Entries Tagged 'daughters' ↓

I can’t help but empathize with Michelle Obama right now. As a mother of two small children myself, I keep trying to imagine what she is going through as she prepares her family for life in the White House. I think about her little girls growing up in Washington DC as I did, attending a school right down the road from where I grew up. And as I empathise with our future first lady, my ears perk up when I read both about the support and criticism she is receiving as an accomplished woman who has decided to make her role in the White House “mom-in-chief”.

There can be no more daunting task than trying to raise the First Children. Can you imagine? Your daughters must live in a virtual museum with some of the tightest security world wide. There is no spontaneously running over to a neighbor’s house to play.  They will be isolated and protected from the world and yet they will have the most public lives of any child.

And so Michelle Obama has chosen to make parenting these children her priority. However, within days of learning about her future in the White House, Michelle had already received her fair share of advice. Hillary has jumped in to say her piece. Tony Blair’s wife, Cherie, had a few things to say. And even FDR’s grandson offered some words of wisdom. While Michelle did not formally ask for Laura Bush’s advice, the current first lady did share her suggestions with the press later.

I wonder what comfort she has taken from all of this advice, if any. I wonder how much more advice is coming down the pike from other celebrity parents or those with political agendas or even advice from your average “Jane Parent” who always thinks she knows better anyway.

However, while Michelle prepares her girls and faces all of this advice, she must deal with those who already criticize her decision to put her girls first. Michelle is certainly an accomplished woman. A graduate of Harvard Law School, she continued on to work as an associate at a law firm and hold six board of director positions. She founded programs, she lead community outreach - she made “change” happen long before it was cool for an Obama to do so. But now, as her husband has been elected to be President, she has chosen to bring her career to a screeching halt and just be… well… a mom.

In a fascinating article written by Rebecca Traister at Salon.com, Michelle’s choices to focus on the traditional worries of a First Lady leave the author concerned. 

“…some of the most extraordinary [qualities of Michelle Obama] – the ones that set her apart from many of her predecessors in the East Wing — are already falling victim to a nostalgic complacency about familial roles, and to an apparent commitment to re-creating Camelot with an African-American cast, but little modern tweaking of the role of wife and mother.”

She argues Michelle could push the envelope and bring a more career minded feminist into the role of a first lady. She seems disappointed she has chosen to put her role as a mother and wife first and foremost, while leaving all the rest behind.

Ruth Marcus from the Washington Post discusses the ever present question that arises between married parents such as the Obamas: who will work and who will raise the children?

“The brutal reality is that, like our president-elect, most men do not wrestle quite so strenuously with these competing desires [to work or raise your family]. So when the needs of our families collide with the demands of our jobs, it is usually the woman’s career that yields.”

She implies that Michelle was not given much of a choice in this matter. When Obama was elected President, her career had to end. And there was no other choice but to make her children a priority.

But has Michelle truly failed as a feminist by focusing on her children? Is her career an utter failure because she is stepping aside from it for the meantime? Has she lost all credibility as a potentially new, modern, variety of First Lady?

According to Geraldine Brooks at The Daily Beast, she can make parenting her priority while still representing women as a powerful example.

“She is smart enough and subtle enough to have worked out that so-called Mom issues can make for meaty public policy.”

And then explains that her position as a mother in the White House will in fact bring much needed attention to women who struggle daily as they balance their careers and family.

“Work-family balance? What is that, really, but a polite way of putting the feminist agenda of equal pay and decent childcare back on the table after so many years of neglect?”

Meghan O’Rourke at Slate.com sympathises that, once again, no matter if a woman chooses either work or parenting as the priority, they will be criticized for their choice. And most of often a woman’s biggest critic is herself. She then goes on to make this final point.

“The best way Michelle Obama can act as a role model for women right now is not by making the decision any one of us would make (because we’d all make different decisions), but by reminding us that life is fleeting, and we ought to immerse ourselves in the opportunities and joys of our own life as it exists. Not as it might exist.”

And so my identification with Michelle Obama remains true. With two small children, and a mountain of advice, she must trust her instincts and raise her girls the best way she knows how.  There is no doubt in my mind that she will change the role and perceptions of the First Lady. And however she shakes things up, she has already made it unapologetically clear that she will make her girls her priority. In my mind’s eye, as a mother and brilliant leader able to remain fluid in her many roles as a woman, Michelle will make an excellent “First Feminist” indeed.

Cross posted at Type A Moms.

No more babies. At least, that’s what my husband and I have decided. It just makes sense. We aren’t young whipper snappers any longer, we both just celebrated our 35th birthdays this summer. We already have two wonderful boys that fill our lives plenty enough, thank you very much. B. and I are finally starting to dream about days without car seats, diapers, naps, and temper tantrums. Days filled with family trips and our two independent boys – and even maybe more time for just him and I. Plus babies cost money, a LOT of money. Another baby means a bigger house, a bigger car, three against two, and no booths at the restaurants. It’s still fairly realistic and affordable to travel with just two children. They can fit in the back of even compact cars (at least, for the next few years). There is no odd man out; they are each other’s best friend. And call me selfish but I’m feeling ready to do more than change diapers and push kids in strollers. Not to mention the fact that I’m too vain to get pregnant yet again (there would be no hope for the pooch then, let me tell you). Seriously, we’re good at a family of four. And how lucky we are.

But every once in awhile, I hear a small voice inside making a little racket. And as we come up to September - 6 years since I conceived my first born and 3 years since I conceived my second – I can’t help but think that THIS would be the time if we were to try for a third. Because you know what that little voice inside my head keeps whispering?

“You never had a daughter.”

I always wanted a daughter. Like so many women (women like me who are only 10 year old girls playing dress up in 35 year old clothing), I think back to the days when I planned for my daughter. I kept diaries and swore that my daughter would be able to understand that what she was feeling was what her mother went through too. I used to brush the hair of my dolls and imagine having a daughter’s hair to brush. I always loved ponytails, with the little bobble elastics, one on each side of her head, hair swinging to and fro.

I know. This sounds ridiculous. It really does. Because here’s the thing. What IS my longing for a daughter really about? Is it for giving T. and C. the little sister they always wanted? Hardly. Is it because we need more women in this world? Eh, women are cool, but that’s not why.

Having a daughter is ALL about me.

When I was first planning for a family, I wanted a little girl that I could dress up in white tights with the frills in the back over the diapers. I wanted a little girl with cute bows in her hair and fluffy dresses. I wanted a little girl so I could re-familiarize myself with the Barbie section of Toys R Us again. I wanted a little girl to go to chick flicks with. To shop with. To talk about boys and read diaries and get pedicures.

Isn’t this outrageous? But I’m on a roll, I can’t stop now.

I wanted a little girl to show my scrapbooks to because I KNOW she would care. I wanted a little girl to gab about first boyfriends and share Nancy Drew books with. I wanted a little girl so I could show her my wedding gown and maybe hope she’d even like it or maybe even (dare to dream) wear it someday. I wanted a little girl to pass on the cool hand-made Thai dresses of my mother’s, that I wore and she could wear. I wanted a little girl to explain that O.B. tampons work soooo much better than Tampax, and then be able to get her a hot cup of tea when she had cramps. I wanted a little girl who might discover the wonder and excitement of the same women’s college I went to. I wanted a little girl to call me first when she got engaged and then keep me by her side for support as she planned her wedding. I wanted a little girl that I could help with through a pregnancy and be there when she was pushing because she HAD to have me there, I would have been her best friend!

I wanted a little girl so I could see myself come back around again.

I wanted a little girl because I was selfish.

So there you have it.

And are those good enough reasons to play with the odds, try for another baby and hope for a girl? Um… you’ve got to be kidding me, a resounding: NO!

Because all of that falala and frippery I’ve listed above is NOT what parenting is about. Its what *I* wanted in a parent-child relationship. But even if I had had a girl, whose to say she would have given a rat’s ass about Barbies? And whose to say my sons won’t adore and appreciate my scrapbooks after all?

Parents so often push their dreams and hopes onto their children. Our children should do what we did. They should do it better. And then they shouldn’t do what we did at all, why haven’t they learned from our mistakes?

My sons have taught me to look for so much more in parenting. While I have a brother and I was well versed in such boy obsessions as Star Wars, fishing, and Lego’s growing up - having two sons has offered me a clean slate of sorts. I’m not a boy. I had no expectations for how mother-son relationship would go. I never pretended my dolls were boys and I honestly didn’t spend hours dressing my dolls in basic Ts and khaki shorts. Having a boy was nothing I expected and everything I should have ever hoped for.

And so, now as a parent of two boys, I have learned what parenting is really about. Not outfits, toys and lecturing to them about what I did as a child. But its rather about sleeping upright in bed with your feverish baby, its about catching your son as he leaps into the pool, its about hearing him love to read, its about the same turkey sandwich everyday and demands of “snuggews (snuggles) on the couwk(couch)”. And love, this endless reserve of  it; no matter what their choices, I’ve got their back. Heck, one of them could decide he DOES want to wear those cute stockings with the ruffles after all. Knock yourself out, kid. Whatever you want to do.

But I would publicly like to warn my sons now. Someday, a long long time from now in a galaxy far far away, if they do chose to marry and do chose to have a family and if one of those grandchildren of mine is a girl… oh, heads up. The scrapbooks, the diaries, and those hand-made Thai dresses will be resurrected out of moth balls and thrust upon that sweet little girl. The poor thing. Just you wait and see.