section_path: Life in the White House
section_name: Life in the White House
paragraph_text: Life in the White House
  
  In January 1977, at the age of nine, Carter entered the White House, where she lived for four years. She was the subject of much media attention during this period. Young children had not lived in the White House since the early 1960s presidency of John F. Kennedy (and would not again do so after the Carter presidency until the inauguration of Bill Clinton, in January 1993, when Chelsea moved in.)
  
  While Carter was in the White House, she had a Siamese cat named Misty Malarky Ying Yang, which was the last cat to occupy the White House until Socks, owned by Clinton. Carter also accepted an elephant from Sri Lanka; the animal was given to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.
  
  Carter roller-skated through the White House's East Room and had a treehouse on the South Lawn. When she invited friends over for slumber parties in her tree house, Secret Service agents monitored the event from the ground.
  
  Mary Prince (an African American woman wrongly convicted of murder, and later exonerated and pardoned) acted as her nanny for most of the period from 1971 until Jimmy Carter's presidency ended, having begun in that position through a prison release program in Georgia.
  
  Carter did not receive the "hands off" treatment that most of the media later afforded to Chelsea Clinton. President Carter mentioned his daughter during a 1980 debate with Ronald Reagan, when he said he had asked her what the most important issue in that election was and she said, "the control of nuclear arms ".
  
  On February 21, 1977, during a White House state dinner for Canada's Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, nine-year-old Amy was seen reading two books, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator and The Story of the Gettysburg Address, while the formal toasts by her father and Trudeau were exchanged.
  
  In January 1977, at the age of nine, Carter entered the White House, where she lived for four years. She was the subject of much media attention during this period. Young children had not lived in the White House since the early 1960s presidency of John F. Kennedy (and would not again do so after the Carter presidency until the inauguration of Bill Clinton, in January 1993, when Chelsea moved in.)
  
  While Carter was in the White House, she had a Siamese cat named Misty Malarky Ying Yang, which was the last cat to occupy the White House until Socks, owned by Clinton. Carter also accepted an elephant from Sri Lanka; the animal was given to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.
  
  Carter roller-skated through the White House's East Room and had a treehouse on the South Lawn. When she invited friends over for slumber parties in her tree house, Secret Service agents monitored the event from the ground.
  
  Mary Prince (an African American woman wrongly convicted of murder, and later exonerated and pardoned) acted as her nanny for most of the period from 1971 until Jimmy Carter's presidency ended, having begun in that position through a prison release program in Georgia.
  
  Carter did not receive the "hands off" treatment that most of the media later afforded to Chelsea Clinton. President Carter mentioned his daughter during a 1980 debate with Ronald Reagan, when he said he had asked her what the most important issue in that election was and she said, "the control of nuclear arms ".
  
  On February 21, 1977, during a White House state dinner for Canada's Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, nine-year-old Amy was seen reading two books, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator and The Story of the Gettysburg Address, while the formal toasts by her father and Trudeau were exchanged.