Michelle Obama and "just a mom"

I heard one more comment today about Michelle Obama and her "mom in chief" statement - her plans to be focused more on the girls than anything else right now. So many people - democrats! - are talking about her either selling out, Barack's "poor" view of women for making her take this role, the bad example she's showing young girls by giving up her own practice to "just be a mom", the sexism that is still "clearly" given in this.

Really?

I thought we could move beyond all that. At least that's what I try and tell myself when I see my friends defending their decisions to "just be a mom" and not have to "work." When did it become mandatory for a mom to go outside her own home to find an outside job? Like child-rearing isn't the hardest job on earth? ESPECIALLY if you're doing it right.

Yes, Michelle is an accomplished woman with more than a small ability to go do good works and make a statement in the business, medical and/or political world. But to villify her as backwards or not enough of a feminist in making the decision to focus on her children for the time being?

I wonder if these will be the same people to villify her if she chose to start up a practice and then "ignored" her kids.

It is arrogance to think we can choose the best way for another family to raise their children, and the people who think Barack is making his wife stay home should say that to Michelle's face, and see whether she thinks Barack is "making" her do anything.

I didn't really like the movie "Mona Lisa Smile" except for one big point they made in it. Through the whole movie, Julia Roberts is challenging these smart young women to become more than just a trophy wife. For the most part, she succeeds in making several of them choose careers, not settle for a husband who treats them bad, etc. But one woman, who gets into law school, chooses to start a family and stay home with them. When Roberts tries to talk her into going one last time, thinking she's throwing her life away, the girl reminds her that she taught them they could be anything they wanted to be. This should include "just being a mom."

I worked in child care with low-income families for several years. Many, many of the parents - mom or dad - would give their right arm to not have to get an outside job, and instead focus on their children. Study after study comes out that says the child is best off if at least one parent can stay home with them. So why is it such a horrible, anti-feminist thing for Michelle to focus on being "Mom-in-Chief", as she says?

I think between being "just" a mom, and being a lawyer, she chose the more difficult one. I want to send her a congratulations for choosing her children. I would love it if more families chose this route, and would love it even more if more families were able to choose this route. Hopefully, we will soon live in a society where both parents don't have to get outside jobs. They can choose to get an outside job, or choose to stay home, but aren't forced into either.

And though this goes into the realm of judging another family's child rearing choices, can you imagine what those two girls are going to have to deal with for the next four to eight years? I moved a lot when I was little, and that is life changing for a child in itself. But to move into the biggest, brightest spotlight in the world, where you better do good in school lest your "F" on a spelling test be plastered on the Internet, where the choice of your family pet is front page news around the world, and you have a bunch of new black-suited "friends" whose job it is to keep you from neo-Nazis and KKK who want to kill you and your family? I commend Michelle for wanting to see them a bit settled in.

For that matter, I commend both Barack and Michelle - my guess is neither of them makes all the decisions, and it is unfair to think Michelle got "told" what to do. I just needed to hear one interview of hers to know this is not a woman who gets told to do anything.

Picture from the Daily Mail.