Tag: Michelle Obama

Job Number One

~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment
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Michelle Obama

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day. According to Wikipedia, this is “is a celebration honoring the mother of the family, as well as motherhood, maternal bonds, and the influence of mothers in society.” That Mother’s Day is upon us is no doubt a significant part of the reason why there have been a number of reports in recent days about comments Michelle Obama makes in the Netflix documentary “Becoming” about being a mother.

Peter Debruge’s article for Variety begins by pointing out that while the official White House web site has biographies of the first ladies, and many begin with “some variation on the phrase ‘So-and-So was the wife of President Such-and-Such,’” Michelle Obama’s entry begins, “Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama is a lawyer, writer, and the wife of the 44th President, Barack Obama.” That is noteworthy, Debruge writes: “Lawyer first, writer second and then wife.”

It is interesting that Debruge highlights that, because if you look at the full White House biography, the second paragraph begins, “When people ask Michelle Obama to describe herself, she doesn’t hesitate to say that first and foremost, she is Malia and Sasha’s mom.” That the appearance of Obama’s daughters comes so early in her biography is also notable. The biography of Melania Trump, for example, does not mention until paragraph five that “she is first and foremost a mother and wife.” The biography of Hillary Clinton does not mention daughter Chelsea until the seventh paragraph and the biography of Laura Bush does not mention her twin daughters Jenna and Barbara until the last paragraph.

Why am I beginning a post on motherhood by examining Michelle Obama’s White House biography? Precisely because, as I said in the first paragraph, Obama made comments about motherhood in the Netflix documentary that are unsettling to some.

Writing earlier this week for The Western Journal, Carmine Sabia began an article, “It is astounding how members of the Democratic Party openly discuss the miracle of giving birth as if it were a disease.” I do not necessarily disagree with that statement in principle; there have been plenty of notable instances of denigrating motherhood and celebrating abortion. But Sabia, and Joshua Caplan in an article on Breitbart the day before, both fixated on the fact that Obama says during the documentary that she gave up some of her own aspirations and dreams to become a mother.

“My relationship with Barack was all about our equal partnership,” Obama says. “If I was going to have a unique voice with this very opinionated man, I had to get myself up and set myself off to a place where I was going to be his equal.” No real surprise there; we all know that Michelle Obama was a Harvard-educated attorney. But she goes on to say, “The thing that really changed it was the birth of our children. I wasn’t really ready for that. That really made it harder. Something had to give and it was my aspirations and dreams.”

Sabia and Caplan both make this the emphasis. Michelle Obama is saying that motherhood cost her her aspirations and dreams! “Imagine being Sasha and Malia Obama — two accomplished, beautiful young ladies who just learned that they ruined their mother’s life,” Sabia writes. “Imagine the pain of hearing those words, to know that your life was a ‘concession’ that caused your mother to ‘tone down’ her aspirations.”

Sadly, I think Sabia and Caplan both miss the point in their effort to denigrate Obama and Democrats in general. She also says in the documentary, “I made that concession not because he [Barack Obama] said ‘you have to quit your job,’ but it felt like ‘I can’t do all of this so I have to tone down my aspirations, I have to dial it back.” That is a stark and worthy contrast to what Michelle Williams said when in her acceptance speech at the Golden Globes in January. “I wouldn’t have been able to do this without employing a woman’s right to choose, to choose when to have my children and with whom,” she said. That is a deeply troubling statement. Williams was publicly celebrating the fact that she ended the life of her unborn child in order to pursue her own dreams and to achieve success in her chosen profession. Obama acknowledged that in choosing motherhood she also chose to forego some of the other things she might have done without having children or without choosing to be a devoted mother.

That is really what motherhood is, though. Every mother could do something different with her life if she did not have children. Caitlin Weaver wrote an article in February 2019 entitled “The Inconvenience of Motherhood.” Weaver’s thoughts are honest reflections on what it costs to be a mother. “I seesawed wildly back and forth about having kids,” she wrote on the day her son turned one. “Even while actively trying to get pregnant, all I could think about were the sacrifices ahead.” She goes on, however, to say this:

Far from robbing me of my identity, motherhood has brought it into sharper focus.

I have never been clearer about the things I value. I worried that as a mother I wouldn’t have time for the long list of things I thought made me me. As it turns out, I didn’t. Motherhood, however, has made me ruthlessly honest about how many of those were things that truly brought me joy….

Motherhood has a way of changing what is important, Weaver admits. “So yes, there have been sacrifices. Along the way, though, life sneakily reprioritized itself so that the changes I feared don’t feel so important after all. I do love my child more than I ever thought possible, and it is an honor to be his mother.”  I find Weaver’s comments to be refreshingly honest. She is well aware of the things that she gave up to become a mother and she finds that being a mother is worth far more than what she could have done instead. Indeed, she has come to a place where she wonders how much time she was wasting on things that did not—and do not—matter. In thinking back to the minutes she “squandered pre-children” Weaver wonders, “How is it that I didn’t train for an Iron Man, cure cancer, and write a heavily footnoted historical novel?” I am not sure, of course, but I think it is fair to say that she would not now give up being a mother in order to do any of those things. Could Michelle Obama have won dozens or court cases, been a successful politician herself, or written more best-selling books had she not become a mother? Who knows. Probably. But I do not think that she would give up Sasha and Malia to do that.

In fact, I think just the opposite. Last July, when Megan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, had a baby, USA Today ran an article highlighting Obama’s “best quotes on motherhood.” Obama told Markle, “When Malia and Sasha were newborns, Barack and I could lose hours just watching them sleep. We loved to listen to the little sounds they’d make – especially the way they cooed when they were deep into dreaming.” I do not know of a parent who cannot remember the sheer pleasure of watching a newborn sleeping. “Savor it all,” Obama said.

In a 2015 commencement address at Tuskegee University Obama said,

I love our daughters more than anything in the world ― more than life itself. And while that may not be the first thing that some folks want to hear from an Ivy-league-educated lawyer, it is truly who I am. So for me, being Mom-in-Chief is, and always will be, job number one.

That does not sound like a mother who resents the sacrifices that she made or the aspirations that she gave up to become a mother. Far from criticizing her honesty, then, let’s express admiration and appreciation to Michelle Obama for the choice that she made to be a mother. We do not have to agree with everything that she has done or said or everything that she stands for. We do not even have to like her. But she made the conscious choice to put her own aspirations aside in order to be a mother.

Whether they have ever said it so clearly or bluntly as Michelle Obama, every mother made a similar decision. And every one of us who is alive owes our lives to mothers who made that decision. So, thank you, Mrs. Obama. And Happy Mother’s Day.

 

Photo credit: EPG_EuroPhotoGraphics / Shutterstock.com

The 800-pound gorilla

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At the end of November WORLD published an article that includes lots of contributors. Marvin and Susan Olasky got the byline, but the piece included contributions from Katlyn Babyak, Onize Ohikere, Abby Reese, Jae Wasson and Evan Wilt. The article took up six full pages of the November 28 issue and was also the inspiration for the cover, featuring a plump Uncle Sam in an apron offering broccoli to a young man who seemed less than thrilled. The cover headline was “Fat Chance: What Happens When Washington Says ‘Eat Your Vegetables?'” The article title was “Fat of the Land: How a healthy idea became a bloated bureaucracy.” What was all this about then? About the obesity epidemic in America in general, about the child obesity rate particularly and about Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign and resulting overhaul of federal guidelines for student lunches.

The article highlighted some unique programs around the country that teach children how to eat healthy, that teach children to grow vegetables, that help overweight children (and adults) shed pounds and more. Some of the programs are impressive, while others sound almost too good to be true. After all, I struggle to imagine any environment in which a bunch of young elementary school students actually enjoy (or even actually eat) a lunch of steamed edamame, beef and brown rice pilaf, and oranges. At least half of the article though was devoted to Mrs. Obama’s crusade. The article touted good things she has done, including her willingness to do whatever necessary to promote healthy eating and exercise. She has, the article states, “danced and push-upped her way across television talk shows. She charmed kids by making a video in which she boogied with a turnip. She donned gardening gloves and tilled the White House kitchen garden.” All of those things are indeed impressive. Given that Mrs. Obama is the youngest First Lady the U.S. has had since Jacqueline Kennedy, it has been encouraging to see her engage in activities other First Ladies could not have done. (For the record, Hillary Clinton was only 83 days older than Michelle Obama when her tenure as First Lady began, but I do not think I am alone when I say that I cannot really imagine Mrs. Clinton doing anything mentioned above for public view).

The article does a good job of also highlighting the downside to Mrs. Obama’s crusade, including the resulting public school lunches that most students do not enjoy or even eat, the bureaucratic growth stimulated by so many new federal guidelines ans recommendations and the government overreach that comes when the government institutes a goal of average fruit consumption among students reaching 100% of the recommended level by 2030. Of course, trying to find ways to reach unobtainable goals calls for some creativity and guideline restructuring, such as the USDA’s decision in July to allow vegetables in smoothies to count toward the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act’s mandate a 150% increase in fruits and vegetables in school meals. Somehow I suspect I am not the first one to think of the ballyhooed inclusion of ketchup as a vegetable in the 1980s (even though pickle relish is what was actually recommended, not ketchup). Another part of the problem, of course, is the waste that results when students are served foods they won’t eat. I do not disagree that children need to be fed healthy foods and that they need to learn to eat and enjoy them in order to have a balanced diet, but I question the wisdom of making that the responsibility of the government.

That leads to the 800-pound gorilla in the title, which is alluded to in the article’s conclusion and is the real inspiration for this post. After referencing the many studies that attempt to diagnose why there are so many obese individuals in the United States the article states the following: “[A]mong the outpouring of papers and studies on why some adults and even some kids weigh more than 300 pounds, no one seems to be scrutinizing the 800-pound gorilla in the room: fewer families with married moms and dads in the home, and more families with mothers who come home from full-time work exhausted. Few things are more politically incorrect than to speculate on the connection between family and fat, yet until we do that we’re driving blind.” This is crucial–and I extend kudos to Olasky, et. al. for addressing it in their article. Of course there are plenty of two-parent families that do not eat well, but single-parent and two-working-parent families are more likely to eat processed, packaged and unhealthy foods I would bet. I dare say, too, that two-parent families with children whose schedules are slammed with school, practice, rehearsal, club and whatever-else, constantly scurrying from one activity to another, are more likely than children with well-balanced schedules to eat unbalanced meals.

To his credit, Mike Huckabee has raised the issue (healthy eating and its connectedness to many of the other problems and potential problems facing our country) in both his current presidential campaign and his unsuccessful 2008 run. Few journalists seem to take notice, few debate moderators seem to care and few other politicians seem to have any interest in the subject. That’s fine, I suppose, because there are myriad other important issues for presidential candidates to address and, as I mentioned above, solving this problem is not the bailiwick of the federal government. What is important though, and the point that Olasky is making, is that there are many ramifications and repercussions to family disintegration that we do not think about when we get used to no-fault divorces, single-parent families and other iterations of the family that vary from the way family was intended to function. Likewise important, and the point that Huckabee is making, is that when we do not consume a healthy diet, it is more than our waistlines that suffer. The law of unintended consequences is alive and well and we can find prime examples of it every day if we just look around. As we enter the thick of campaign season this is good to keep in mind as we listen to the promises and claims of those vying to get our votes.

It is also, of course, a great reminder that it would behoove us all to eat a good meal tonight–a home-cooked one, ideally without any processed food and with the entire family sitting around the table.

Follow Up to “I Rest My Case”

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Two entries ago I said I was beginning a series of posts about education, and it is still my intention to get back to that ASAP. With all of the shenanigans going on with the shutdown of the federal government, though, I had to speak up on that. And even though I said at the end of that post that I was resting my case, I need to add just a few more thoughts.

Numerous examples have emerged over the weekend of additional ridiculous moves by the Obama administration to make the shutdown as public and as painful as necessary. One example is the Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Nevada and Arizona. The Henderson Press reported on the closing, including the fact that in addition to the closing of the “visitor center, campgrounds, marinas, trails and launch ramps” the folks who own property within the park are also being evicted and are barred from entering their personal property only to retrieve belongings. “Those with personal property within the park, such as boats, trailers or cabins, will be allowed access into the park to either remove their vessels or trailers or to remove belongings from their property,” the Henderson Press reported. Las Vegas station KTNV also reported on the Lake Mead closing, specifically spotlighting Ralph and Joyce Spencer. The Spencers, age 80 and 77 respectively, have owned their home since the 1970’s but the home sits on federal land. Thus, “even though the Spencers own their cabin outright, they’re not allowed in until the government reopens.” Now, according to the report, “The Lake Mead properties are considered vacation homes; one of the lease requirements to own a plot is people must have an alternative residence.” Be that as it may, the shutdown of the federal government cannot be used to justify evicting people from their own property.

The Independent Journal Review, the Washington Post and other news sites also reported that the Department of Justice web site that provides information on the AMBER Alerts was shut down, too. Now the alerts themselves were still operation, but the information DOJ web site was shut down. As of this morning that site is fully operational again, leading me to believe that the outcry over shutting down a web site specifically designed to provide information about kidnapped children was effective. Nice to know the elected officials listen once in a while! However, a service designed to assist protect the lives of abducted children should never have been allowed to be used for political purposes.

Interestingly–as pointed our by several other news sites–First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” web site was never shut down. Now the most recent post on the site’s blog was posted on September 30, so perhaps the site is not being updated, but that fact that it has remained up and operational while so many other government web sites have been shut down speaks volumes on its own. At the site is a government site; its address is http://www.letsmove.gov. As the IJ Review story stated, “Apparently, in the mixed up world of Team Obama’s priorities, continuing to tell America’s kids what to eat and how to exercise is ‘essential’ – while helping to locate missing children who may be in grave danger is not. Go figure.”

You may also have seen the wide-spread story over the weekend that the government is shutting down eleven hundred miles of ocean. Yep, you read that right…the government is shutting down the ocean…specifically, Florida Bay. Charter boat captains who make their living taking folks out into the bay to fish or enjoy the water cannot do so until the government reopens, and there are rangers on duty to enforce the ban. As with so many other examples already mentioned, enforcing the shutdown is going to cost more than allowing normal activities to continue would ever have cost!

Now, in the midst of all of this an anonymous employee of the National Park Service has reportedly stated this: “We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting.” Now, I do not know the name of the ranger who purportedly said this, nor can I verify its accuracy. All I know is that it has been widely reported. And if this statement is true–if the NPS has issued such instructions to its personnel, it is violating the law. If President Obama has given that order, or sanctioned it, he should be impeached. And I will not make a long, drawn out explanation as to why. Instead, I will present it very simply, in four easy steps:

One, the Preamble to the United States Constitution reads, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” (The unusual capitalization and spelling of “defense” comes directly from the original text, which you are welcome to read for yourself on the National Archives web site which is, oddly enough, still operating).

Two, the presidential oath of office, according to Article II of the Constitution, is, “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” (The ending “so help me God” is not in the Constitution, but was added by George Washington and has been added ever since).

Three, Section 4 of Article II of the Constitution reads, “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

Four, there is simply no way to convincingly argue that shutting down open air monuments, evicting people from their privately-owned homes and other examples outlined above and in the previous post are promoting the general welfare or ensuring domestic tranquility. Since they are not, President Obama is not faithfully executing the duties of his office nor is he preserving, protecting or defending the Constitution. Therefore, per the Constitution, he should be impeached, for there can be no higher crime a president of United States could commit than to knowingly and willingly violate the Constitution.

Cookie Cutters

~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment

It’s interesting to me that the same government that has thus far permitted and/or encouraged pro-choice positions on such fundamentally moral issues as abortion and homosexual marriage seeks to deny choice in so many other areas. For example, there are pushes to seriously restrict gun ownership, there are efforts to muzzle the discussion of positions other than evolution in school textbooks and science courses and, yes, there is now a law prohibiting the sale of sugary treats and high calorie drinks in school cafeterias and vending machines.

The new guidelines were announced in June. The U.S. Department of Agriculture program is entitled “Smart Snacks in Schools” and will eliminate candy and sugary drinks from school vending machines and a la carte menus as soon as next year. In fact, to quote a report from the Dallas News, the new guidelines will establish “fat, calorie, sugar and sodium limits on almost everything sold during the school day, even outside of the cafeteria.” The executive director of the food and nutrition services for the Dallas school district said that while the changes will be difficult, they are “in the best interest of…students.” She went on to say that the new rules force schools to provide “healthier options.” The reality, though, is that that is not really true. See, “options” presupposes that the schools will offer healthy snack items as well as the more “traditional” snacks that the new guidelines ban. But when the “healthier options” are the only choices, they are not, in fact, “options.”

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack used similar language in his statement regarding the guidelines, saying, “Parents and schools work hard to give our youngsters the opportunity to grow up healthy and strong, and providing healthy options through school cafeterias, vending machines and snack bars will support their great efforts.” Again, though, Mr. Secretary, when choices are eliminated, “options” are not what remains.

An article in the New York Times reports, “When schools open in the fall of 2014, vending machines will have to be stocked with things like whole wheat crackers, granola bars and dried fruits, instead of M&Ms, Cheese Nips and gummy bears.” I am not opposed to having things like whole wheat crackers and granola bars in school vending machines; I think that is a great idea. I would wholeheartedly support the encouragement–perhaps even the requirement–that such options be made available (though I would prefer–and be much more likely to support–such requirements being made at the local level than coming down from on high). What riles me is both the “government knows best” attitude that is inherent in these new guidelines and the blatant inconsistency in the government’s position in this area as opposed to others.

The Times article also quotes Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. She said, “By teaching and modeling healthy eating habits to children in school, these rules will encourage better eating habits over a lifetime. They mean we aren’t teaching nutrition in the classroom and then undercutting what we’re teaching when kids eat in the cafeteria or buy food from the school vending machines.” I love her use of the word modeling, because that is a word I use often in emphasizing the responsibility that teachers have in working with students; particularly in a Christian school, there should not be a disconnect between what we say and what we do. But eliminating choice is not modeling anything other than the idea that the government needs to make this decision for schools, parents and students because they are not capable of making the right decisions on their own. And again, if we buy into the idea that we should create environments that force people to live according to what we believe is ideal, we will soon live in a country with little or no freedom. And do not forget–anytime there is a decision about what is best, someone has to be making that decision. Who do you really want deciding what is best for you or for your child? Michelle Obama? Tom Vilsack? The food services director at your child’s school? Or you, the parent?

The Times article reports, “Health advocates are taking the same approach to curb the consumption of fatty, sugary and salty foods that they did to reduce smoking: educating children in the hopes that they will grow up healthier and perhaps pass along healthy eating behavior to their parents.” Interesting comparison, because I do not recall anyone banning the sale of cigarettes in order to curtail smoking. Sure, cigarettes were not sold in schools, and there have been laws passed regarding when and how cigarettes can be marketed in order to ensure that they are not being advertised to children, but the sale of cigarettes has never been banned. If health advocates were truly taking the same approach then they would realize that (1) the change they are trying to effect takes time, and (2) it comes ultimately as a result of education and personal choice. Is cigarette use down in the United States? Yes. Is it down because anyone was prohibited from smoking? No.

“Ms. Wootan said she was pleased that the rules would prevent the sale of sugary sports drinks like Gatorade in high schools. The drinks have already been withdrawn from elementary and middle schools, but Ms. Wootan said teenagers mistakenly think such drinks are healthier than sodas,” the Times reports. Okay; assume her point is valid. Correcting this “mistaken thinking” should be accomplished through providing the facts and educating the teenagers who are mistaken, not by eliminating their choice. And the fact that the drinks have already been eliminated at the elementary and middle school levels but are popular among high schoolers serves only to demonstrate that the elimination of the choice does not ultimately inform or change behavior, since today’s high school students were, necessarily, yesterday’s elementary and middle school students. If banning such drinks from the lower schools accomplished the goal, the high schoolers would avoid these drinks even once they were available (which they don’t) and if they did that, the schools would stop selling them since they would sit unsold in the vending machines until they expired. Imagine that–a free market system at work!

All of this comes from the fact that the U.S. has a high rate of childhood obesity, and the powers that be feel that it is the rightful role and responsibility of the government to fix that. Given that the government seems incapable of fixing much more serious problems that are most definitely its bailiwick, I question this logic. But put that doubt aside. Is there an obesity epidemic in the U.S.? Based on the numbers I have seen, there is legitimate cause for concern. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, obesity has more than doubled in children and more than tripled in teenagers in the last thirty years. In 2010, more than one-third of children and teens were classified as overweight or obese.

But what causes obesity? The CDC reports, “Overweight and obesity are the result of ‘caloric imbalance’–too few calories expended for the amount of calories consumed—and are affected by various genetic, behavioral, and environmental factors.” And therein, my friends, lies the problem. Notice that the CDC does not say that obesity results from too many Snickers bars in school vending machines or too many Powerades being consumed by high school students. Rather, the problem comes when students are continually taking calories in and never burning them. So the problem is not what the students are eating nearly so much as it is what they are doing–or, perhaps more accurately, not doing. When students spend their free time sitting around texting, surfing the Internet and playing video games they are not burning many calories. A much better solution to the problem would be to get students to be more active. Should they eat healthy? Sure. But banning cookies from the cafeteria is not going to accomplish that by itself.

The school where I serve is not subject to all of the federal guidelines for school lunches because we are a non-public school and we do not take any government funding. We have vending machines that sell sodas and sports drinks. Our cafeteria serves healthy meals but it also serves dessert. We have water fountains and we have a salad bar. In other words, we actually offer choices. And students in our cafeteria can even–brace yourself–have seconds if they want! But guess what? Though I have never measured it, I think I can safely state that the rate of students who are overweight or obese at our school is far lower than the national norm.

You know what that means, right? Yep… Eliminating choices won’t solve the problem.