MICHELLE OBAMA

MICHELLE OBAMA

By the time Barack was elected to the U.S. Senate, he was a best-selling author with contracts to continue writing. The writer aspect of his life enabled him to provide financially for his wife Michelle and their two daughters. There is no doubt how important family is to Barack. As with many couples, Barack and Michelle have weathered difficult times over the years. Of the time just after their first daughter was born, Barack says, “I was just getting into politics. There were a lot of stresses and strains. We didn’t have a lot of money. I couldn’t be as supportive of her at home as I wanted to be . . . but she knows how deeply I love her and the girls. I try to be more thoughtful. Sometimes it is just the little gestures that make

a big difference.” A mutual respect is important to Michelle. She says of her husband, “He’s my biggest cheerleader, as a mother, as a wife and as

a career person. He is always telling me how great I’m doing. That helps keep you going when you realize that you have someone who appreci- ates all the hard work that you are doing.” 7 Michelle Robinson Obama is described as feisty, cool, and certain. She is also said to be intensely competitive, often blunt, and always says what she means. Barack says of

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his wife, “She’s smart. She’s funny. She’s honest. She’s tough. I think of her as my best friend.” 8

Michelle grew up on Chicago’s South Side in a small apartment behind windows and doors reinforced with iron bars. Her father, Fraser Robinson, was a pump operator for the Chicago water department, working there before and after a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. Her mother, Marian Robinson, worked at a bank after raising their two children, Craig and Michelle. Craig Robinson graduated from Princeton and is the men’s bas- ketball coach at Brown University. Always with a competitive spirit and

a commitment to perseverance and hard work—attributes she learned from her father—Michelle learned early how to be book strong and street smart. Michelle’s friend, Valerie Jarrett, an executive in Chicago, said Michelle’s childhood instilled in her the idea that family comes first.

Michelle grew up in a family where her father and mother were ever pres- ent in their lives, not just emotionally, but physically as well. 9 Like her older brother, Michelle graduated from Princeton Univer- sity, then she went on to Harvard Law School. After graduation in 1988, Michelle returned to Chicago to work at Sidley Austin Brown & Wood, a corporate law firm. As an associate attorney, she was assigned to mentor a Harvard Law summer intern, Barack Obama. Unsure what to expect, she did wonder about the intern with a funny name who grew up in Hawaii. Barack had been much talked about prior to his arrival; the law firm sec- retaries gossiped about how handsome he was, and her colleagues talked about how outstanding the intern’s first year at Harvard had been. Senior partners pointed to a memo Barack had written introducing himself, de- scribing it as nothing short of brilliant. Michelle grew skeptical, recalling that the intern sounded much too good to be true. 10

Barack quickly changed Michelle’s opinion. He asked her out several times, but Michelle kept turning him down, believing it wasn’t proper for her to date an employee, especially someone she was asked to mentor. She eventually relented, and the two went on a date that included dinner and a movie. Michelle was skeptical of Barack’s first move, but she was soon impressed by his confidence and his commitment to community. She also liked that he was easy to talk to and had a good sense of humor. Barack knew almost immediately upon meeting Michelle that she was his choice for a spouse. According to author David Mendell, in his book Obama: From Promise to Power, Michelle was far less sure of Barack as a choice for a husband. He writes that his own assuredness and her lack of it say much about Barack and Michelle. Barack, he writes, is the roman- tic dreamer; Michelle is a balanced realist. Upon meeting her, Barack was swept off his feet, but Michelle took some convincing. 11

BEST-SELLING AUTHOR, MICHELLE, TRIP TO AFRICA 81 In 1992, Barack and Michelle were married. A few years later, Michelle

left her position at the law firm and worked for a deputy chief of staff to Chicago’s Mayor Richard M. Daley. In 1993, she joined the Chicago office of Public Allies, a program that helps young people find employment in public service. Michelle’s career has been a mix of public service and pri- vate practice. As the wife of a man so much in the public eye, she is both admired and criticized for having a successful career and being a working mother of two young daughters. She has said that her experiences influence her latest risky role, that of stepping onto a political ledge and into the con- stant, sometimes unmerciful public eye. While there is always a chance that she and Barack may slip, a chance that they may fall, in her own down-to- earth way, she says it is a risk they will take. “Our challenges get publicized, and I see that as a gift to let people know there is no magic to this.” On tak- ing a backseat to her husband’s political career and his ambitions, she says she doesn’t listen to critics, “I know who I need to be. I’ve come to know myself . . . but I’m grown up. And I’ve seen it up, and I’ve seen it down, and

I know who I need to be to stay true to who I am and to keep my family on track. We don’t always figure that out for ourselves as women.” 12 On the campaign trail, Michelle often tells audiences that her hus- band, while extraordinary, is also quite ordinary. She has the ability to humanize her husband, to make those listening to her feel that, while he is that charming, smart, cool politician with a lot to say, he is also some- one who tucks their two girls into bed at night and a man who forgets to pick up his socks. She also adds that her husband isn’t “the next messiah, who’s going to fix it all,” telling audiences that he will stumble, make mis- takes, and say things you don’t agree with. Sometimes, however, Michelle is criticized for being dismissive of her husband or for scaling back her career while her husband achieves his political ambitions. To this, she responds that she is well aware she can’t do everything herself and also

be involved in her husband’s campaign; she can’t hold down a full-time executive-level position and care for her two daughters while taking care of herself by exercising and eating right. She is human, she says, and she has realized that she is sacrificing one set of things for something else that is potentially very positive. That something is her husband in the White House as the nation’s first African American president. 13