Michelle Obama on Her Marriage

Here's my favorite part of Jodi Kantor's really interesting portrait of the Obama marriage in this Sunday's NYT magazine:

When she interviewed for a job at the University of Chicago Medical Center, her baby sitter canceled at the last moment, and so Michelle strapped a newborn Sasha into a stroller, and the two rolled off together to meet the hospital president. “She was in a lot of ways a single mom, and that was not her plan,” recalls Susan Sher, who became her boss at the hospital and is now her chief of staff.

Ah yes, the moment of bringing the baby where she doesn't belong. What I love about this story is that Michelle presumably got the job. Though, come to think of it, marriage and policy-wise, the "Be invincible!" message is not actually helpful. You could imagine Barack Obama concluding that his wife is managing fine, just as he was counting on.

More broadly, Jodi's piece made me think that Michelle has her footing as a First Lady who can handle the constricted role without being defined by it. Rebecca Traister and I went back and forth last November about whether Michelle was letting herself be "momm-ified," in Rebecca's phrasing. I held out then for Michelle's feminist cred. And I do think that when your husband is president, the rules are different. Yes, your power comes from him. But you have so much of it! Michelle impresses me in this new NYT interview by showing us how well she recognizes the tension. When Jodi asks whether it's possible to be married to the president and have a "true and equal partnership," Barack starts to answer and then subsides. Michelle, meanwhile, makes "a small, sharp 'mmphf' of recognition" and then says:

Clearly Barack’s career decisions are leading us. They’re not mine; that’s obvious. I’m married to the president of the United States. I don’t have another job, and it would be problematic in this role. So that — you can’t even measure that.

No, you can't. But she may be able to measure the impact she has as spokeswoman in the administration's effort to combat childhood obesity, her next project.

Tags: Obama Marriage

Emily Bazelon is a founding editor of Double X, and a writer and editor at Slate.

Comments

work moments of "bringing the baby where she doesn't belong"

By: from away | Fri, 10/30/2009 - 08:24

I brought my infant daughter to work with me for almost a year after she was born. I had my own small web design firm in Washington. I mostly worked at my desk. My husband's advertising firm was in the same office suite. And most importantly to the decision-making process, I had a key employee quit while I was on maternity leave. At first I had no choice. Then, I kind of liked it. And I thought it was the best thing for my daughter.

The baby belonged well enough in my own office, but it was the client meetings that were truly revealing.

My clients were DC progressives and liberal womens' organizations. It was the middle of the 2004 election. There was lots of rhetoric about the struggles of working families and the importance of women to progressive causes.

There were no large moments of comedy or tragedy due to the baby in meetings. Largely she slept in her stroller or sat on my lap. No one ever told me not to bring her to the next meeting. But in the largely childless adult playground of downtown office buildings, she clearly did not belong. No one else did this. Or even thought of doing this.

I started to enjoy the slight provocation inherent in her presence. I was holding a baby, but I was still a professional. I came to meetings on time. I made deadlines. And I took care of my daughter, in the office. Why didn't anyone else do this?

Of course this arrangement was more untenable when she began to crawl and walk. The election was (eventually) over. Life happened. I closed my firm and ultimately left DC and politics for a variety of reasons.

As far as I know, my old colleagues still do not see many babies at meetings. I didn't start a trend. But maybe, occasionally, in the course of employing the "working families" rhetoric that they still use, they might remember that once a baby was around.