Her powerful speech at the Democratic National Convention drew high praise for its grace and poise.
“It was as pure a piece of political oratory as this campaign has offered, and instantly entered the pantheon of great convention speeches,” said The Atlantic. The Los Angeles Times called it “stunning.”
It was also Obama in full-on mom mode. She spoke about both the pride and fear she feels as a parent, and wove her two children — all of our children — back into a campaign that often trades in me-first rhetoric and short-term fixes.
“Who will have the power to shape our children for the next four or eight years of their lives?” Obama asked.
Exactly.
The moment she walked onto that Grant Park stage in November 2008, the night her husband was elected president, Obama started showing us what it means to mother — to love and lead by example and to act, always, with the future in mind.
My daughter had just turned 3 that night, and my son was not yet born. I have looked to Obama for guidance ever since, as I try to forge my own path in life, juggling career and parenthood and all of life’s challenges and riches. She’s a role model for the ages.
She allows motherhood to define her. Not because it’s her only accomplishment — she holds degrees from Princeton and Harvard, worked as an associate at Chicago’s Sidley Austin law firm and helped run the University of Chicago Medical Center. But because it’s her most cherished one.
She accepts help. Marian Robinson, Obama’s mother, moved into the White House with the rest of the family to help with the Obamas’ two daughters and maintain some normalcy in their suddenly very public lives. “It takes a village,” Obama likes to remind us, quoting an old proverb that Hillary Clinton popularized in the ‘90s. Obama said it again Monday night, and she lives that motto out loud.
She’s cool in all the right ways. Have you seen her karaoke with James Cordon and Missy Elliott? Tango with her husband in Argentina? Dance to “Uptown Funk” on “Ellen?” Hold her own with Jimmy Fallon and Will Ferrell on “Saturday Night Live?” Google and behold.
But she doesn’t try to be the cool mom. She can sing Beyoncé with the best of them, but she’s very clearly the grown-up in the room. Remember that list of rules in The New York Times? I do. “When the girls go on trips, they write reports on what they have seen, even if their school does not require it,” the 2012 story said. “Technology is for weekends: Malia may use her cellphone only then, and she and her sister cannot watch television or use a computer for anything but homework during the week. Malia and Sasha had to take up two sports: one they chose and one selected by their mother. ‘I want them to understand what it feels like to do something you don’t like and to improve,’ the first lady has said.” Yes.
She expects her husband to be a full partner. My favorite moment in Peter Slevin’s biography, “Michelle Obama: A Life,” occurs when Barack Obama, in his second year in the U.S. Senate, calls home to tell his wife about a bill he co-sponsored that was making progress. “He launched into an exuberant explanation, but Michelle cut him off,” Slevin writes. “ ‘We have ants,’ she said. ‘I found ants in the kitchen. And in the bathroom upstairs.’ She wanted him to pick up ant traps on his way home from the airport. She would do it herself, she said, but the girls had doctors’ appointments after school. ‘Ant traps. Don’t forget, OK, honey? And buy more than one. Listen, I need to go into a meeting. Love you.’ Barack said he wondered as he hung up whether Ted Kennedy or John McCain ever bought ant traps on the way home from work.”
She values children. Whether she’s giving a commencement speech at Chicago’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. College Prep or addressing City College of New York grads; whether she’s dancing with kids for her “Let’s Move” campaign or bear hugging a little girl at the White House, Obama is at her best when she’s advocating for a better world on behalf of everyone’s kids.
It’s been a privilege to spend eight years watching Obama lead us toward better versions of ourselves, even under withering criticism about everything from her patriotism to her vacation shorts. She’s taught me plenty and given me hope that our best days are still ahead. And she did it all as a mother.
I’m eternally grateful.
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