Ivanka Trump is a fairly elusive figure in US politics. As the daughter of the President-elect Donald Trump, she has long had a public profile but she was noticeably absent from his recent presidential campaign.

Once her father’s biggest supporter and even his top aid, Ivanka has taken a conscious step back from political life, so much so that she did not publicly endorse her father at any point throughout his campaign. So ,when she shared a post on X and Instagram detailing 16 of her ‘life lessons’ to mark her 43rd birthday, it piqued a lot of interest.

‘This past week, I turned 43!’ Ivanka wrote. ‘Reflecting on life’s lessons, here are some truths I’ve learned along the way.’ Trump’s eldest daughter went on to share musings like ‘family and friends are everything’, ‘avoid gossip’, ‘nourish your body’ and ‘cultivate self-mastery’. She also encouraged her followers to take in daily sunshine, to identify their ‘core values’ and to be ‘open to the truth’. Hmm, interesting.

Given her father’s track record as a convicted felon who has been impeached twice, it’s not unreasonable for anyone to view Ivanka’s lessons with a raised eyebrow – or indeed a pinch of salt.

Despite being by her father’s side as he declared victory in Florida on 6 November, Ivanka is clearly trying to establish her own identity away from Donald moving forward. It was the first time she has been seen on stage with her father since the start of his campaign.

During his 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns, Ivanka appeared on TV with Trump, she accompanied him to rallies and went on stage at national conventions to appeal to female voters. She was known to many as his ‘right-hand woman’. A role which has now seemingly been filled by Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara, who is married to Eric Trump. As co-chair of the Republican Party, she’s likely to play a prominent role in Trump’s government.

However, when Trump began his fourth run for office nearly two years ago (ICYMI, Trump first ran for president in 2000), Ivanka announced that she and her husband Jared Kushner, Trump’s former senior advisor, would be retreating from politics to prioritise their family. She said, ‘While I will always love and support my father, going forward I will do so outside the political arena.’

The decision came at a time when Trump faced the prospect of four criminal trials, including one in Manhattan, where he was convicted of 34 felonies and one in connection with the Capitol riots of January 2021. Ivanka did testify at Trump’s civil fraud case last year where she said she wasn’t ‘privy’ to her father’s finances.

When the New York Times reached out to ask Ivanka if there was any chance she would be joining the final stretch of Trump’s campaign, they were redirected to Kushner who said ‘zero’. He added that his wife ‘made the decision when she left Washington that she was closing that chapter of her life. And she’s been remarkably consistent.’

What, then, do Ivanka’s cryptic life lessons tell us about her post-political life? Given how quiet she has been throughout the campaign, are her 16 choices riddled in subtext? Or do they speak to a happier and calmer life now that she’s left her father’s side?

The post is accompanied by a series of pictures including one of Ivanka carrying a surfboard, one of her three children and one of her pointing towards a framed picture which reads, ‘feelings are much like waves, we can’t stop them from coming but we can choose which one to surf’.

We get that Ivanka loves surfing, but 43 is not exactly a milestone birthday. What makes it significant is the fact it fell the week of the US election.

She even quotes the famous relationship therapist Esther Perel saying, ‘The quality of your relationships determines the quality of your life.’ As someone who has publicly reduced the support and contact she has with her father, who happens to be one of the most powerful men in the world, it’s hard to read this quote in isolation.

Ivanka also threw in a quote from Henry David Thoreau who said, ‘The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.’ After dedicating four years to Trump as his adviser, perhaps Ivanka is attempting to salvage her moral compass by refusing to give any more.

It’s worth noting that Ivanka and Kushner have already benefited enormously from their ties with Donald. Kushner now runs a $3 billion private equity fund bankrolled by the governments of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. Vicky Ward, the author of Kushner Inc, remarked, ‘They don’t need to go into government. They’ve already proven, in a way, that government is really good business for them.’

Of course, it’s also possible that Ivanka has simply chosen to enter her GOOP era and wanted to encourage her followers to eat wholefoods and listen to Where Do We Begin? on Spotify. Although, unsurprisingly, her birthday post hasn’t landed that way.

One Instagram user commented, ‘number 12 for truth. Did your dad win the 2020 election?’ Another comment on X read, ‘Imagine taking life lessons from a member of the Trump crime family.’ A third commented, ‘Don’t you wish your legacy hadn’t been destroyed by your father? You might have been important; you could’ve had a voice! He ruined that for you, now you’re stuck grifting just like him.’

Ivanka’s reputation and her role as Donald’s daughter are indeed inextricably linked. Whether that has any tangible consequences for her is another question. She may claim to have ‘opened herself to truth’ and ‘embraced new ideas’, but she is still a supporter of her father and all that he stands for – even if a quiet one. Those looking to her for life advice would do well to keep that in mind.