[1] As a child, Boettiger lived with his mother in the White House during World War II while his grandfather was president.

[citation needed] Boettiger served for 21 years as professor of human development at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, of which he was founding faculty member.

Trained as a political scientist at Columbia University before moving to a career in psychology, he taught at his alma mater Amherst College, was a consultant to and member of the Social Science Department of the RAND Corporation, and briefly served as a desk officer at the United States Department of State.

He holds a Ph.D. in developmental and clinical psychology, for which his principal mentor was Erik H. Erikson of Harvard University.

[citation needed] Earlier in his career, Boettiger wrote on educational and political themes, including two books on United States policy in Vietnam.

He has an interest in the intersections of social history, memory, narrative, family dynamics, and life cycle human development, themes explored in his biography of his parents' lives and their family histories, A Love in Shadow, published by W.W. Norton in 1978.

[citation needed] He was married for a fourth time to Leigh McCullough, who before her death in 2012 was clinical professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Research Institute at Modum Bad Psychiatric Center in Vikersund, Norway.