her children now know that she was kidnapped, though she has withheld the most harrowing details. Her eldest, Chloé, is now 10; her son, James, is 8; and her youngest daughter, Olivia, is 6. "To some degree, they all know I was kidnapped," Smart said. "I have yet to get into the nitty-gritty details with any of them, but my oldest knows the most and my youngest knows the least."
Smart was 14 when she was abducted from her home in the early morning hours in the summer of 2002. The abduction was carried out by Brian David Mitchell, whom authorities later characterized as a religious extremist and who targeted Smart and her family. The case received extensive national attention and remained a touchstone in public conversations about child abduction, victim recovery and criminal accountability.
Her recent comments underscore the long-term effects of high-profile crimes on survivors and their families, and the practical challenges of parenting while managing a public life defined in part by trauma. In the Daily Mail interview, Smart described the balance she is trying to strike between honesty and protection as her children grow and begin to ask questions about her past.
Smart’s decision to speak publicly about parenting after trauma follows years of advocacy and public appearances in which she has discussed her recovery and work on issues related to victim support. While she said she has told her children enough of the story for them to understand that she encountered danger, she emphasized that she has not gone into the full, painful details of the abduction and subsequent events.
The conversation that began with a child’s simple curiosity has shaped how Smart approaches explanations about safety, trust and the criminal justice system with her family. As her children age, she said, discussions have evolved, but she remains deliberate about the information she shares and the timing, mindful both of their young ages and of the highly public nature of her own history.