Michelle Obama covers the December issue of Elle to promote her memoir, Becoming. I’m sure we’re going to be inundated with details from the book for weeks, but so far, I haven’t really found any of the excerpts or details particularly scandalous. I mean, is it scandalous that Trump disgusts her? No. Is it controversial that she hated being a lawyer? Nah. Anyway, Oprah conducted this Elle interview, which just drives the point home: Michelle’s memoir is absolutely Oprah-approved. If Oprah still had her talk show, Michelle’s book would be front and center and there would be multiple on-camera interviews. The whole piece was very interesting – you can read it here. Some highlights:
How & why she keeps it real: “I think it starts because I like me. I like my story and all the bumps and bruises. That’s what makes me uniquely me. So I’ve always been open with my staff, with young people, with my friends. And the other thing, Oprah: I know that whether we like it or not, Barack and I are role models. I hate when people who are in the public eye—and even seek the public eye—want to step back and say, “Well, I’m not a role model. I don’t want that responsibility.” Too late. You are. Young people are looking at you. And I don’t want young people to look at me here and now and think, Well, she never had it rough. She never had challenges, she never had fears.
She hated being a lawyer: “Oh God, yeah. Sorry, lawyers…It took a lot to be able to say that out loud to myself. In the book, I take you on the journey of who that little striving star-getter became, which is what a lot of hard-driving kids become: a box checker. Get good grades: check. Apply to the best schools, get into Princeton: check. Get there, what’s your major? Uh, something that’s going to get me good grades so I can get into law school, I guess? Check. Get through law school: check. I wasn’t a swerver. I wasn’t somebody that was going to take risks. I narrowed myself to being this thing I thought I should be. It took losses in my life that made me think, Have you ever stopped to think about who you wanted to be? I had not. I was sitting on the 47th floor of an office building, going over cases and writing memos.
When Barack Obama wasn’t there, day-to-day, in the early days of their marriage: “I was mad. When you get married and have kids, your whole plan, once again, gets upended. Especially if you get married to somebody who has a career that swallows up everything, which is what politics is. Barack Obama taught me how to swerve. But his swerving sort of—you know, I’m flailing in the wind. And now I’ve got two kids, and I’m trying to hold everything down while he’s traveling back and forth from Washington or Springfield…. He’s a plate spinner—plates on sticks, and it’s not exciting unless one’s about to fall. So there was work we had to do as a couple. Counseling we had to do to work through this stuff.
Feeling vulnerable when Barack was away: “I feel vulnerable all the time. And I had to learn how to express that to my husband, to tap into those parts of me that missed him—and the sadness that came from that—so that he could understand. He didn’t understand distance in the same way. You know, he grew up without his mother in his life for most of his years, and he knew his mother loved him dearly, right? I always thought love was up close. Love is the dinner table, love is consistency, it is presence. So I had to share my vulnerability and also learn to love differently. It was an important part of my journey of becoming. Understanding how to become us.
There’s a really sweet and touching section where she talks about her first day, post-White House, on her own in their new Washington home. She talked about how she had forgotten how to do some things for herself, so she decided to make herself some cheese toast and sit outside with the dogs. Sunny and Bo apparently got a little bit freaked out when they heard neighbor dogs, because they too had been in the White House bubble for years. Anyway, I do appreciate how real Michelle is about how she and Barack aren’t all cutesy and how everything wasn’t always perfect. She had to work on herself to figure out what she wanted, and that took professional help from a counselor. Nobody’s perfect, not even Barack and Michelle!! (although let’s be real, they’re as close to perfect as we’ll ever get.)
Photos courtesy of Elle Magazine.
I think it’s great that she’s talking so openly about how they need professional help sometimes, even though they’re a wonderful, loving couple who has been married for a long time. I think there’s this perception that you don’t go to counseling unless there’s something deeply wrong, and that shouldn’t be the case. It’s about doing maintenance to keep things running smooth, whether its for yourself or couples counseling.
Every time I hear her speak, I’m reminded of how good we have it, and look at what we’ve got now…
I do a lot of driving back and forth to my partner every other weekend and I’ve been saving her audiobook for when I need a treat. She makes me proud to be from Chicago!
Are you in an LDR? I, too, have to drive back and forth to see my husband each weekend. We work in different cities right now, though it’s hopefully just for a few months.
Anyway, I’m always looking for good podcasts or audiobooks if you have any recs.
60 minutes’ Steve Croft did a really great interview with the Obamas during his first presidential run and it was delightful. There were scenes with the girls who were adorable and completely unspoiled. Michelle talked about some of her struggles with not having the traditional husband at home all the time. She’s always been open and real and her own person.
Maybe a Capricorn thing? I know it’s silly, but I’m a Capricorn & I have a really hard time opening up to anyone, especially intimately, and also being seen as weak or vulnerable.
Maybe not? 🤷🏽♀️
Me too!
@L
OMG, me too! I actually never related it to being a Capricorn but you could be on to something…
I bought this book for our kindles before Mom flew back home to give her something to read.
We’re going on a weeklong cruise next weekend for my birthday and I can’t wait to have the time to read this!
That sounds wonderful!
It’s beautiful that they made the effort to understand how their perceptions of closeness and being there for one another differed. So many couples don’t make that effort to understand and fall apart as a result.
The book is wonderful. Michelle Obama is a terrific example of all a first lady can be (cough* cough*).
This is really nit picky, but in that wonderful first photo with the white dress with leather bustier, it looks like possibly they’ve photoshopped her waist to make it look smaller. Which would be unfortunate.
I’ve always thought Michelle Obama is a great example of someone who is not stick thin, but strong and rockin’ what she has.
I am petty. My favourite part of the Elle pictorial is that it features FLOTUS # 44 … how many fashion mag covers has FLOTUS #45 had?
Yes, I am petty.
The only one Melania has had was when she was on the cover of Vogue wearing wearing her hideous over the top wedding dress right around the time she married -45.
I love these photos! She is one gorgeous woman. Dear Lord, how I miss being proud of our first family.
What she says rings so true. The part about children upending her plans – children upend so many women’s plans. They’re wonderful, and deserve to be wanted, but they do still tend to upend for women more than they do for men. Yet our plans (outside of parenthood) matter just as much for us as they do for men, and it’s difficult and I’m glad she says she was mad, because when it happened to me, I was mad too. If Michelle can say it, so can I.
Those shoes look super-uncomfortable.
Oprah interviewed her on her most recent podcast episode.
Now people recognize their genius. The abuse Barack and Lady O took for 8 years was abominable! Now she deserves ever bit of her shine and her coin!
I shouldn’t gush, but I admire her so much. She’s just. . . wonderful, warm, generous, wise & real. . Real above all. I’m loving that we get to hear so much from her in this promo time.