I really hope I don't offend anyone here who is a stay at home mom, and I was one for 5 years, but I'm sort of put off by Michelle Obama's protestations that she wants to put all of her energy into being "mom in chief" while Barack Obama is president.

I remember when Felicity Huffman was interviewed on 60 Minutes and someone (Diane Sawyer maybe? I forget) asked her if being a mom was her most important job. This is what she said:

"No, no, and I resent that question," Huffman says. "Because I think it puts women in an untenable position, because unless I say to you, 'Oh, Lesley, it's the best thing I've ever done with my whole life,' I'm considered a bad mother. And just when I said no you, you went back."

Anyway, it's just hard for me not to think that Michelle Obama is doing women any favors by not talking more about her own ambitions and abilities or at least acknowledging that she's giving something up here.

Or maybe I'm just a bitter old bitch.

I agree that it doesn't do anyone any good - especially the girls she is raising - to pretend that parenting replaces every other ambition a woman might have. I agree that being the First Lady as it has been done is a full-time job. First Lady while raising elementary school kids is DEFINITELY a full-time job (and then some) - so why not just say that? Something like "Barack and I that the move to the White House was going to require a full-time commitment from both of us. I can't imagine being able to do another job as well as I like while meeting my responsibilities as First Lady, but I'm sure the lessons I learn from this experience will be powerful when I return to other professional endeavors. In either case, our girls will always be a top priority for both of us."

JM for First Lady!

No, JM for prez!

Ruth, I agree. And I'm also a little put off by it.

And JM, why couldn't she have said something like that?

Well, next time I'll remind her to run her comments by me first!

(Ruth, thanks for the plug - but I'm holding out for Empress.)

Oh, I don't know. It's pretty much a given that Dad's not going to be available much to help out, so I don't see the harm in making reference in sort of a cute way to the fact that somebody should be focusing on the girls.

I also think that after 22 months of campaigning she is looking forward to more time with the girls.

i'm not really finding myself lathered by what michelle obama, but i am totally impressed by felicity huffman's comment- it's really insightful, and articulates something about feminism and/or motherhood that i'd been trying to put words to.
and she was totally amazing in "transamerica" and did some really great interviews about it that were really respectful of the trans community. nicely done, felicity.

I guess it just doesn't seem like it would have been that hard for Michelle to say something more along the line of JM's comments instead of going whole hog for "I'm a mom first." Yeah, OK, but let's have SOME acknowledgement of the entire career you had before Barack ran for pres.

kommishioner, I think I may have cheered out loud when I heard Felicity Huffman make those comments. She's awesome.

I dunno. People excoriated Clinton in the press when she said she wasn't the baking cookies kind of mom. Maybe she just doesn't want to deal with those crazy people. Not to mention she bears an extra burden to perform "good mom" as a black woman, since the racist assholes in our society are still making up myths about welfare queens and so forth.

I think there are certain personal freedoms she gains by stating this kind of thing and the racial politics are complicated before you even get to the gender issues. I'm not sure I think she needs to take that all on right now.

mcglory, am I a nut for wishing that 16 years later Michelle Obama could express things a little differently without being excoriated? She's only 2 years older than I am and a whole generation younger than Hillary Clinton, and I think she could find a way to express her feelings without being so polarizing, like Hillary was.

I think the "mom in chief" line is a little disingenuous. After all, when was the last time a First Lady wasn't busy hosting and speeching and heading programs and such. (That was an awful sentence.) Not to be rude, or anything, I just think that to pretend she's going to be staying home to greet the girls after school every day is fakey.

After all, every other SAHM or SAHD in the country is budgeting and planning and driving and organizing and all that other stuff that comes with running a household. It's not hanging around eating bonbons.

That said, I can't wait to see her in action. Even if I wish she'd be a little more forthright about her abilities, I think she's going to kick ass no matter what.

Ruth, I think her answer assumed that people knew what the interviewer was talking about when he referenced their early battles with juggling her high powered career his political ambitions, and a family (all of this is detailed very openly in the chapter on Family in "The Audacity of Hope". He specifically asked her how she was going to give up her career and what she intended to do. I think she did a good job of pointing out that she intends to use the position of First Lady to take on a lot of issues she struggled with as a working mom, but at the same time I think she was throwing the question back at him by pointing out that Mom in Chief is the most important job she can have right now - especially when her children are being asked to leave their school, their friends, and their home - to live under strict security and a whole new set of rules.

I can easily imagine how hard it would be to ask my 10 and 7 year old kids to leave home, give up ballet and taekwondo, all of their best friends they've seen almost daily for 5 years or more, along with a lot of their freedoms. I mean Obama really stressed how weird the change is when he can't even take a walk anymore. He's an adult who chose this life - the kids didn't. She's got a really hard job.

Sadie, I totally get the "kids come first" concept in this context, and I think B. Obama's done a pretty good job of explaining that. I guess for me it goes back to CPF's post from earlier this week (and someone's follow up post, but I can't remember who it was, I'm sorry!!) about how mothers and fathers have different standards imposed on them in our society. Fathers express concern for their kids' well being and they're candidates for father of the year; mothers have to devote their whole selves to their kids to be considered even good enough.

I think that if that were all I'd heard from her, I'd be kind of annoyed. But she said in an interview I read last week that her girls were going to be her priority, because this was such a sea change for them.

And I heard her give a bunch of speeches during the campaign seasons, in which she said that her issue (like Clinton had healthcare and Bush sort of does for childhood literacy) would be work/life balance. So I'm inclined to think that she was going for a soundbite, but she really does get it.

But I totally see where you're coming from, ruth. Hearing people say stuff like that in general makes me crazy.

In the greater context of a whole interview where she clearly stated she intends to be Mom in Chief as the girls get settled in to their new very different life and that she intends to use her role as First Lady to do a number of different things, I don't see this as being a gender role driven statement. Her husband is President Elect, should she have ignored that or said - yeah fuck that he can be President and settle the kids while I stay in Chicago to work? I don't think she is lying or being the least bit calculated in saying she intends to be Mom in Chief and put her kids as her top priority when they make this transition. Why shouldn't she be allowed to say that if that is how she feels?

Hillary during the 1992 campaign: "I've done the best I can to lead my life. I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas."

She caught so much crap for that one remark, she had to backpedal all the way to a cookie-recipe contest with Barbara Bush. And even though she still caught a lot of sexist crap during this year's primary, she still came out of it highly respected and hopefully on her way to Secretary of State.

Hillary chose to bide her time and play the game. That's probably what Michelle's doing too. Baby steps.

In any event, after this crappy election season I am SO not ready to even raise an eyebrow at Michelle Obama just yet.

I'm guessing that shes been advised to play it safe with her comments on the topic, and conservatives outnumber feminists. Also, that comment might make me cringe a little, but many have pointed out how badly Clinton was roasted for going ever so slightly further..

are their kids the youngest to live at the white house?

Ruth, you're not a nut, but I still think you're overlooking the element of white privilege. As a society we still treat white mothers and black mothers very differently. Obama has different and bigger burdens to bear than a white first lady would have. I mean, for christ's sake, the media keeps referring back to the Cosby show as a reference for the Obama family, like that's the last time there's been a black family middle class white people could relate to. I don't think it's at all fair to expect her to be espousing liberal feminist ideas, one because liberal feminism hasn't done much for black women, and two because she's a smart woman who knows how to play the press so she can do what she needs to do.

It seems to me that focusing on the kids is exactly the right thing to do. She's wonderful and brilliant and will be an important part of this administration but the girls need her.

I don't get the impression that Michelle Obama does anything she doesn't want to do.

I don't know that it's so bad for her to say that her first priority is her kids. I recently was let go from my job and one of my biggest concerns was how the changes were going to affect tyler (18 months). I still want to do a lot of things with my career, but I know that transitions are hard for kids and you sometimes have to put career aspirations on hold to ease them. And this is one hell of a transition...

I don't know why, but I trust Michelle Obama to make it all come out right in the end.

Why do I trust these people so much? WTF did they put in the water? I was joking when I wrote that I had drunk kool-aid and become a cultist, but honestly, it's such a relief to have people coming into the White House that I can somewhat identify with that they could really say just about anything right now and I would think, "OK, withhold judgment, let's just see where this is going...."

I think the more interesting question is WHY DO WE CARE? As in, at all? Short of abuse and neglect, why do we care how or what Michelle is doing with her kids for the next 4 years, period? I appreciate that we are probably all pretty feminist on this board, and that working vs. staying at home and the balance of work/life/kids is near and dear to all of our hearts, but why does anyone put emotional charge/weight/energy into the decisions of a family that is not even related to them?

Maybe I just don't get American politics, but you elected one man, Barack Obama, to be president. As long as he doesn't screw that up too horribly, all is relatively well. Why should anyone judge what his wife is or isn't doing in the next 4 years? Is it the celebrity factor or is there more at play here?

That's funny wookie - I was wondering the same thing. I mean, I don't remember Mila Mulroney shaping my career/life decisions so why does Michelle Obama have to be someone's heroine?

The Kennedy's had younger children in the White House.

I agree with others that we tend to see the people in the White House as the "First Family" in all senses of the phrase. I think as a nation we want to idealize them and use them as role models - whether that is useful or healthy to do. Remember folks being uncomfortable with Reagan's divorce and remarriage? The fact that we as a people were ready to accept Nancy in the role of First Lady spoke to our attitudes toward divorce.

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/11/12/michelle_obama/index.html

There was an article on Slate that describes pretty well how I'm feeling and what prompted me to make the original post here. It's much clearer than I could ever be.

I guess I just felt disappointed not so much in Michelle but in the wider culture that maybe has made her feel that she has to emphasize the "mom in chief" role. Not that it's not important but still... I dunno.