Mama Obama

[trillionaire]

I have seen a few articles lately On the "momification" of Michelle Obama. There are quite a few writers who are uncomfortable with Michelle''s transition from "power mom" to "First mom".

What are your thoughts ladies and gents?


by Michel Martin

What Michelle Obama Is Giving Up

I am looking at a picture I have in my office taken when my twins were, I don''t know, maybe 2 years old. We were at photographer''s house where I had gone to try to get some pictures of them taken and for some reason we had to change their clothes. And of course just after I got the clothes off they both took off running — naked as jaybirds. Lucky for me the photographer grabbed her camera just in time.

I love the picture she took even though all you can see of "me" is one foot, one leg and my arms trying to grab the twins in all their naked glory. So, it''s me but not me. It''s not a picture of a person; it''s a picture of the mom.

And I have been keeping that picture in my mind as I think about Michelle Obama and what''s happening to her as she embarks on this next step of her incredible journey. Already the picture we see is her, but not really her.

So much has already been said about our soon to be first lady. Some white conservative pundits have questioned her patriotism; some black folks have debated whether she''s deferential enough; and all of us get to sit around and debate her wardrobe and where the girls should go to school.

The subtext of all this is that Michelle Obama has just been handed this big gift wrapped in a bow: she has to listen to all our nonsense but so what? Because she gets to live in the "big house," with cooks and drivers and butlers and maids — and she gets to be married to the hottie president and raise those gorgeous girls — and run around and do good works and be the black Jackie Kennedy. Her! A black girl from the South Side of Chicago. Yup, she won the big lottery ticket!

But can I just tell you? Not enough has been said, in my view, about what she is giving up. Not just her privacy (that''s a given), but her independence, and her vision for herself, and, not to mention, her own income. Michelle Obama has been for most of her marriage, at the very least, her husband''s financial equal — and at times the higher earner. For many married African-American women, in fact probably most, this is the norm. In his book Black Working Wives, Sociologist Bart Landy points out that at least since the late 19th century black middle class wives had an idea of the family that was very different than that of most white women of the time — an idea based more on equality and shared dreams than subservience in exchange for adoration. White women may have caught up decades later but black women have understood for a very long time that work outside the home contributes to equality within it and black women have long embraced the idea that they can do family, community and career — in fact that they must — without sacrificing self.

So Michelle Obama is giving up the right to do her own thing, and with that the right to speak her own truth out loud without fear of the impact on her husband''s political career or his standing in the public eye.

I know all this because in a very small way I understand it. My husband (it''s no secret) is a very successful attorney. And it was not long into our relationship that I realized the sacrifices I was going to have to make. It''s not just the stories I can''t do or even talk about because the people involved may be clients or connected to one of his cases. The tradeoff there of course is that I benefit from his income. No, it''s really the intangibles that rankle.

Earlier in our lives we were just about neck and neck in the celebrity race but then a couple things happened: I had babies, so I slowed down and his career took off; and so he sped up, so now he gets the Lincoln town car to the airport and I get the station wagon strewn with old toys. He gets the people rushing over to talk to him and I get the elbow shoving me aside. He gets the invitations to glam events and I get the people suddenly recalling long ago friendships we never had so they can call him for interviews. And let''s not even talk about the judges I run into who know I''m in the news and ask me what I think about this or that subject and I find myself doing that mental calculation: What if Billy has to appear in front of him or her? What if I piss him off? Do I say what I really think? Or not?

Don''t get me wrong, I''m not complaining. I wouldn''t trade him, or my kids, or my life for anything. I know that my worst day is better than a lot of people''s best ones. And I made this deal, just like Michelle Obama made hers. It''s just that sometimes I wish, just for a minute, that there were a few more cards in the deck, and the photograph in the picture frame had a little more of me left in it.

The above commentary by Michel Martin is a kickoff to a special Tell Me More collaboration with the online magazine The Root. Tomorrow, the program will feature a broader conversation on future first lady Michelle Obama''s new role as "Mom In Chief," and, The Root will host a series of essays on the subject by public officials, writers and thinkers, who are all working moms.

 

[panda08]

Ahhhh... the career track vs. the mommy track. As a lawyer, I've seen so many peers go through the exact same thing, but in private. I've watched bright, accomplished, talented women leave the profession to raise their children. Sure, some do it because they want to. But others do it because it's just impossible to juggle the demands of kids and work. Both are lucky if their SOs earn enough to have them stay at home. I've also seen those same kinds of women struggle to keep up in their law jobs, because, even if their SO's work full time, they're still the primary care giver. They pick up and drop off the kids at day care or school, they take time off when the kids are sick, they leave work early if there's an emergency involving the kids, and they wake up at night if the kids are crying. On top of that, I know some who also do the cooking, cleaning, paying the bills and running the errands. I have the utmost respect for the working women I know in law who have children, work the hours that they do, and are able to stay sane.

I have very conflicted feelings about this issue. It is something I will have to confront in the near future, as I'm engaged to be married and we plan to have a family. At base, I want every woman with children to have the ability to choose, whether to stay at home or to work, and be able to live a balanced, fulfilling life. But in reality, in the legal profession and especially in private practice, the choice is to forego the career or to drive yourself into the ground by trying to juggle both. Sadly, many have to bite the bullet and work because it is not financially feasible for them to stay at home. Either that or they leave the profession for something else.

I think it's incredibly sad that our society does not do more to support working women. It's almost as though the default is that the woman stays at home and the man works. There should be more affordable day care and after school programs. There should be more maternity leave. There should be more flexible hours/days. I know some women who want to work and do so, but a majority of their salary ends up going to day care expenses. Businesses need to adjust to the needs of working women, instead of fostering or perpetuating an environment that makes it impossible for them to thrive at work. It makes business sense. There is a lot of talent that's not utilized when women leave the work force.

I see Michelle as a classic example of this issue. She is, no doubt, Obama's intellectual equal and extremely talented in her own right. I'm sure she loves being a mom and happily sacrafices herself for her family. But is it fair? For her, she's deferring her career aspirations in the short term in order to support Barack in his presidency. But lots of women subordinate themselves for their family. It's not meant as an insult to those who willingly do so. But I just wonder why it almost always is that way, when women have just as much, if not more, to contribute to the working world.

ETA: there's a related thread on this topic https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/moms-why-did-you-decide-to-stay-at-home-or-continue-working.100260/

 

[trillionaire]

Panda,

I am hoping that Mrs. Obama will use her platform to bring light to these issues. She is in a unique position to do so, because if she is struggling as a very successful lawyer mom, imagine what the working and middle class moms are dealing with!?!

She should absolutely advocate for policies that are family friendly, to bring more equality of opportunity within and between families. There are so many models all over the world of companies making work more amenable to families. I hope Michelle travels to these countries and discusses the policies, then brings ideas back to the American public. I would be a wildly popular thing to do, and so important. What a fantastic legacy that would be!

Here's an excerpt from another piece on this topic:

One thing that is crucial (and heartening) is that Barack at least has acknowledged that Michelle's challenges in these coming years may not be much fun for her. In "The Audacity of Hope," he describes the gradual tipping of the professional scales in his relationship with Michelle, as she allows him to become a distraction, and then a date, and then a husband and a father, at the same time that he is becoming a politician. At first, he writes, they were both "working hard," he as a civil rights lawyer and a professor, she for the city and at Public Allies. Then they had Malia, and "the strains in our relationship began to show."

When he launched his congressional run, Barack writes, "Michelle put up no pretense of being happy with the decision. My failure to clean up the kitchen suddenly became less endearing. Leaning down to kiss Michelle good-bye in the morning, all I would get was a peck on the cheek. By the time Sasha was born ... my wife's anger toward me seemed barely contained."

Barack continues, "No matter how liberated I liked to see myself as -- no matter how much I told myself that Michelle and I were equal partners, and that her dreams and ambitions were as important as my own -- the fact was that when children showed up, it was Michelle and not I who was expected to make the necessary adjustments. Sure, I helped, but it was always on my terms, on my schedule. Meanwhile, she was the one who had to put her career on hold." Barack considers his dawning realization that in his wife, as in so many working women, there was a battle raging. "In her own mind, two visions of herself were at war with each other," he writes. "The desire to be the woman her mother had been, solid, dependable, making a home and always there for her kids, and the desire to excel in her profession, to make her mark on the world and realize all those plans she'd had on the very first day that we met."

 

[starsapphire]

Maybe she''ll do what Hillary tried to do....after her husband''s term is up, become a senator, and run for the white house!!!! Maybe she''ll have better luck.

 

[starsapphire]

In any case, I believe that she will be a good role model to all women. And she is still young enough to fulfill her dreams when Barack is done.