It went back to my wishes for them to grow up strong and centered and I accommodating to any form of old-school patriarchy: I didn’t want them to ever believe that life began when the man of the house arrived home. We didn’t wait for Dad. It was his job now to catch up with us.
I just wanted to achieve. Or maybe I didn’t want to be dismissed as incapable of achievement.
Even after the horror of Newtown, Congress appeared determined to block any measure that could help keep guns out of the wrong hands, with legislators more interested in collecting campaign donations from the National Rifle Association than they were in protecting kids.
When you’re First Lady, America shows itself to you in its extremes.
It was one thing to get yourself out of a stuck place, I realized. it was another thing entirely to try and get the place itself unstuck.
But as I’ve said, failure is a feeling long before it’s an actual result.
When Barack was first elected, various commentators had naively declared that our country was entering a “postracial” era, in which skin color would no longer matter. Here was proof of how wrong they’d been. As Americans obsessed over the threat of terrorism, many were overlooking the racism and tribalism that were tearing our nation apart.
Even white people were recognizing him now.
This was not me and never would be. I could be supportive, but I couldn’t be a robot.
America, our moment is now,” Barack said. “Our moment is now.
I now tried out a new hypothesis: It was possible that I was more in charge of my happiness than I was allowing myself to be.
They’re not special at all. The South Side is filled with kids like that.
One day I made note of a New York Times article I’d read that reported widespread fatigue, stress, and unhappiness among American lawyers – most especially female ones. “How depressing,” I wrote in my journal.
There were days, weeks, and months when I hated politics. And there were moments when the beauty of this country and its people so overwhelmed me that I couldn’t speak.
I wanted to believe that there was a guy who’d materialize and become everything to me, who’d be sexy and solid and whose effect would be so immediate and deep that I’d be willing to rearrange my priorities. It just wasn’t the guy standing in front of me right now.
I knew I was no smarter than any of them. I just had the advantage of an advocate. I thought about this more often now that I was an adult, especially when people applauded me for my achievements, as if there weren’t a strange and cruel randomness to it all. Through no fault of their own, those second graders had lost a year of learning. I’d seen enough at this point to understand how quickly even small deficits can snowball, too.
I’d greet him with a playful fist bump onstage at an event in Minnesota, which would then make headlines, interpreted by one Fox commentator as a “terrorist fist jab,” again suggesting that we were dangerous.
A word now about the bar exam: It’s a necessary chore, a rite of passage for any just-hatched lawyer wishing to practice, and though the content and structure of the test itself vary somewhat from state to state, the experience of taking it – a two-day, twelve-hour exam meant to prove your knowledge of everything from contract law to arcane rules about secured transactions – is pretty much universally recognized as hellish.
Why didn’t you tell us?” she said. “Because it’s too much money.” “That’s actually not for you to decide, Miche,” my dad said gently, almost offended. “And how are we supposed to decide, if we don’t even know about it?
Our afternoons together taught me that there was no formula for motherhood. No single approach could be deemed right or wrong. This was useful to see. Regardless of who was living which way and why, every small child in that playroom was cherished and growing just fine.