From the time she was a small child, Michelle Obama's parents taught her the importance of speaking up and telling her own story in her authentic voice—reconciling her past, present, and future and feeling proud of it all. As first lady of the United States, Michelle passed on this advice to thousands of young people, and she hopes that by sharing her own life’s narrative, she can inspire others.
As her memoir begins, Michelle has recently left the White House after eight years as first lady from January 2009 to January 2017. Along with her husband, former President Barack Obama, and their two daughters, Malia and Sasha, she has moved into a suburban home not far from the White House. For the first time in many years, Michelle finds herself alone with her thoughts in a quiet house.
Each member of the Obama family is transitioning into new chapters of their lives. Barack is exploring career opportunities for his post-Presidential years. The Obama children are entering adulthood—Malia, the older daughter, is taking a gap year before starting college at Harvard University, and Sasha will finish high school in another two years. Michelle is free from the constraints of her highly public life as first lady. Simultaneously, her duties and responsibilities as a mother have diminished.
Michelle describes the simple pleasures she can now enjoy, which she didn't have while living in the White House: She can go outside and play in the yard with her dogs without the Secret Service asking where she is going. She can open her bedroom windows and let in fresh air whenever she pleases. She can make her own cheese toast without the kitchen staff rushing in to help.
Even though a cadre of Secret Service agents is holed up in the Obamas' garage command post—and agents will accompany the family for the rest of their lives—Michelle cherishes her newfound freedom and quiet time. This is her opportunity to reflect and write her life story.
Eight themes weave through Michelle’s memoir:
Michelle is a woman who is perpetually striving to become a better version of herself. Through the process of “becoming,” she learns to adapt to her changing circumstances and not get stuck holding fast to the same identity or set of beliefs. She learns to grow and change in pursuit of the person she’d like to become.
Michelle discovers that personal growth has no finish line; there’s no moment in time when she’s done evolving. “Becoming” is an ongoing process of self-creation. It requires understanding there’s always more work to be done.
Michelle’s early years didn’t allow for this kind of flexibility. As a child, she focused on doing the “right” thing to please her teachers and family. She wanted only to make a good impression and earn others’ praise and admiration: She strived for straight A’s and perfect attendance in school. She told adults she wanted to be a pediatrician when she grew up because they seemed pleased by that answer. She didn’t think about what her passions were or what she wanted from her life.
Michelle followed a precise and predetermined path of “checking off boxes”—earning top honors in elementary and high school, getting admitted to top-notch universities, climbing the corporate ladder at a high-profile law firm. She never stopped to consider whether any of it made her happy. When her free-spirited college friend died from cancer at age 26, Michelle had a wake-up call. She realized she didn’t want the life she had worked so hard to achieve. She had to muster the courage to veer off the path she'd followed for years and find her path into a more meaningful future.
Despite her mother’s objections, Michelle quit her job and took a much lower paying position in the Chicago mayor’s office. She calls this “finding the courage to swerve.” She was moving closer to living her own true story, not simply living up to others’ expectations.
Michelle learned to swerve again after Barack became an important figure in her life. His passion for working to build a better world encouraged her to seek out more fulfilling work in the nonprofit sector. She wound up holding a series of civic-minded positions that were far more enriching than her law career.
But what she loved most about Barack—his idealism and desire to help people and change the world—also challenged her vision of how her life should be. Michelle wanted a private family life like the one she grew up in—days filled with simple routines and the whole family sitting down to the dinner table every night. She knew that life with Barack meant a life in the political arena, which meant chaotic schedules, the glare of the media spotlight, and never-ending public scrutiny.
Despite Michelle’s misgivings about political life, she loved Barack, so she gave up her predetermined ideas about what her life should look like. She evolved as a partner to Barack and as a person—she campaigned for him when he ran for Senate and for two terms as President. Ultimately she became one of the most popular first ladies in American history.
Once her time in the White House ended, Michelle had to begin the process of “becoming” all over again. Leaving behind her role in politics and with two daughters nearing adulthood, it was up to Michelle to recreate herself and adapt to her new reality.
Through her parents' encouragement and her own hard work, Michelle rose above her circumstances. She grew up in South Shore, a working-class Chicago neighborhood. She, her brother, and parents shared a one-bedroom apartment that the family rented from her mother’s aunt. Her father worked for the city water department and suffered from multiple sclerosis.
Michelle studied diligently in public school and later graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School. She held high-powered jobs as a corporate lawyer, city manager, nonprofit director, and hospital vice president. While striving to give her best effort to each position, she helped her husband Barack campaign to become a U.S. Senator and later, U.S. President, and she raised two young daughters.
As first lady, Michelle lived a life of opulence beyond her wildest childhood dreams. She and her family lived in the 132-room White House with world-class chefs cooking their meals and staff members attending to their every need, including an in-house florist who noted what flowers they liked or didn’t like.
But Michelle never forgot her humble beginnings. She did not permit herself or her daughters to be spoiled by their privilege. She demanded even more of herself as first lady, pushing through four major initiatives during her time in the White House.
Michelle began learning about racial discrimination early in life. She grew up in a racially mixed neighborhood where children played together regardless of skin color. But she soon encountered racial discrimination when a police officer stopped her brother Craig while he was out riding his new bike. The officer assumed that since this young Black boy’s bike was shiny and new, he must have stolen it.
Michelle also learned about racial discrimination from the elders in her family. Her grandfather, like many of the men of his generation, couldn't get a union card because he was Black, so he had to take a non-union job as a postal worker. He felt bitter about never having the career opportunities he hoped he would have.
At 10 years old, Michelle learned that discrimination can be a two-sided coin. Michelle's parents had always insisted that she and her brother speak formal English without any slang words. One day, one of her cousins asked her why she talked “like a white girl." The cousin believed that Michelle was denying her Black culture by speaking with proper diction.
A few years later, her family visited some Black friends who had moved to a white community in the suburbs. While they were there, someone vandalized Michelle’s father's treasured Buick Electra, which was parked on the street. Her family never knew who did it, but her mother assumed the neighbors wanted to discourage more Black people from moving in.
When Michelle turned 17 and headed off to Princeton, for the first time in her life she found herself to be the only black woman in the classroom. She had to muster the courage to speak up in class despite the difference in her skin color and gender.
Michelle's experiences taught her to remain optimistic and not let setbacks steer her off course. Her father served as a role model, never complaining about his disability caused by multiple sclerosis. He simply accepted his condition and did his best to ignore it.
Her parents modeled optimism in the way they believed education could bring their children a better life. And when Michelle's high school guidance counselor told her that she wasn’t "Princeton material," Michelle ignored her, applied to the college, and got accepted.
In her eight years as first lady, Michelle met hundreds of highly accomplished people, many of whom told a story similar to hers: Someone in their young years doubted their ability to succeed at their goals. The naysayers, critics, and doubters are always standing at the door, but the most successful people learn to push right past them.
The people whom Michelle admires most remain optimistic in the face of great struggles. First, there’s Barack, who firmly believes that people can work toward creating a better society. But she names many other models of hope and inspiration, including Nelson Mandela, whom she met on a trip to South Africa, and the wounded warriors at Walter Reed Hospital, who inspired her with their resiliency.
Michelle notes that even her own story can be told in both pessimistic and optimistic ways: In one story, she grew up in a too-small house with not much money in a neighborhood that had begun to decay. In another version, she grew up in a music-filled house with a close-knit, loving family who believed in the importance of higher education. In the former story, she is disadvantaged. In the latter, she has every chance at success.
Michelle’s major concerns during the first 50 years or her life could be filed under one overarching question: Am I good enough? The questions and doubts began after middle school, when she got accepted to a high-achieving high school. She felt insecure about her intelligence—would she be able to measure up against the other students, many of whom come from privileged backgrounds? But she soon learned that if she studied hard enough, she could easily keep up with them.
Later, in her first year at Princeton, she again felt insecure about her background, her education, and her abilities. Would she be able to make her mark in classrooms full of white men? She quickly learned they weren’t smarter than she was; they were just more self-confident.
Many years later, when she campaigned for Barack, the media vilified her. She questioned whether she was helping or hurting her husband's career. But she worked hard at improving her public speaking skills and her media persona, and she played a major role in Barack’s win.
When she became first lady, she knew that the world was scrutinizing her because she was the first Black woman to hold this position. The question "am I good enough?" continued to haunt her. But as she made major strides in advancing her political initiatives, she realized that the answer was a resounding “yes.”
During the campaign for Presidency, Michelle struggled to find the right words to frame the many twists, turns, and contradictions of her life story. Ultimately, she followed her mother's advice—to tell her story truthfully and authentically.
Michelle believes that too many people, especially women and minorities, go through their lives feeling ashamed of where they've come from or what their backgrounds are. They think that their truth doesn't live up to the established ideal, so they keep it hidden. But finding your own voice and telling your own truth is critical to the process of self-creation. You can’t be fully yourself until you embrace every part of your story—past, present, and future.
Even before becoming first lady, Michelle was acutely aware of her privilege, which could take a variety of forms. She understood there’s inherent privilege in what class or race you're born into, but there's also privilege in being a mother who can choose how much to work—full- or part-time—or whether to work at all. There's even privilege in being able to have children, whether through in vitro fertilization or otherwise. Sometimes privilege is based on the sheer luck of evading life's catastrophes: layoffs, mass shootings, domestic violence, lack of health care, poverty, prison, and so on.
As Michelle’s daughters grew up in the White House, Michelle saw how many advantages they enjoyed compared to millions of girls all over the world who didn’t even have access to education. Michelle believes the only answer to living under the weight of privilege is to find a way to serve others—to do what you can to create more advantages for everyone.
While the role of first lady was an extremely high privilege, it came with a difficult downside: The media and public officials constantly scrutinized and criticized Michelle (one U.S. Congressman even made jokes about her hips).
Michelle yearned for privacy for herself and her children. She craved simple, private-citizen freedoms, like going shopping by herself or taking her kids on field trips without causing a scene everywhere she went. She wanted to be free of the constant presence of cameras and cell phones, to not always be concerned about what clothes she wore or how her hair looked. Most important, she wanted the media and the public to leave her daughters alone so they could live their childhood and teenage years as normally as possible.
But this, she knew, was impossible. Presidential life did not afford the luxury of privacy, and each member of the Obama family would need to find ways to live with that.
The role of a first lady doesn’t come with a job description or even with official responsibilities. And yet, the position wields tremendous power, and Michelle wanted to use her power to bring positive change. During her eight years in the White House, while raising her two daughters, she pushed through four major initiatives. They were:
Concerned about the childhood obesity epidemic, Michelle established a public health initiative that addressed family nutrition and exercise. At the time, nearly a third of American children were overweight or obese, and Type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure were common.
With the help of a group of fifth graders, Michelle planted a vegetable garden on the South Lawn of the White House, and she used it to draw attention to several messages:
Michelle and her staff also developed the Let’s Move! campaign to get kids exercising. Michelle hula-hooped on the South Lawn and guest-starred on “Sesame Street” to discuss vegetables with Big Bird. When reporters from health magazines interviewed her, she explained that rising obesity levels meant rising health care costs and that many poor Americans didn't have access to fresh, affordable produce.
Michelle's campaign for family health resulted in several victories, including better labeling for sodas and other beverages, a commitment by the suppliers of school lunches to cut fat, sugar, and salt in their meals, and the establishment of a federal task force on childhood obesity.
Michelle’s visits to military hospitals and talks with hundreds of wounded soldiers and their families inspired her to start an initiative called Joining Forces. Its goal was to establish concrete ways for Americans to rally around military service members, veterans, and their families and support them through wellness, education, and employment.
Joining Forces worked in tandem with the public and private sector to find jobs for veterans and help them get access to higher education. It also created media campaigns to fight the stigma behind PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder.
Concerned about the number of school-age children being killed by gun violence, Michelle launched an education initiative called Reach Higher. The goal was to get more kids interested in continuing their education beyond high school—whether through a professional training program, community college, or four-year college or university—by making them aware of the ways they could get there.
Michelle knew that many school-age kids, especially in urban areas, did not have mentors or role models to make them aware of what they could achieve. These kids needed to learn what their career and college opportunities were and how they could access them. Reach Higher provided financial assistance to high school guidance counselors to help students get into college, set up programs for summer internships and learning opportunities, and made it easier for students to obtain federal financial aid.
In her final year as first lady, Michelle launched her fourth initiative, Let Girls Learn. Inspired by Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani teenager who had been shot by the Taliban because she advocated for girls to go to school, Michelle started a government-wide initiative to give girls around the globe better access to education.
Michelle felt a personal connection to the importance of schooling: Education was her ticket to a better life, and she knew it would be true for others. She enlisted celebrity friends, including Stephen Colbert and Kelly Clarkson, to add some star power to her campaign. She got Diane Warren to write the pop song "This is For My Girls." Profits from the song helped to fund girls' education around the world. Michelle even guest-starred on James Corden's YouTube show Carpool Karaoke to help raise awareness.
From the time she was a small child, Michelle Obama's parents taught her the importance of speaking up and telling her own story in her authentic voice—reconciling her past, present, and future and feeling proud of it all. As first lady of the United States, Michelle passed on this advice to thousands of young people, and she hopes that by sharing her own life’s narrative, she can inspire others.
As her memoir begins, Michelle has recently left the White House after eight years as first lady from January 2009 to January 2017. Along with her husband, former President Barack Obama, and their two daughters, Malia and Sasha, she has moved into a suburban home not far from the White House. For the first time in many years, Michelle finds herself alone with her thoughts in a quiet house.
Each member of the Obama family is transitioning into a new stage of their lives. Barack is exploring career opportunities for his post-Presidential years. The Obama children are entering adulthood—Malia, the older daughter, is taking a gap year before starting college at Harvard University, and Sasha will finish high school in another two years. Michelle is free from the constraints of her highly public life as first lady. Simultaneously, her duties and responsibilities as a mother have diminished.
Michelle describes the simple pleasures she can now enjoy, which she didn't have while living in the White House: She can go outside and play in the yard with her dogs without the Secret Service asking where she is going. She can open her bedroom windows and let in fresh air whenever she pleases. She can make her own cheese toast without the kitchen staff rushing in to help.
Even though a cadre of Secret Service agents is holed up in the Obamas' garage command post—and agents will accompany the family for the rest of their lives—Michelle cherishes her newfound freedom and quiet time. This is her opportunity to reflect and write her life story.
Eight themes weave through Michelle’s memoir:
Michelle is a woman who is perpetually striving to become a truer version of herself. Throughout adulthood, she learns to not get stuck holding on to the same identity or set of beliefs. She learns that personal growth has no finish line; there’s no moment in time when she’s done evolving. “Becoming” requires understanding there is always more work to be done. It’s an ongoing process of self-creation. It means being willing to change and adapt to evolving circumstances and always striving to be true to yourself.
As a child, she focused on doing the “right” thing to please her teachers and family. She wanted only to make a good impression and earn others’ praise and admiration: She strived for straight A’s and perfect attendance in school. She told adults she wanted to be a pediatrician when she grew up because they seemed pleased by that answer. She didn’t think about what her passions were or what she wanted from her life.
But after following a predetermined path of “checking off the boxes”—earning top honors in elementary and high school, getting admitted to top-notch universities, climbing the corporate ladder at a high-profile law firm—she finally stopped to consider whether any of it made her happy. When her free-spirited college friend died from cancer at age 26, she realized she needed to change her vision for the future. She had to muster the courage to swerve off the path she'd followed for years and find a career that held more meaning.
Despite her mother’s objections, Michelle quit her job and took a much lower paying position in the Chicago mayor’s office. She calls this “finding the courage to swerve.” She was moving closer to living her own true story—not simply living up to others’ expectations.
Michelle learned to swerve again after Barack became an important figure in her life. His passion for politics and helping to build a better world encouraged her to seek out more fulfilling work in the nonprofit sector. She wound up in a series of civic-minded positions that she found enriching.
But what she loved most about Barack—his idealism and desire to help people and change the world—also deeply challenged her vision of how her life should be. Michelle wanted a private family life like the one she grew up in—days filled with simple routines and the whole family sitting down to the dinner table every night. She knew that life with Barack meant a life in the political arena, which meant chaotic schedules, the glare of the media spotlight, and never-ending public scrutiny.
But despite Michelle’s misgivings about political life, she loved Barack, so she gave up her predetermined ideas about how her life should go and decided to grow and evolve. Ultimately, she campaigned for Barack when he ran for Senate and also for two terms as President, and she became one of the most popular first ladies in American history.
Through her parents' encouragement and her own hard work, Michelle rose above her circumstances. She grew up in South Shore, a working-class Chicago neighborhood. She, her brother, and parents shared a one-bedroom apartment that the family rented from her mother’s aunt. Her father worked for the city water department and suffered from multiple sclerosis.
Michelle studied diligently in public school and later graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School. She held high-powered jobs as a corporate lawyer, city manager, nonprofit director, and hospital vice president. While striving to give her best effort to each position, she helped her husband Barack campaign to become a U.S. Senator and later, U.S. President, and she raised two young daughters.
As first lady, Michelle lived a life of opulence beyond her wildest childhood dreams. She and her family lived in the 132-room White House with world-class chefs cooking their meals and staff members attending to their every need, including an in-house florist who noted what flowers they liked or didn’t like.
But Michelle never forgot her humble beginnings. She did not permit herself or her daughters to be spoiled by their privilege. She demanded even more of herself as first lady, pushing through four major initiatives during her time in the White House.
Michelle began learning about racial discrimination early in life. She grew up in a racially mixed neighborhood where children played together regardless of skin color. But she soon encountered racial discrimination when a police officer stopped her brother Craig while he was out riding his new bike. The officer assumed that since this young Black boy’s bike was shiny and new, he must have stolen it.
Michelle also learned about racial discrimination from the elders in her family. Her grandfather, like many of the men of his generation, couldn't get a union card because he was Black, so he had to take a non-union job as a postal worker. He felt bitter about never having the career opportunities he hoped he would have.
At 10 years old, Michelle learned that discrimination can be a two-sided coin. Michelle's parents had always insisted that she and her brother speak formal English without any slang words. One day, one of her cousins asked her why she talked “like a white girl." The cousin believed that Michelle was denying her Black culture by speaking with proper diction.
A few years later, her family visited some Black friends who had moved to a white community in the suburbs. While they were there, someone vandalized Michelle’s father's treasured Buick Electra, which was parked on the street. Her family never knew who did it, but her mother assumed the neighbors wanted to discourage more Black people from moving in.
When Michelle turned 17 and headed off to Princeton, for the first time in her life she found herself to be the only black woman in the classroom. She had to muster the courage to speak up in class despite the difference in her skin color and gender.
Michelle's experiences taught her to remain optimistic and not let setbacks steer her off course. Her father served as a role model, never complaining about his disability caused by multiple sclerosis. He simply accepted his condition and did his best to ignore it.
Her parents modeled optimism in the way they believed education could bring their children a better life. And when Michelle's high school guidance counselor told her that she wasn’t "Princeton material," Michelle ignored her, applied to the college, and got accepted.
In her eight years as first lady, Michelle met hundreds of highly accomplished people, many of whom told a story similar to hers: Someone in their young years doubted their ability to succeed at their goals. The naysayers, critics, and doubters are always standing at the door, but the most successful people learn to push right past them.
The people whom Michelle admires most remain optimistic in the face of great struggles. First, there’s Barack, who firmly believes that people can work toward creating a better society. But she names many other models of hope and inspiration, including Nelson Mandela, whom she met on a trip to South Africa, and the wounded warriors at Walter Reed Hospital, who inspired her with their resiliency.
Michelle notes that even her own story can be told in both pessimistic and optimistic ways: In one story, she grew up in a too-small house with not much money in a neighborhood that was starting to decay. In another version, she grew up in a music-filled house with a close-knit, loving family who believed in the importance of higher education. In the former story, she is disadvantaged. In the latter, she has every chance at success.
Michelle’s major concerns during the first 50 years or her life could be filed under one overarching question: Am I good enough? The questions and doubts began after middle school, when she got accepted to a high-achieving high school. She felt insecure about her intelligence—would she be able to measure up against the other students, many of whom come from privileged backgrounds? She soon learned that if she studied hard enough, she could easily keep up with them.
Later, in her first year at Princeton, she again felt insecure about her background, her education, and her abilities. Would she be able to make her mark in classrooms full of white men? She quickly learned they weren’t smarter than she was; they were just more self-confident.
Many years later, when she campaigned for Barack, the media vilified her. She questioned whether she was helping or hurting her husband's career. But she worked hard at improving her public speaking skills and her media persona, and she played a major role in getting Barack elected.
When she became first lady, she knew that the world was scrutinizing her because she was the first Black woman to hold this position. The question "am I good enough?" continued to haunt her. But as she made major strides in advancing her political initiatives, she realized that the answer was a resounding “yes.”
During the campaign for Presidency, Michelle struggled to find the right words to frame the many twists, turns, and contradictions of her life story. Ultimately, she followed her mother's advice—to tell her story truthfully and authentically.
Michelle believes that too many people, especially women and minorities, go through their lives feeling ashamed of where they've come from or what their backgrounds are. They think that their truth doesn't live up to the established ideal, so they keep it hidden. But finding your own voice and telling your own truth is critical to the process of self-creation. You can’t be fully yourself until you embrace every part of your story—past, present, and future.
Even before becoming first lady, Michelle was acutely aware of her privilege, which could take a variety of forms. She understood there’s inherent privilege in what class or race you're born into, but there's also privilege in being a mother who can choose how much to work—full- or part-time—or whether to work at all. There's even privilege in being able to have children, whether through in vitro fertilization or otherwise. Sometimes privilege is based on the sheer luck of evading life's catastrophes: layoffs, mass shootings, domestic violence, lack of health care, poverty, prison, and so on.
As Michelle’s daughters grew up in the White House, Michelle saw how many advantages they enjoyed compared to millions of girls all over the world who didn’t even have access to education. Michelle believes the only answer to living under the weight of privilege is to find a way to serve others—to do what you can to create more advantages for everyone.
While the role of first lady was an extremely high privilege, it came with a difficult downside: The media and public officials constantly scrutinized and criticized Michelle (one U.S. Congressman even made jokes about her hips).
Michelle yearned for privacy for herself and her children. She craved simple, private-citizen freedoms, like going shopping by herself or taking her kids on field trips without causing a scene everywhere she went. She wanted to be free of the constant presence of cameras and cell phones, to not always be concerned about what clothes she wore or how her hair looked. Most important, she wanted the media and the public to leave her daughters alone so they could live their childhood and teenage years as normally as possible.
But this, she knew, was impossible. Presidential life did not afford the luxury of privacy, and each member of the Obama family would need to find ways to live with that.
These chapters focus on Michelle's youth in urban Chicago, the people who made up her loving, close-knit family, and her introduction to her own natural ambition. This is young Michelle’s first stage of “becoming,” in which she learns that she can dictate much about her own future through hard work and striving.
Michelle LaVaughn Robinson was born in January 1964. She grew up in Chicago in one of the poorer blocks of a racially mixed, working-class neighborhood called South Shore. Michelle's parents rented a small apartment on the second floor of a house owned by Michelle's great-aunt Robbie. Her parents slept in the single bedroom; Michelle and her older brother Craig shared the living room.
Michelle and Craig were surrounded by extended family members throughout their early years. Great-aunt Robbie and her husband lived on the first floor, and Michelle's grandparents and cousins lived only a few blocks away.
Young Michelle's aspirations were uncomplicated. She wanted a dog. She wanted her family to live in a house with two floors—upstairs and downstairs—and have a four-door station wagon parked in the driveway. In elementary school, she was naturally ambitious and worked hard to earn straight A’s. When adults asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, she said "pediatrician" because she liked the idea of working with children. She quickly learned that adults were pleased by that answer, so she stuck with it.
Michelle credits her father, Fraser, for teaching her to work hard and keep her promises. Fraser worked for the city as a pump operator for the Chicago Water Department. He put on a uniform every day and showed up for work despite having multiple sclerosis (MS) since his 30s. Initially, the disease caused him to walk with a limp, but during Michelle's childhood, the MS progressed. By the time Michelle finished elementary school, Fraser could only walk by using crutches; later, he used a wheelchair.
But Fraser never complained about his disability; he simply accepted it and did his best to ignore it. As Michelle writes, her family had a "long-standing habit of blocking out bad news."
Fraser's Buick Electra was his pride and joy; he loved to take the family for Sunday drives. (Michelle reflects that it would be many years before she understood her father’s attachment to that car: When he was driving, he was free from his disability.)
Fraser's passions were jazz and art. As a young man, he had briefly attended art school before he ran out of money and joined the Army. For much of Michelle's childhood, Fraser volunteered as a precinct captain for the city's Democratic Party. He spent Saturdays visiting his constituents to hear their complaints about garbage pickup or street potholes.
Michelle credits her mother, Marian, for teaching her to value education. Marian taught Michelle how to read before she attended kindergarten and often took her to visit the public library. Up until Michelle entered high school, Marian did not have a job, so she was always at home and actively involved in Michelle's life and schooling. She kept to a strict budget while always taking care of her family’s needs. She cooked healthy meals, sewed some of Michelle's clothes, chaperoned school field trips, and served in the parent-teacher association. Michelle and her friends liked to run home to Michelle's house at lunchtime to hang out with Marian.
Michelle also credits Marian for teaching her the value of speaking up with her own powerful voice. In the Robinson family, dinner discussions were always lively. No topics were off-limits, and the children were taught to think and speak like adults and clearly articulate their thoughts and opinions.
As a young child, Michelle discovered the power of rhetoric when her mother tried to make her eat eggs for breakfast, which Michelle disliked. Michelle argued that peanut butter was equivalent to eggs as a source of protein for breakfast—and she never ate eggs again.
Michelle's brother Craig, two years older, was her best friend. The siblings enjoyed playing board games, boxing, listening to music, and talking about everything. As young children, they shared a bedroom. As they got older, Michelle’s grandfather built a partition so Michelle and Craig each had their own tiny rooms. Even so, they slept only a few feet from each other and would often talk through the partition late into the night.
The Robinson family didn't have money for luxuries, but they enjoyed the simple joys of shared activities. They savored small pleasures like ordering pizza for birthday celebrations, sharing pints of ice cream on hot summer days, going for picnics by Lake Michigan, and attending drive-in movies.
The entire family shared an interest in music. Great-aunt Robbie was a piano teacher who taught lessons in the house they lived in. Michelle started taking lessons from her when she was four. Robbie was a prim and strict teacher, and Michelle was a rather impatient student who often skipped ahead in the lesson book. Her ambition didn't match up with her skill. To Robbie’s chagrin, Michelle wanted to play more advanced songs rather than practicing the basics.
Michelle and Robbie argued often, and in little Michelle's mind, Robbie was the enemy. At Michelle's first piano recital, Michelle came on stage and froze with fear at the hall filled with people and the fancy baby grand piano in front of her, which was so different from the aging upright piano she practiced on. Robbie saw Michelle's fear and joined her on the stage, showing her the first note and giving her the courage to play her song. Michelle finally saw that Robbie was looking out for her.
Michelle's maternal grandfather was also a huge music fan and introduced Michelle and her brother to Ella Fitzgerald, John Coltrane, Stevie Wonder, and Aretha Franklin. To this day, music is one of Michelle's greatest joys.
Michelle met her own competitive streak in kindergarten in 1969. When the teacher quizzed the students on reading the names of colors—red, blue, yellow, black, and so on—Michelle was stumped by the word “white.” Two of her classmates could read all the words, and the teacher awarded them gold-foil star stickers. Mortified that she didn't get a star, Michelle’s natural ambition kicked in.
That evening, she practiced reading her list of color words until she knew them all by heart, and the next day at school, she asked her teacher for a second chance. At first, her teacher said no—the class had other things to do—but Michelle persisted. This time she earned her gold star.
In the second grade, Michelle ran into a problem at school. Her teacher couldn't manage her classroom, taught the students little or nothing, and just didn't seem to care—and Michelle took note of it all. She complained about the teacher to her mother, who finally went to the school and petitioned to remove Michelle from the class. The principal placed Michelle and several other high-achieving students in a third-grade class while the rest of her classmates were left to languish with the bad teacher.
At the time, Michelle was just happy to be moved to the third grade. But looking back, she considers her mother's advocacy a life-changing event. If she had stayed in that poor learning environment in second grade, her education might have been stunted. Michelle reflects that kids can see when they're being devalued. They know when adults are giving their best to them and when they're not. Unfortunately, many kids don't have a mother like Michelle did—someone they can talk to and who can advocate for them. Instead, they respond by acting out. But it's not their fault; it's the fault of the adults who aren't giving them 100 percent.
Michelle often chose to play alone at home with her Barbie dolls and alphabet blocks. She was a naturally fastidious kid; she noticed the way other children mistreated their toys, and she played alone to keep hers in pristine condition..
But Michelle’s preference for solitude concerned her mother, who wanted Michelle to play with other children, too. Marian hoped that Michelle would become as extroverted as her brother, a skilled basketball player whom everybody liked.
Encouraged by her mother and hoping to emulate her popular brother, Michelle decided she'd try to join a clique of neighborhood kids who played together outside. But the ring leader, a bully named DeeDee, made cruel remarks about Michelle and kept her out of the group.
Michelle determined that she had to earn DeeDee’s respect. She tried reasoning with her, but it had no effect. One day, Michelle got into a fistfight with DeeDee. Having had some experience boxing with her brother, Michelle threw a few good punches and won. With her victory, Michelle earned DeeDee's respect and became a part of the group.
For the first few years of her life, Michelle didn't know that skin color sent a message to some people. In Michelle's racially mixed neighborhood, children played together without regard to color. But she soon learned her first lesson in discrimination. When Craig was a young boy, he received a new bike as a present. As he rode his bike near Lake Michigan, a police officer stopped him, assuming that this young Black boy must have stolen the shiny, new bike. Craig insisted that the bike was his, and the officer called his mother.
Of course, Craig and Michelle's mother was furious at the officer, who happened to be a Black man. She made him apologize to Craig. She then explained to both Craig and Michelle that the color of their skin would sometimes create problems for them, and it was something they would have to learn to deal with.
Michelle also encountered racial discrimination when visiting friends in the suburbs. White families and some of the more well-off Black families were moving out of the aging South Shore neighborhood to newly constructed communities.
When the Robinsons' close family friends, who were very light-skinned Blacks, moved to the suburbs of Park Forest—a mostly white community—they invited the Robinsons to come see their new home. The Robinsons spent an enjoyable day visiting with their old friends. At day's end, they walked out to the street where their Buick was parked and found a deep scratch running from the driver’s door all the way to the back bumper. The scratch looked like it had been made by someone with a key or a rock—someone who wanted to deliver an unfriendly message to a Black family in a mostly white neighborhood.
The Robinsons were shocked and hurt, but they didn't respond with drama. Instead, they drove home quietly. Michelle's dad, who never complained or made a big deal about anything, simply drove his Buick to the auto body shop to have the scratch removed.
Michelle's mother later wondered whether the Robinsons visit had "outed" their light-skinned Black friends. Perhaps their visit caused the neighbors to suddenly notice the family's Black skin. Or perhaps the neighbors thought having one Black family in the neighborhood was okay, but they didn't want more Black people to move in.
These chapters focus on Michelle and her brother Craig as they begin to grow into adulthood, learn about life's risks and responsibilities, and come to grips with the harsh reality of racial discrimination. In these years, Michelle begins to learn that there is more than one version of Black identity—that being Black isn’t tied to a single mode of speech, thought, or action—and that it’s up to her to create who she wants to be.
When Michelle was in fifth grade, she and her brother learned a hard lesson about life’s uncertainty. One of her classmates died in a house fire, a too-common tragedy in South Shore's aging buildings. Because most households didn't have smoke detectors, entire families sometimes perished.
Michelle and Craig attended the boy's funeral, and Craig, who was now a teenager, was deeply upset. He had always been a protective big brother to Michelle, but now life's risks had become more apparent. He decided his family must have an emergency plan in case of a house fire. He was especially concerned about his father, Fraser, who had little or no agility because of his multiple sclerosis.
Craig and Michelle began conducting fire drills at home. Fraser was uncomfortable with Craig taking on the role of family protector. Fraser didn't like feeling helpless—he never missed a day of work because of his disability. But he reluctantly participated in the drills and even allowed Craig to practice dragging his prone body to the stairwell.
Craig and Michelle realized there was no guarantee that they could save their family in a fire, but they were comforted by having an emergency plan.
Michelle looks back on this period and realizes that although she and Craig may have seemed oddly serious and mature for their ages, those qualities came from their parents' lessons. Fraser and Marian had instilled in their children the virtues of planning, preparation, and hard work to achieve mastery over life's circumstances.
Exposed to frequent extended-family barbecues and visits to her jazz-loving grandfather's house, Michelle became less introverted and more comfortable around large groups of people. Every Sunday, the Robinsons visited the "other" side of the family—Fraser's parents, whom the kids called Dandy and Grandma, and Fraser's three younger siblings. Michelle and Craig spent time with their father’s younger brothers, who wore leather jackets and bell bottoms and talked about Malcolm X and the Black power movement. Through their conversations, Michelle began to realize the world was much bigger than her South Shore neighborhood.
Michelle loved her uncles but she was bothered by Grandpa Dandy's bad temper until she learned the source. He shouted at the television and at his wife, Michelle's grandmother, a meek and devout Christian woman who managed a Bible bookstore. Michelle, who had an inner fierceness, was mystified by her grandmother's passivity in the face of his verbal abuse. Since no one else would speak up, Michelle sometimes confronted Dandy when he berated her grandmother.
Michelle's parents tried to explain Dandy's anger: He was bitter from a hard life of disappointments and discrimination. He moved to Chicago as part of the Great Migration during the Depression, when six million southern Black men moved to northern cities to look for jobs. At the time, it was hard for everybody to find work, but even harder for Black people because factory managers preferred to hire European immigrants over American Blacks.
Dandy couldn't get a union card because he was Black, which foiled his plan to become an electrician. So he worked as a handyman and did other odd jobs. This story repeated itself among several men in Michelle’s family: Michelle's maternal grandfather, a carpenter, couldn't work for a reliable construction firm because he wasn’t eligible for a union card. Her great-uncle Terry also couldn’t get a union card, so he gave up searching for work as a plumber and became a Pullman porter, a "traditional Black man's job."
Dandy abandoned his plans to attend college because he couldn't afford it. Eventually, he became a postal worker. He was overqualified, but at least he had a steady job. After 30 years, he retired with a pension. He and his wife raised a family of accomplished children—one received an MBA from Harvard, another became a train engineer, another became a teacher. But Dandy never got over being angry and bitter about his forfeited dreams.
Thinking back about her grandfather, Michelle considers how America’s systemic racism cast aside many intelligent, hardworking men and took a huge toll on their families. Because the men were denied access to higher-paying jobs, it meant they couldn't buy their own homes, save money for retirement, or send their children to college. And being pushed down because of the color of their skin had an even more insidious effect—it encouraged them to resent and mistrust the world.
Michelle knew from a young age that her friends and cousins saw her as a curiosity, someone who didn’t fit their familiar mold. At a family gathering, one of her distant cousins asked her why she talked "like a white girl." It was part insult and part genuine interest, and it made Michelle self-conscious about the formal English her parents and grandparents had taught her to speak.
She understood that her diction wasn't like that of her peers—for example, in the Robinson family, "ain't" was a forbidden word. She knew that she had grown up in a different kind of household—one in which the library, literature, and the Encyclopedia Britannica were revered.
Michelle didn't know how to respond to her cousin's accusatory question. She felt torn between two worlds, wanting to fit in with her peers but knowing that her parents had taught her to speak in a more refined manner. She wasn't yet old enough to know why, but she knew her parents' reverence for proper English had value.
Looking back on this childhood conversation, Michelle notes that at the time, she still had a long way to go before finding her true voice and becoming comfortable with who she was. She had to learn that there was more than one Black identity and more than one way for a Black person to speak or think. She reflects that the delta between where she came from and where she wanted to go was too vast and impossible for a young girl to comprehend.
She also notes that a similar conversation took place 30 years later when she and Barack were campaigning for President. Some people—both Blacks and whites—criticized the couple's way of speaking and living as "denying their culture." Others simply didn't know what to make of them, especially Barack, an Ivy League-educated Black Hawaiian whose mother hailed from Kansas. Some voters mistrusted him because he didn't fit any established stereotype.
When Michelle was in seventh grade, her mother again intervened to improve her education. A newspaper wrote a scathing article about her school, calling it run-down and poorly managed, stating that it contributed to the neighborhood's "ghetto" mentality.
The principal defended his school and community, and Michelle's mother Marian supported him. An active PTA member, Marian lobbied for positive changes at the school and volunteered to chaperone at her children's school events. Despite the "white flight" happening all around her, Marian believed in her neighborhood and the people who chose to stay there. She believed in fixing what was wrong rather than fleeing.
The school began a new program that grouped students by ability, and Michelle was moved into the "gifted" classroom. She thrived in this enriched learning environment—she worked on independent projects, attended writing workshops, and took field trips to the local community college. As always, her mother encouraged her every step of the way.
At age 14, Michelle grew into a stereotypical teenager. She stopped sharing every small detail of her life with her parents and started keeping her thoughts to herself. She became interested in boys and experienced her first kiss on a stone bench outside her parents' house.
Michelle slowly gained independence. She rode the bus across town by herself to take jazz and acrobatics dance lessons. She learned to be wary of her surroundings and look out for her own safety. She viewed herself as a grown-up, or at least a partial grown-up.
Fraser and Marian decided it was time Michelle had more privacy at home. They converted the back porch of their house into a bedroom for Craig. The parents moved into the space that used to belong to the children; Michelle moved into their bedroom. She loved having this new room all to herself.
Marian was active in the lives of Michelle, Craig, and their friends—sometimes to the neglect of her own. She knew how to be supportive without overpowering them—the opposite of today’s “helicopter parents.” She gently guided her children and gave them freedom to make decisions, even if they sometimes made mistakes. Marian was so devoted to her family that Michelle never realized until years later that her mother sometimes felt dissatisfied. (Like most teenagers, Michelle was too wrapped up in her own life to worry about her mother’s feelings.)
Although Marian never voiced her thoughts to her children, she occasionally daydreamed about leaving her husband and starting a new life. Eventually, however, her doubts would fade away and she'd regain her resolve to stay in her marriage.
Looking back at her mother's occasional longings for a different kind of life, Michelle realizes that even the best marriages present an affront to individual freedom. Partners must continually make sacrifices in order to preserve their union.
Now that Michelle has been married for many years, she realizes that to preserve a long-term relationship, each partner needs to continually renew their vow to stay. It's a private choice, best made at frequent intervals. The partners don't need to discuss it, not even with each other, but they do need to make the decision to renew their commitment.
In eighth grade, Michelle tested into Chicago's first magnet high school, which provided specialized instruction for high achievers. She started ninth grade at a brand new school that offered classes that Michelle had never been exposed to, like pottery and photography.
On her first days at her new school, Michelle felt insecure as she struggled to find her place in the social community. The student body was about 80% nonwhite; the majority were Blacks. Her fellow classmates were high-achievers like her; many were the sons and daughters of doctors and lawyers. They came from a world of privilege and connection unlike anything she had ever known.
Michelle knew it was an honor to attend this school, but she felt insecure about her family background, her neighborhood, and her own intelligence. Just getting from her house to the new school was a major effort: She had a 90-minute bus ride on two different buses, so she had to get up at 5 a.m. and didn't return home until 6 p.m.
Also, for the first time in her life, Michelle didn’t have big brother Craig to pave the way for her because he attended a different high school.
But after a few weeks of getting used to the new school and routine, Michelle realized that if she continued to study hard as she had always done, she could excel in this new environment. As her confidence grew, she began to make new friends and earn good grades. She didn't achieve straight A’s like she had in previous years, but she came close.
Michelle looks back and says that if she were to categorize her concerns as a teenager, they would be filed under one overarching question: Am I good enough? Her entry into a high-achieving high school only underscored her doubts and insecurities about her abilities. Ultimately, her ingrained work ethic helped her succeed. She quickly learned that if she put in extra hours of studying, she was able to keep up with the best students, and her confidence blossomed.
When Michelle entered high school, her mother went to work as an executive assistant at a bank. Although her parents never discussed financial difficulties, Michelle knew the family needed money since they already had one child in college: Craig attended Princeton University, and even with basketball scholarship money, it was expensive. Soon they would have two kids in college. Marian’s new job would help to pay the bills.
When Michelle's French class planned a school trip to Paris, Michelle didn't even mention it to her parents, assuming it was too expensive. But Fraser and Marian learned about the upcoming trip and told Michelle it wasn't her place to worry about money—all family financial decisions were theirs. Somehow they found the funds, and several months later, Michelle boarded the flight to Paris with her classmates.
Looking back, Michelle realizes that her parents, who were in their early forties at the time, gave up everything to give their children the best advantages. They never visited Europe. They never went out to a restaurant for dinner. They never went on fancy vacations. They had never even owned a house. Instead, they saved all of their money to invest in their children's future. They made countless sacrifices, but they didn't see them as sacrifices—they saw them as investments.
One of Michelle’s best friends at her new high school was Santita, who was also the daughter of Reverend Jesse Jackson, the powerful Baptist preacher and political leader who had worked with Martin Luther King Jr. and advocated for African-American rights. Like typical teenagers, Michelle and Santita would hang out at the mall and explore the city streets after school.
Michelle knew that Jesse Jackson was a celebrity, but she didn't fully understand his importance because she had little interest in politics. Santita, on the other hand, had participated in protests for important causes, marching alongside her father and four siblings. From an early age, Santita's parents taught their children the importance of political activism.
Michelle saw the Jackson house as an exciting place. She learned to expect the unexpected whenever she was there. Unlike her family, the Jackson family followed no routine. Business leaders, politicians, athletes, and artists were always coming and going. The Jacksons seem to be caught up in something much larger than anything Michelle had ever known.
For Michelle, who was fond of her quiet, orderly home with her parents, hanging out with Santita was intriguing and eye-opening, but not always fun. Michelle liked predictability and planning and didn't like last-minute changes, which were the norm at the Jackson household. Their community-oriented life seemed like chaos to Michelle.
At the time, Jesse Jackson was only a few years away from making a bid for the U.S. Presidency, so he often made public speeches and appearances. One year, someone in the Jackson family convinced Michelle and Santita to attend the Bud Billiken Day Parade, an important Chicago event promoting African-American pride. Jesse Jackson would speak at the event.
Michelle attended the parade but felt overwhelmed by all the noise and fanfare. Her mother, Marian, caught a glimpse of her waving and smiling on the television news. But Michelle wasn't smiling on the inside—as was typical for her, she just behaved as she thought she should.
Years later, Michelle would understand the importance of this parade—what it meant to Black people all over Chicago—but at the time, she felt uncomfortable being part of the hoopla. She reflects that perhaps this was the beginning of her disdain for politics and the media circus that surrounds it. Being around the Jackson family taught her an important early lesson: Political life was filled with unpredictability; it was a life without set schedules, dependable plans, and the quiet order that Michelle preferred.
Sometime during high school, Michelle set her sights on attending Princeton University, mostly because her brother Craig was having a good experience there. Michelle had excellent grades, had been inducted into the National Honor Society, was treasurer of her senior class, and in the top 10% of her graduating class.
Despite all these accomplishments, when she told her high school counselor that she wanted to apply to Princeton, the counselor told her that she probably “wasn't Princeton material."
The counselor's words hurt, but Michelle refused to lower her aspirations. She decided not to let one person's opinion budge her from her goal. She did exactly what her parents had taught her to do—strive to achieve what she wanted, even if it was a long reach to get there.
Michelle applied to Princeton and was accepted. She never went back to the counselor to say that she had been wrong. She had no need; Michelle proved to herself that she was capable, and that was the only affirmation she needed.
Michelle looks back on how she felt after meeting with this counselor and reminds us that "failure is a feeling long before it's an actual result." Had she listened to the counselor's advice, all the confidence gains she had made during high school would have been lost.
In her eight years as first lady, Michelle met hundreds of highly accomplished people, many of whom told a story similar to hers: Someone in their young years doubted their ability to succeed at their goals. The naysayers, critics, and doubters are always standing at the door, but the most successful people learn to push past them.
When Michelle told her high school counselor she'd like to apply to Princeton, the counselor told her she "wasn't Princeton material." But Michelle ignored her advice and got into Princeton anyway.
Think of a time when you voiced your ambitions, and someone responded by doubting you. Who was it, and what did they say?
What impact did their words have on you? Did you go ahead with your plans anyway or change them?
List three reasons why that person was wrong about you.
Michelle's South Shore neighborhood shaped her in a profound way. As she says, where we come from has a strong effect on the person we become—it's a major contributor to our character.
Describe the neighborhood or region you grew up in. List two advantages and two disadvantages of growing up there.
Considering your answers to the question above, how did that environment shape who you are today?
These chapters focus on Michelle's undergraduate years at Princeton University, her experience as a Black woman in classrooms full of white men, and her first job working with children. These years are critical to Michelle’s “becoming”: As her skills and capabilities develop, she learns to believe in herself. She sees that even in the most daunting situations in college or in her work-study job, she can rise to meet the challenge.
In 1981, 17-year-old Michelle went off to Princeton, leaving behind everything she loved in Chicago, including her boyfriend of the last year. Although she knew he was a great guy and she loved him, she also knew he didn't fit into her new life.
At Princeton, Michelle experienced being in the minority for the first time. Her first few weeks at Princeton were an orientation period just for minority students, so she didn't immediately notice much disparity between herself and her peers. Princeton admitted some of the students to fill affirmative action quotas; others were student-athletes in the top tier of their sports. Some incoming freshmen were much like her—exceptional achievers whose parents had scrimped and saved to send them to an Ivy League school.
But as soon as the entire student body showed up for the semester’s official start, she saw the majority were white men. Men outnumbered women two to one. Black students made up less than 9% of Michelle's class. Many students came from privileged or wealthy backgrounds—some even arrived on campus in their parents' limousines.
Michelle had never been part of a mostly white community, and she felt that her skin color made her stand out. It required extra effort to act comfortable and confident when she was the only nonwhite person sitting in a classroom, joining an intramural team, or trying out for a part in a play.
She saw some students of color experience more blatant discrimination. In one instance, a Black female student was called to the dean's office because her white roommate had complained that she had “big Black guys” in their room to celebrate her birthday.
Other instances of discrimination were invisible to Michelle. Midway through her freshman year, Michelle's white roommate moved out of their room, but Michelle never found out why until 25 years later. As Michelle and Barack rose to political prominence, the roommate was featured on the news. She told this account of what happened: Her white mother had been horrified to learn that one of her daughter's roommates (Michelle) was Black, and she demanded that the college separate them. Princeton moved the white girl into another room, but kept the entire incident under wraps.
Given the white-male-dominated milieu at Princeton, Michelle felt compelled to work even harder to overcome racial stereotypes. She quickly learned not to feel intimidated by the white males who spoke up most often in class. She realized they weren't smarter than she was; they were just more confident.
She focused all her efforts on excelling in her classes, following a strict, unrelenting study schedule every day. While majoring in sociology and African-American studies, she gained a reputation as the kind of high-achiever who spent evenings in the library color-coding her extremely organized class notes. She constantly reviewed her progress, counted her victories, and reassessed her goals. She never wavered from her goals of scoring higher and achieving more.
Meanwhile, Michelle also came to appreciate the luxuries that Princeton afforded—vast libraries, beautiful buildings, meticulously maintained grounds, a wealth of delicious food in the dining halls, and the chance to play sports like squash and lacrosse that were unheard of at Michelle's inner-city high school.
Michelle also enjoyed the advantages of being Craig’s little sister. Craig had established himself on campus by playing on Princeton's varsity basketball team, and he was able to introduce her to his broad array of friends.
One of Craig’s friends was Kevin, a Princeton football player who became Michelle’s boyfriend. She loved being with Kevin because he was lighthearted, fun, and much less achievement-oriented than she was. He planned to attend medical school, but in his senior year, he made a surprising switch: He decided to audition for the job of the Cleveland Browns’ mascot—a guy dressed up in an animal costume.
Michelle judged Kevin harshly for this. She couldn’t understand why Kevin wasn’t as driven as she was.
Craig also introduced Michelle to Suzanne Alele, a premed student who quickly became one of Michelle's best friends despite their polar-opposite personalities. While Michelle was organized and meticulous, Suzanne was messy and carefree. Michelle was a planner, and Suzanne made decisions on the spur of the moment. Still, the two became inseparable and eventually shared an apartment together.
Michelle reflects that later in life when she lived with Barack—a man who never folded his clothes and left piles of belongings in every room—she was able to coexist peacefully with him because of her experiences living with Suzanne.
As part of her financial aid package at Princeton, Michelle needed a work-study job. She worked as an assistant to Czerny Brasuell, the director of the Third World Center, a Princeton institution dedicated to supporting students of color. The center offered tutoring services and hosted parties and shared meals, and Czerny became one of Michelle's early and most important mentors.
Michelle quickly learned to be prepared for any assignment—typing up memos, babysitting Czerny’s son, answering questions from students, even driving around New York City while Czerny ran errands. The job's many demands and Czerny's mentorship helped Michelle overcome her inhibitions. Through her work, she came to realize she was a capable, responsible adult who could handle whatever came her way.
Czerny suggested that Michelle open up a day care center at Princeton because many Princeton professors needed childcare for their kids. Michelle enjoyed watching over Czerny's child, so she agreed to expand her services. She quickly found that working with children was exhausting but immensely satisfying. She loved to play with the professors' kids and help them with their elementary school homework.
Michelle called home from school every week to tell her parents all about her life at Princeton and to learn what was new in her extended family and her South Side neighborhood. On every call, her father Fraser always spoke as if everything was fine. He never mentioned that his condition was worsening. When asked about his health, he changed the subject or refused to talk about it.
One day when her parents drove all day from Chicago to Princeton to see Craig play in a basketball game, Michelle was shocked to see her father was now using a wheelchair. Marian had to push him into the gym to watch Craig play. Michelle begged Fraser to see a specialist or go to physical therapy, but her father refused, preferring to cope with his condition himself.
Shortly before her junior year, Michelle experienced the death of two close relatives. Both her great-aunt Robbie, the piano teacher, and her jazz-loving grandfather died that summer. The combination of their passing and the nostalgia she felt as her family came together after the funerals felt like a shock compared to her quiet, controlled college life. She realized that while she was focused on her small, selfish world of academic achievement, members of her family were aging and dying. But she didn't know how to reconcile this dissonance, or what she could do about it, so she headed back to Princeton to study even harder.
Still hyper-focused on success, Michelle started to burn out from the endless pressure of achievement. Even though she needed a mental break, she kept climbing the academic ladder and basking in others’ approval.
When it came time for her to make plans for life after Princeton, she took the Law School Admission Test and got into Harvard Law School. As expected, everyone praised her.
Looking back, Michelle realizes she didn't choose law school out of logic or passion for the law. She did it for the same reason that her six-year-old self told adults that she wanted to grow up to be a pediatrician: Telling her friends and classmates that she would attend Harvard Law School made people admire her, which made her feel worthy.
In hindsight, Michelle understands that caring too much about what other people think can lead you in the wrong direction. When you're overly concerned about how your life looks to others, you may keep striving and achieving until you're so far along the wrong path that it's nearly impossible to turn around. Without realizing it, you handcuff yourself to the wrong future.
In these chapters, Michelle jumps forward in her narrative, skipping past her years at Harvard Law School to her job at a high-end Chicago law firm and the summer she meets Barack. Michelle begins to evolve from someone who is solely career- and achievement-focused to someone who wants to be wife and mother, and she begins to question whether her law career was the right choice.
At 25 years old, holding degrees from Harvard and Princeton, Michelle moved back to her hometown of Chicago. Her new law office was on the 47th floor of a building she had passed by many times on her way to high school. She became an upwardly mobile lawyer who worked 70 hours per week, owned a closet full of Armani suits, had a wine subscription service, and drove a Saab.
Michelle moved back into her old South Shore home, living in the upstairs apartment she was raised in. Her parents lived downstairs in the space where great-aunt Robbie, the piano teacher, lived before she died. (Robbie willed them the house.)
Michelle enjoyed visiting with her parents every day before and after work. Her brother Craig, now an investment banker, had also returned to live in Chicago with his new wife.
One day at work, a senior partner asked Michelle to mentor a summer associate who had just finished his first year at Harvard Law School. The young man had already acquired a reputation for exceptional intelligence. Michelle felt skeptical about the hype surrounding the new guy and thought that his name, Barack Obama, was strange.
Barack showed up late for his first meeting with Michelle, which annoyed her. As Barack apologized for his tardiness, Michelle noticed his smile. She also noticed that he seemed humble and not jaded by his brilliant reputation.
As Barack's mentor, Michelle was required to take him out to lunch. While they chatted, he told her that before he went to law school, he worked for three years as a grassroots community organizer in Chicago, rebuilding neighborhoods and creating jobs. Barack’s earnest attitude and breezy self-assurance impressed Michelle.
Barack and Michelle became friends at work. The pair formed an unspoken bond over the fact that they were two of a very few Black people at the law office (out of more than 400 lawyers in the firm, only five full-time attorneys were Black).
The two had lunch together once a week. Michelle learned that Barack was three years older than she was, that he read literature and political philosophy, that he played basketball, and that his hometown was in Oahu, Hawaii.
The only thing she disliked about him was that he smoked cigarettes—a habit she detested since her parents smoked when she was a child. But despite Michelle’s fondness for Barack, she had no romantic interest in him. She was solely focused on her career at the firm and staying on track to become an equity partner before she turned 32.
Michelle even invited Barack to a happy hour at a local bar, thinking her girlfriends would want to meet this brilliant, successful, handsome guy. He went along but wasn’t interested in dating any of her girlfriends.
Over time, Michelle learned more about Barack, including his staunch belief that progress can only happen if ordinary citizens work together with the government. She learned about his thriftiness and his introverted habits—he said he would rather spend an evening alone reading about urban housing policy than making chit-chat with 1980s yuppies at a bar.
Slowly their relationship began to change, and Barack tried to convince Michelle to date him. Although she resisted initially, Michelle soon realized she had romantic feelings for him. She felt drawn to Barack, but she was concerned about what her superiors at the law firm would think of their relationship.
About a month before Barack headed back to law school for his second year, Barack and Michelle bought a couple of ice cream cones and sat down to eat them on the curb outside Barack's apartment. He asked if he could kiss her, and Michelle couldn’t resist his charm. For the next month, the pair spent all their free time together.
Since Michelle was living in the same house with her parents, the couple hung out at Barack’s sparsely furnished apartment surrounded by piles of books and clothes. They got to know each other more deeply over dinners, walks, movies, and long conversations.
It was clear to Michelle and Barack that they were opposites: She was organized; his apartment was a mess. She loved the Cubs; he loved the White Sox. She watched romantic comedies; he preferred serious drama. He wasn't interested in material goods; she drove an air-conditioned Saab. But they appreciated each other's differences and found commonalities in music, particularly Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye, and in their backgrounds—both had grown up in modest, middle-class households, and both had family members who deeply loved them.
Even so, Michelle soon learned there was a huge difference between her stable upbringing and Barack's more loosely tied family. Barack came from a mixed heritage: His white mother, Ann Dunham, was originally from Kansas but her family moved to Hawaii. She was studying at the University of Hawaii when she met Barack's Black father (also named Barack Hussein Obama), who was a Kenyan student.
After giving birth to Barack, Ann discovered that Barack Sr. had a wife in Nairobi. Ann divorced him and later married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian man who was studying in Hawaii. Ann and Lolo took Barack with them to live in Jakarta, Indonesia, but after four years, Ann sent young Barack back to Oahu, where she thought he'd have better educational opportunities. During most of his school years, Barack lived on Oahu with his grandparents, Ann's parents.
Barack also had two half-sisters: Maya, who lived in Oahu, and Auma, who lived in Nairobi.
Although Barack's early life was unconventional and somewhat unstable, he didn't yearn for something different. He told Michelle that he loved Ann, he loved his grandparents, he loved his life in Hawaii, and that was all that mattered.
One night, one of Barack's colleagues from his old community-organizing job asked if he would lead a training session at a Black parish in Roseland. The town had been devastated in the 1980s by steel mill closures. Michelle decided to go along to hear him speak.
The parishioners were at first skeptical of Barack but very quickly caught on to the power of his message. His words were simple: You either give up, or you work for change. Michelle, too, was moved by Barack’s talk. She saw authenticity in his optimism—he fully believed that people could work for and achieve a better world.
Barack told Michelle he loved her shortly before heading back to Cambridge and Harvard Law School, nearly 1,000 miles away. He intended to keep in touch with Michelle by writing letters to her—after all, he had written to his long-distance family all his life.
But Michelle came from a family of talkers—the Robinsons discussed everything over the dinner table. She insisted that they call each other on the phone, and Barack agreed.
At work, Michelle was on a team that recruited summer associates for the law firm. At the time, less than 3% of associates and less than 1% of partners in law firms were African-American.
Like most other prestigious firms, Michelle's firm recruited associates only from prestigious law schools like Harvard, Stanford, and Yale. Michelle suggested that her firm cast a wider net and recruit from lesser known law schools, including state schools. She also argued that they examine other criteria besides grade point average. If they didn't, they'd just recruit more lawyers who were like the majority who already worked there—white men from privileged backgrounds.
When Michelle went on recruiting trips, she occasionally had the chance to visit Barack at Harvard. He lived in a spartan apartment and drove a sputtering, yellow Datsun with a rust hole in the floor. Michelle, in contrast, enjoyed the many material perks that came with her high-paying job.
The Christmas after their first summer in Chicago, Michelle traveled to Honolulu with Barack to meet the grandparents who raised him, his mother Ann, his half-sister Maya, and some of Barack's high school friends. On that trip, Michelle learned that everyone in the family called him by his nickname, Barry.
Michelle felt comfortable and relaxed among Barack's family and friends. She saw how devoted he was to his family. She watched Barack’s serious political side recede and his laid-back "Hawaiian personality" take over.
On a day trip to the north shore of Oahu, the couple sat on the beach together talking. They discussed what kinds of parents they'd like to be someday, and what kind of house they'd like to live in. Michelle realized she saw Barack as her potential lifelong partner.
Michelle’s best friend and Princeton roommate Suzanne called to announce that she was quitting her job as a computer specialist to travel around the world with her mother. Always the more conservative of the two friends, Michelle told Suzanne she was being irresponsible. Despite Michelle's disapproval, Suzanne left her job and traveled with her mother.
Suzanne returned home to Maryland several months later and phoned Michelle with completely different news: Her body was being ravaged by an aggressive form of lymphoma. In a tragic twist of fate, her mother had also been diagnosed with cancer of a completely different type.
Unable to cope with Suzanne's devastating news, Michelle used work as an excuse so she wouldn't have to think about her friend's mortality—and by extension, her own. She spent months in a frenzied state of nonstop work, blocking out thoughts of her dying friend. She kept telling herself that somehow Suzanne would recover.
Suzanne had several unsuccessful treatments and surgeries. When Michelle learned the doctors didn't think she would live much longer, Michelle traveled to Maryland to say goodbye to Suzanne, who was already in a coma. Michelle felt devastated by the terrible injustice of her free-spirited friend dying at 26 years old.
Michelle felt challenged and inspired by the way Suzanne lived fully and vibrantly while Michelle worked nonstop, always obsessed with achievement. Suzanne's death served as a catalyst for Michelle, making her want more joy in her life.
These chapters focus on the death of Michelle's father, Michelle and Barack's engagement and marriage, and Michelle’s decision to leave her law career to work at Chicago City Hall. Although her career transition posed a challenge, Michelle is transforming into someone who makes choices for herself instead of trying to impress or please other people.
In the summer of 1990, Barack returned to Chicago as a summer associate at a different law firm and moved into Michelle's apartment in her parents' house. This gave Marian, Fraser, and Barack a chance to get to know each other. But he soon returned to Cambridge to attend to his duties as president of the Harvard Law Review. Barack was the first African-American to hold this position.
Michelle realized that Barack's future looked bright and bold while hers seemed lackluster. She felt serious doubts about her choice of career. Practicing corporate law held little meaning for her. She didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life, and she felt somewhat intimidated by Barack's confidence that he was ready to make a difference in the world. She started writing in a journal to sort through her confusion.
Michelle considered her options: She thought perhaps she might like teaching, working for a nonprofit, or helping kids. She wondered if she could pay her bills if she abandoned her high-paying job. When she discussed her dilemma with her mother, Marian told her to focus on making money while she was young and worry about being happy later. Michelle wasn’t surprised by her advice: The Robinson family had always emphasized practicality.
Michelle always dreamed of falling in love and marrying. But Barack, while not directly opposed to marriage, felt more ambivalent about it. Barack's mother had married twice and divorced twice, so Barack didn't see marriage as particularly beneficial. In contrast, Michelle's parents had been together for their entire adult lives. In 30 years, they had rarely spent even one night apart.
Also, Barack had his hands full: He was about to graduate from Harvard, take the Illinois bar exam, and interview for jobs.
Michelle felt concerned that Barack didn't share her eagerness to wed, but she hoped that when he returned to Chicago after graduation, they would live together permanently and he would decide to marry her.
Michelle's father's health deteriorated as his multiple sclerosis worsened, but as always, he wouldn't admit to it. His standard response to health questions was "I'm fine." He refused to go to the doctor, and he continued to go to work every day. He used a motorized scooter to get around at his job.
Eventually Fraser's legs and feet swelled so badly that he couldn't walk at all. Marian called an ambulance to take him to the hospital. The doctors informed him that he had Cushing’s Syndrome, which may or may not have been related to his multiple sclerosis. The disease was so far advanced that Fraser never left the hospital.
In March 1991, Michelle visited Fraser and found him so swollen that he was unable to breathe comfortably or speak. She cried, and he took her hand and kissed it. She knew he was saying goodbye, telling her to be strong, and asking forgiveness for not listening to her and calling the doctor sooner. That night, he had a heart attack and passed away.
Wracked by grief, Michelle and Craig spent the next day engaged in an absurd argument about what kind of casket to buy their father. Michelle wanted the fanciest casket the family could afford. Craig wanted a simple box, arguing that it’s what their father would want. Later that day, the siblings were able to find the humor in the situation, knowing that Fraser would have laughed at them, too.
Looking back on her father’s death and its impact on her family, Michelle reflects on the nature of grief—the way it defies logic and normality. She writes that after a loved one dies, everything hurts. Even joyful things like sunsets or laughing children, which would normally seem beautiful, deepen the sense of loneliness and loss.
Losing her best friend and her 55-year-old father served as a wake-up call for Michelle, reminding her that life was precariously short. It was time to make what she calls "the first real swerve of my life." At 26 years old, she no longer wanted to follow her lifelong path of high-profile achievement.
Michelle sought advice from anyone who might know what job would suit a lawyer who didn't want to practice law. She thought she might want to work in public service, so she began sending resumes to nonprofits, foundations, and universities all over Chicago.
An acquaintance introduced her to Valerie Jarrett, the deputy chief of staff for the Chicago mayor's office. Like Michelle, Valerie had worked at an elite law firm but quickly realized the legal profession wasn't her calling. Valerie offered Michelle a job as an assistant to Mayor Richard M. Daley.
Michelle believed that Valerie would be an excellent mentor. But she was also skeptical about working in politics, especially at Chicago's City Hall. And she was worried about taking a huge pay cut—the new job would pay only half of her current salary.
Before she could accept the job, she wanted Barack to meet Valerie. Michelle and Barack had recently become engaged, and she didn't feel comfortable making a decision of this magnitude without his input.
In a flashback, Michelle relates how Barack proposed to her: On July 31, 1991, the couple went out for a celebration dinner after Barack took the state bar exam. Michelle knew exactly how hard the exam was—she took it twice because she failed the first time—and she worried that Barack had not studied hard enough for it. But he was as relaxed and confident as always.
During dinner, Barack broached the subject of marriage. He told her he didn't see the point of getting married since they already knew they loved each other. Michelle got angry. She couldn't believe he was bringing up this uncomfortable subject on a happy evening at one of their favorite restaurants.
While the couple debated the merits of marriage, a waiter delivered a dessert plate and placed it in front of Michelle. On it lay a small velvet box holding an engagement ring. Michelle was suitably surprised—and she knew that Barack had tricked her so she wouldn’t suspect this moment was coming.
Barack dropped to one knee and asked her to honor him by marrying him. She said yes, and the entire restaurant erupted with applause.
Barack met Valerie and encouraged Michelle to accept the job at City Hall. Although everyone in her family thought she was crazy to give up her high-paying law job, Barack insisted that if she followed her heart and her principles, everything would work out. Meanwhile, Barack had accepted a position in a Chicago public interest law firm. He also had a contract and a large advance from a New York book publisher who wanted him to write a book about race and identity.
To celebrate their engagement, the couple journeyed to Nairobi and visited Barack’s relatives. Michelle was amazed by her first trip to Africa, a land completely different from anything she'd known. Barack’s grandmother Sarah welcomed them to the family's ancestral home, and neighbors and friends came by to meet Barack’s bride-to-be.
In October 1992, Michelle and Barack got married at Trinity Church in Chicago in front of 300 friends and family members. Their wedding song was Stevie Wonder's "You and I."
After a honeymoon in Northern California, Michelle and Barack were faced with good news and bad news. The good news: Their favored candidate Bill Clinton won the 1992 Presidential election, defeating the incumbent George H. W. Bush after an unprecedented turnout.
For Barack, it was an encouraging sign of progress: Clinton's win demonstrated to politicians that African-American votes mattered. Right up until the honeymoon, he had been working for a nonpartisan organization called Project VOTE! that helped to register 110,000 new voters. In Chicago alone, more than half a million Black voters had gone to the polls.
The bad news came from Barack's publishing agent. Because Barack had failed to meet his writing deadline, the publisher canceled his book, and Barack had to repay a $40,000 advance. Michelle wasn't terribly surprised, knowing that Barack always committed to more projects than he could possibly accomplish.
Barack was confident that another publisher would buy his book, so he proposed to Michelle that he go into isolation to finish the manuscript. Michelle wasn't happy that just six weeks after their wedding, Barack would take extended time away from her. She found herself thinking it was unfair that he was going on his own solo "honeymoon."
She finally agreed, realizing this might be the only way he would get the book done. Barack retreated to a rented cabin in Bali and returned home five weeks later with a finished manuscript. In a few months, his agent sold it to another publisher. Dreams from My Father was published a few years later.
Being gregarious and family-oriented, Michelle found Barack's need for solitude hard to accept. She had to remind herself that she had married an unusual man, an "outside-the-box thinker." Even though the couple had been together many years, now that they were married, they had new identities to negotiate.
Looking back at her newlywed self, Michelle realizes she had to learn to adapt to the needs of her partner as well as her own needs. Michelle had to constantly remind herself that she came from a family whose parents lived like the families depicted on 1960s and 1970s television: Dad worked while Mom stayed home and cared for the kids. (Barack would sometimes kid Michelle that her family was like the Black version of Leave It to Beaver, except poorer.) Barack's childhood and family were vastly different, so of course there would be clashes.
Michelle's work at City Hall was completely different from that of being a corporate lawyer. She enjoyed public service, she liked learning about Chicago's inner workings, and she had the benefit of two female mentors who were both working mothers. They wielded their power skillfully at work but dropped everything if their children needed them. Michelle realized this was the kind of mother she wanted to be.
After Barack returned from Bali, the newlyweds settled comfortably into married life. They purchased and moved into a Hyde Park condo, and their days were relatively happy and uneventful. After two years at City Hall, Michelle was offered a leadership role at a nonprofit, and she made another career leap.
Michelle Obama writes about being a “box checker” as a child, someone who strives for perfect attendance and straight A’s. She followed a straight-line path to success, checking off one box after another until she reached her academic and career goals. But later in life, she learned she had to “swerve” to adjust to life’s circumstances. (For example, she veered away from corporate law to a more meaningful but lesser paying job.)
In general, do you see yourself as someone who checks boxes or someone who swerves? (To think of it another way: Do you see yourself as a meticulous planner or as someone who is more spontaneous in your decision-making?) What makes you say this?
Give an example of a time that your approach—either box-checking or swerving—worked well for you.
Have you ever blindly worked so hard toward achieving something that you didn't realize you were on the wrong path? How did you realize it and what did you do then?
Have you ever veered off your predetermined life plan when you've wanted or needed to? If so, describe your swerve and its outcome—whether or not it worked out well.
These chapters focus on Michelle's career moves—first to the nonprofit Public Allies and then to the University of Chicago—as well as her challenges in getting pregnant and the eventual birth of the Obamas' two daughters. Becoming a mother fulfills a lifelong goal for Michelle—and plays an important role in her evolution as a person.
After Michelle left her job at Chicago City Hall, she was hired as the executive director for the Chicago chapter of Public Allies, an organization that sought to inspire a new generation of community leaders. Much like Teach for America or AmeriCorps, Public Allies trained talented young people through 10-month apprenticeships in civic-minded jobs and nonprofit organizations.
As the 29-year-old executive director, Michelle was thrilled to have the chance to run her own nonprofit. She relished being in charge of setting up an office, hiring staff, seeking out donors, and finding suitable places for young people to work. Most of all, she enjoyed selecting the "allies" themselves, the young people who would participate. She searched out candidates at community colleges and urban high schools. She made it a point to choose not just straight-A students, but also young people who weren't the highest achievers but seemed like they would benefit from the program.
Running Public Allies was all-consuming, but in reflection, Michelle calls it the best job she ever had because her work had so much impact on these young adults.
Meanwhile, Barack was teaching a class at the University of Chicago Law School, working full time at a law firm, and running community-organizing workshops. Michelle began to understand that he had limitless energy and carried the world's problems on his shoulders, which led to his need for quiet space and time to concentrate, read, write, and think.
When an Illinois state senator encouraged Barack to run for office, Michelle hoped he wouldn't take the bait. She had a low opinion of politics and politicians, and she wanted Barack to stick to his stable jobs in law and teaching. But Barack had political ambitions, and Michelle wanted to support his goals even though she believed the job would drive him crazy.
Barack was elected to the Illinois Senate in November 1996. He had to spend three nights a week in the state capital of Springfield, away from Michelle in Chicago, but he was excited about his new legislative position.
The couple developed a strategy to help them cope with the time apart: Every Friday night the couple shared "date night" at a favorite Chicago restaurant, where they'd catch up on the details of their lives.
Michelle, now 32 years old, prepared to make another career transition. After three years running Public Allies, she accepted a job as an associate dean at the University of Chicago. Her role was to focus on community relations and make sure the university was better known to everyone in the city. With a larger paycheck and less-demanding hours, she could focus on her personal life, which for her meant it was time to become a mother.
Both Barack and Michelle wanted to have a baby, but conception didn't happen easily. After trying to get pregnant for several months, Michelle had a miscarriage. The couple sought the help of a fertility doctor, who recommended Michelle take a drug to help with her egg production. That wasn't successful, and a few months later the couple decided to attempt in vitro fertilization (IVF). Michelle felt she was extremely fortunate because her job at the university came with top-notch health insurance benefits that would cover the cost.
As Michelle took the drugs, got the tests, and administered the daily shots needed for IVF, she felt her first twinges of resentment toward Barack's political commitments. She came to realize that no matter how great a husband Barack was and how great a father he would be, she would have to heft most of the responsibility for getting pregnant and, most likely, parenting their future child. She realized that equality in parenthood is a myth—it's simply not equal.
Considering the lonely road she was up against, Michelle briefly hesitated before putting the IVF syringe into her thigh. But she wanted a baby so badly, she was willing to do whatever was necessary to make it happen.
Once Michelle became pregnant, all traces of resentment disappeared. She was finally going to fulfill her dream of being a mother. On July 4, 1998, she gave birth to their first child, Malia Ann.
Michelle’s difficulties in conceiving taught her an important lesson—that while hard work and perseverance made a big difference in many areas of her life, no amount of "hard work" could make her get pregnant. Fertility wasn't just another achievement. It was a gift and a privilege.
Barack was reelected to the Illinois state Senate and was busier than ever, but he was also thrilled to be a new father. Both he and Michelle were hyper-focused on baby Malia. Michelle was "heady with the responsibility" of parenthood, and she obsessed over every burp and murmur the baby made.
After a long maternity leave, Michelle eventually returned to a part-time job at the University of Chicago. Barack was still an Illinois state senator, but he planned to make a bid for a U.S. Congressional seat. That Christmas, Barack, Michelle, and Malia went to Hawaii to visit Barack's grandmother (and Malia's great-grandmother). The Illinois Senate was in the midst of debating an important crime bill, and in the middle of their holiday, Barack was called back for a special vote on the bill.
The Obamas immediately changed their plane tickets and prepared to fly back, but baby Malia suddenly fell sick with a mysterious fever. Until she could see a doctor, there was no way her parents could put her on a plane. Michelle and Barack discussed the option of him going back and leaving Michelle and Malia in Hawaii, but both parents were deeply concerned about their little girl. Torn by competing responsibilities, Barack chose to stay with his family and miss the vote.
As it turned out, Malia had nothing more than a typical toddler's earache. But the crime bill failed by a narrow margin, and Barack faced strong criticism from other state senators and the media. Despite his explanation that his baby daughter was sick, they accused him of choosing a Hawaiian vacation over important legislative work.
Michelle was mortified that the family's private life was being publicly judged, and she was also concerned that this one event might destroy Barack's favor with the Democratic party, poison his hard work and progress in the Illinois Senate, and ruin his chances to win a seat in Congress.
Her disdain for politics escalated in the days before the Demcratic primary. Some voters questioned Barack's character and made unfair comments about his education and his "whiteness." They said “real Black men” didn't speak or look like he did.
Michelle was incensed by these attacks, but Barack took them in stride, understanding that it was all part of the political game. Nonetheless, Barack lost the Democratic primary in March.
After another round of in vitro fertilization, Michelle and Barack’s second child, Natasha (Sasha) Marian, was born on June 10, 2001. Big sister Malia was almost three years old.
Now with two children, Michelle considered quitting her university job and staying home to be a full-time mother. Her beloved babysitter, who had looked after Malia, had recently quit, so Michelle no longer had childcare.
Michelle interviewed for the position of executive director for community affairs at the University of Chicago Medical Center. She took three-month-old Sasha with her to the interview because she wanted to be honest about her reality: She was a mother of two young children. She felt empowered by her assertive display of motherhood, and her new boss didn't seem to mind at all.
Most of Michelle's close friends were, like her, educated and ambitious. Michelle observed as this tight group of women juggled high-powered careers and babies and supported each other along the way. Some worked full time; others part time. Some had help at home and some didn't. She learned from watching these women that there is no "right way" to be a mother.
When she was offered the hospital job, her friends and Barack encouraged her to accept. It was a great opportunity to make a difference in her community, and her new salary would be enough to pay for a housekeeper and caregiver for her children.
Barack still hoped for an entry into national politics. George W. Bush was president at the time, and the United States had just experienced the horrific tragedies of September 11, 2001. In the midst of the turmoil, Barack considered running for a U.S. Senate seat. Michelle did not support the idea—she felt like they were already much too busy managing their children and their careers, and the last thing they needed to add to their schedules was a high-profile political campaign.
Years of Barack being away from home all week and returning late on Thursday nights had taken a toll on Michelle. She felt lonely when he was gone, and when he was home, she felt frustrated by their big and small disagreements. She was constantly annoyed by Barack’s lack of punctuality—he often got caught up in projects and lost track of time.
As the children grew to be toddlers, the couple's lives became even more hectic, and Michelle's resentments deepened. Now 38 years old, she started to worry that her marriage might unravel.
Michelle convinced Barack to go to couples' counseling. After some resistance, he agreed. Michelle expected that their psychologist would validate all her grievances and convince Barack to change his ways, but he didn't. Instead, he let both Michelle and Barack air their complaints, and he didn't take sides.
After several appointments with the psychologist, the couple began to find ways to communicate their needs more clearly and take care of themselves and each other.
Looking back on this difficult time in her marriage, Michelle realizes that she was suffering from "a kind of psychic whiplash." She wanted to be a wife and mother like her mom was, but she also wanted to be just like her childhood TV-show idol, Mary Tyler Moore, who was a vibrant career woman and the opposite of her mother. Michelle was yearning for an impossible degree of perfection—a stable family life, a successful career, and an ideal marriage—and then blaming Barack for not providing it. She’d gotten "caught up in the notion that everything was unfair," but counseling taught her that she had to take responsibility for herself.
After counseling, Michelle realized that she could take steps to make her own life happier, and it didn't have to be at Barack's expense. Barack didn't have to quit the job he loved or stop going to the gym to make more time for Michelle and the girls. Instead, for example, Michelle needed to start going to the gym herself, and she needed to find other ways to set healthy boundaries.
To simplify her life, Michelle stopped trying to accommodate Barack's erratic schedule every day. Rather than waiting for Barack to get home, she kept a set schedule for the girls' dinner time and bedtime. It was up to Barack to get home in time to see the girls before they went to sleep.
Barack, too, made adjustments based on what he learned from counseling, especially in terms of his day-to-day communication with Michelle. He even began working harder at being punctual.
This chapter focuses on Michelle's dual roles as career woman and mother, Barack's tenure as a U.S. Senator, and how Hurricane Katrina affects his decision to run for U.S. President. At this stage in Michelle’s “becoming,” she feels satisfied with her career choice and overjoyed to be a wife and mother. But she’s about to face new challenges as Barack moves deeper into the political arena.
At 40 years old, Michelle's life settled into a fairly happy routine. She was careful not to allow her job at the hospital to overtake her family life. She felt like she was "pulling it off"— balancing a challenging and satisfying job with the joys of motherhood. Unlike in her younger years, she no longer threw herself completely into her work. She was protective of her time to make sure she provided a stable life for her girls. She discovered that living this way made her happy.
Believing that he could make big changes in Washington, D.C., Barack toyed with the idea of running for U.S. Senate. Michelle tried to discourage him.
If Barack ran, his campaign would be especially difficult because he was only an Illinois state legislator. He was unknown on the national political scene. Michelle didn’t think he had much chance at winning—which would mean putting up with all the campaign hoopla for nothing.
But Barack was intent on taking this leap of faith, so Michelle agreed to support him. They struck a deal for the sake of their family: She made him promise that if he lost the race, he would leave politics altogether.
Many of the couple's friends agreed to help with Barack’s Senate campaign, including Michelle's former boss at City Hall, Valerie Jarrett. Valerie became his campaign finance chair.
Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, who was running for U.S. President against George W. Bush, invited Barack to deliver the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. It was an incredible opportunity: As a mere state legislator, Barack had never had this big a chance to get his message across. He gave a 17-minute speech before a crowd of 15,000 conventioneers, and the applause seemed to go on forever.
Michelle, who watched from backstage, felt a huge surge of pride. She saw that Barack was exactly where he should be, doing what he should be doing.
As Michelle looks back on this night in 2004, she realizes that this is the moment when she finally gives up on the idea that they will ever have a "normal" family life, one that isn't in the political spotlight. She finally accepts that Barack is destined for political life, and it’s her job to support him in that important calling.
The response to Barack's convention speech was overwhelmingly positive. Journalists started making a leap of faith, calling him "the guy who will be the first Black president.” People asked for his autograph. His book Dreams from My Father made The New York Times bestseller list. Oprah Winfrey interviewed Michelle and Barack.
The couple found their sudden fame jarring, but they had to adapt. In November, Barack won his Senate race by 70% of the vote, the largest landslide in that year’s congressional races.
In January 2005, Barack started commuting back and forth from Chicago to his Senate office in Washington, D.C., so he was gone much of the time. But Michelle's routine was much the same as ever—she kept working at the hospital and the girls went to school and to swimming and ballet lessons.
When another U.S. Senator’s wife called Michelle and invited her to join a private club of Washington wives, she politely declined, explaining that her family was not moving to D.C. The woman gently told her that Senate families could fall apart when they didn't move to the capital. Michelle found this disconcerting, but she insisted that she and Barack wanted to keep the children in their schools and that she was not going to quit her job.
After that phone call, Michelle thought about how she had been married to Barack for 12 years, but now for the first time people saw her as "Mrs. Obama," not as an independent career woman whose accomplishments were completely separate from her husband's. Although she loved Barack, she wasn't willing to drop everything to move to Washington, D.C. to be with him. Life as a Senator's wife wasn’t her choice, and federal politics seemed like a vortex she didn't want to get sucked into. Yet by virtue of her marriage, she felt sucked in.
Barack had only been a Senator for a short time, but already the media was conjecturing about whether or not he would run for President in 2008. Even Michelle's colleagues at the hospital asked her about whether he would run. Barack insisted he was happy working as a new and low-ranking member of the Senate; he just wanted to do his best at that job.
Hurricane Katrina hit in August 2005, flooding the levees in New Orleans and leaving a wake of devastation. Poor black families were especially hard hit. Nearly 1,900 people died, and more than half a million people lost their homes. The federal government's response was pathetically slow and inept.
Michelle and Barack were horrified by what had happened. They knew that if a similar natural disaster occurred in their home town of Chicago, many of their family members and friends—the people Michelle grew up with—would suffer the same fate as the displaced families who were now sleeping on cots in the New Orleans Superdome.
Barack joined the Clinton and Bush families in the Gulf Coast, trying to provide assistance and comfort to people who lost their homes, livelihoods, and family members.
Hurricane Katrina was the turning point for Barack, whose entire philosophy was rooted in helping those less fortunate. It seemed everyone wanted him to run for President. His cell phone never stopped ringing. Time magazine ran a cover story with the headline "Why Barack Obama Could Be the Next President." Even the conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks encouraged Barack to run in a column titled "Run, Barack, Run."
Michelle, who had recently been promoted to vice president at the University of Chicago Medical Center and was content with her career and home life, feared Barack's next step. She and Barack had already lived through five election campaigns in 11 years, and each one exacted a toll on their personal life.
For a presidential campaign, every member of the Obama family—even the two girls, who were now five and eight—would be in the spotlight. She couldn't help worrying about how campaign politics and publicity would affect her daughters and her marriage. But Michelle's brother Craig reminded her that if Barack had any shot at winning, he needed to try.
Michelle knew she could not put her needs, or even their family's needs, ahead of millions of people who desperately needed a voice in government. She knew that she and Barack enjoyed lives of great privilege while many other people couldn't get access to basic necessities like housing and health care. And she knew Barack might be able to help them.
Michelle decided to support Barack's run for the Presidency despite her deep misgivings about politics and her longing for a private family life.
How do you resolve career conflicts—or other major conflicts of interest—in your relationship?
Describe an instance in your relationship where you made a big concession. How did it turn out for you?
How did it turn out for your partner? Did your concession give them something of value that they needed or wanted?
Would you make the same decision again? Why or why not?
These chapters focus on Barack's successful run for U.S. President, Michelle's role in campaigning, and the challenges of living in the media spotlight. Michelle must confront her aversion to public life and distaste for politics and find a way to support her partner without losing her own precious sense of self.
Michelle truly believed Barack had the intelligence, temperament, discipline, and empathy to be a great president. She believed in his ideals and his ability to bring them to life. But she also knew enough about America to think the country might not yet be ready for a Black president. She had an unshakeable feeling that no matter how hard he campaigned, he wasn't going to win.
On February 10, 2007, Barack prepared to stand at an outdoor podium in a freezing Illinois storm to announce his candidacy. Michelle worried that the awful weather would mean a small crowd, and Barack’s kickoff event might be a dismal failure. She worried that her daughters would trip over their feet or look bored on stage. She worried whether she or they were dressed properly. She was painfully aware of the image she was supposed to project: "I knew the stereotype I was meant to inhabit, the immaculately groomed doll-wife with the painted-on smile, gazing bright-eyed at her husband."
But as soon as she saw the crowd that had gathered, her worries subsided. Thousands of people roared with enthusiasm, cheering on the entire Obama family. Michelle was moved by this incredible display of loyalty. She started to believe that the next 20 months of campaigning might actually be worth it: Barack did have a chance at the presidency. She suddenly saw each audience member as the Obamas’ responsibility. Each person had come out to support the Obamas, and the Obamas would not fail them.
Michelle was now fully committed to Barack's bid for President, and as she had predicted, her family's life changed quickly and radically. Michelle remembers Barack as being constantly in motion, responding to the nonstop actions and reactions of the campaign. He was competing against Hillary Clinton, who was much better known than Obama, and eight other Democrats.
As most presidential candidates' spouses do, Michelle ran her own campaign to get Barack elected. She hired Melissa Winter as her campaign manager (who later became Michelle’s chief of staff), and Katie McCormick Lelyveld as her communications director. Michelle's only stipulation was that there would be no overnight travel—she wanted to be home every night for the girls.
Michelle scaled back her work at the hospital to part time and traveled a few days a week to Iowa, a priority state for any candidate hoping to win the Democratic nomination. The state was 90 percent white and mostly rural, so it seemed like a tough challenge for a Black candidate from Chicago.
Barack rarely campaigned alongside her because he had other places he needed to be, so Michelle had to come up with her own messages and strategies. Without fully understanding exactly what she was supposed to do or say, Michelle spoke to community groups and volunteers all over the state. She told her personal stories—about her family life, how she met Barack, what her schooling was like, and why she wasn't a big fan of politics.
The people who listened to her, she says, were a lot like her family, only white. They were civic-minded blue-collar workers, college students, retirees, and stay-at-home mothers. When these people hugged her, she hugged them right back.
The most uncomfortable part of the Iowa campaign was when journalists would ask Michelle what it was like for an Ivy League-educated Black woman to speak to a room full of white, middle-class Iowans. She bristled at the question because it emphasized differences instead of similarities. She saw how these people were the same as she was: Some wanted to talk to her because they, too, had a family member with multiple sclerosis, or they, too, struggled to believe they were “good enough” to attend a great college or raise children while managing a career.
In the midst of campaigning for Barack, a doctor informed Michelle that Malia’s body mass index was too high. This might put her in danger of obesity, high blood pressure, or other serious health issues later on in her life.
Michelle was shocked. She’d thought she had done everything right to care for her daughters, but she hadn’t realized they’d fallen into bad habits like eating fast food or getting too many takeout dinners. With Barack’s presidential campaign in full swing, Michelle had no time to prepare healthy meals, so she hired a professional chef, Sam Kass, who not only cooked for the girls, but also taught them about healthy eating and the perils of the food industry's marketing campaigns. Michelle promised Kass that if Barack got elected, she would use her role as first lady to address the public health consequences of unhealthy eating.
A few months later, Michelle took a leave of absence from her job because the campaign—and caring for her children in the midst of it—demanded all her time. She was getting a ton of media exposure, and although much of it was positive, some was discriminatory and hateful. The media often portrayed Michelle as an "angry Black woman," a stereotype that she calls a "signal not to listen to what we've got to say."
One New York Times columnist called her a “princess of South Chicago.” Another media personality called her “Obama’s Baby Mama.” Journalists rarely asked about her work or qualifications, but some news stories insinuated that her promotions at the hospital were due to Barack’s popularity.
Michelle struggled with her new role as a media celebrity and tried to not take the criticism personally, but combatting the mean-spirited comments was draining. She questioned whether her presence on the campaign trail was helping or hurting Barack. He insisted she was a great asset but said he understood her frustration—if she wanted to stop campaigning, she could.
Michelle decided to work with Barack's communications staff to fine-tune her public demeanor and speech delivery. She came to understand that politics is as much performance art as anything else, and she needed to learn how to perfect her act. Barack’s staff taught her to smile more and show more of her softer, maternal side because that’s what America wanted to see.
Meanwhile, Barack was the subject of many unfounded rumors. Lies, suspicions, and theories circulated in the media, on the Internet, and in anonymous email chains. Some stories said he refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, or that he had a close friend who was a domestic terrorist, or that he had been sworn into the Senate on a Koran instead of a Bible. Many Americans couldn't even pronounce Barack's name—and didn't try to learn.
Michelle didn't feel unsafe, but she was concerned about threats against Barack. She took comfort in the fact that Secret Service agents trailed her husband, and an agent was assigned to the Obama home. Never before in history had a presidential candidate been given Secret Service protection so early in his campaign, but Barack’s heritage made him a particularly controversial candidate.
As Michelle is subjected to harsh criticism, she recalls her mother's lesson about not letting a bully's insults or aggression get to you—it’s only when you take a bully's comments personally that you really get hurt. She remembers when she was in first grade, and a boy punched her in the face for no reason. Stunned, hurt, and confused, Michelle ran home to her mother, and her mother went to her school to sort things out. The boy was punished and forced to apologize to Michelle. Michelle's mother explained the boy's meanness this way: "That boy was just scared and angry about things that have nothing to do with you."
After a year of campaigning, Barack trailed in the polls behind Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. But Michelle wasn't convinced the polls were correct. She knew that Barack was running a massive grassroots campaign staffed mostly by young 20-somethings. They were invisible to the pollsters, but these young people had power, skills, and energy, and they were staffing 37 offices for the Obama campaign.
A key moment came at the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, an annual Democratic event in Des Moines that's essentially a huge pep rally held a few weeks before the Iowa caucuses. More than 3,000 of Barack's young staffers attended the event. All the Democratic candidates made a speech, and most used their time to criticize their opponents, but Barack, who spoke last, spoke against the dangers of polarization. He didn't want voters to take sides; he wanted Democrats to change America. His speech was met with thunderous applause, and Barack went on to win the Iowa caucuses.
Barack became the Democratic nominee for President and chose Joe Biden—at that time a Senator from Delaware—to be his running mate. Although they were rivals for the Democratic nomination, they quickly became friends afterward. They were running against the Republican ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin.
The media frenzy around the Obamas intensified. Journalists follow Barack’s every move, scrutinizing every word, action, and gesture. In the summer of 2008, just a few months before the November election, Michelle felt like the Obamas’ life was entirely scripted, with every moment planned by other people. Being surrounded by huge audiences, bright lights, and newspaper photographers had become the norm. Carefully regulating every word spoken in public was also the norm.
Michelle learned to cherish the precious unrehearsed moments she was occasionally granted. She got one of those rare moments on the Fourth of July, when the Obamas and their Secret Service attaché flew to Butte, Montana. The citizens of Butte knew that it was Malia’s 10th birthday, and they held up signs congratulating her. Huge crowds came out for a Fourth of July picnic, and everyone sang “Happy Birthday” to Malia.
Michelle spent much of the day feeling guilty and inadequate as a parent because her family life had become so public. Because of their campaign responsibilities, she thought she had failed to give Malia a normal birthday at home with a party, friends, relatives, and presents. But at the end of the day, Malia surprised her by insisting this was "the best birthday ever." In her 10-year-old mind, strangers helped her to celebrate her day, she'd spent the day outside at a picnic, and she ate birthday cake—and life couldn't get any better.
On November 4, Michelle and Barack cast their votes in Chicago and begin an excruciating, all-day wait to hear the election results. Friends and family visited their home to help pass the time. Craig and Barack played basketball to relieve the stress. Michelle continued to ask herself the question she'd been asking all along: Was America really ready to elect a Black president?
That evening, Michelle and Barack went to a hotel suite that the campaign had rented for them. With a small group of family and friends, they watched the election results on television. Joe and Jill Biden watched the results from their own suite across the hall.
At 10 p.m., Barack was declared the 44th President of the United States, and everyone in the hotel started screaming and hugging. Michelle recalls the rest of the night as a surreal blur. Secret Service agents escorted the Obamas in a motorcade to Grant Park, where Barack made his acceptance speech to an audience of more than 200,000 people. Michelle, Malia, and Sasha stood on stage with Barack, listening to the cheers of a jubilant crowd.
These chapters focus on Michelle's role as first lady, her family's adjustment to life in the White House, her plan to plant a White House garden, and her first visit with Queen Elizabeth. Michelle initially feels daunted by the intensely public role she plays in American life, but she soon adapts to her new reality and manages to put her own unique spin on being first lady.
In the 76 days between the election and the inauguration, Michelle started to plan what she would do as first lady. After the hard knocks Michelle had to withstand during Barack's presidential campaign, she had a fair idea of the scrutiny that awaited. As the first Black woman in American history to serve as first lady, she would be "measured by a different yardstick."
The job of a first lady does not come with a job description or even with official responsibilities. And yet, the position wields tremendous power, and Michelle wanted to use that power to achieve positive changes. Since she was free to select her own agenda, she planned to oversee several initiatives that would offer better support for military families and teach America's kids about food and nutrition.
A few weeks before the inauguration, President George W. Bush and first lady Laura Bush invited Michelle and Barack to the White House. Bush, who had served as President for eight years, had pledged to ensure the smoothest Presidential transition in history. Laura gave Michelle a tour and offered encouraging words about the new life the Obamas were about to face.
Michelle also had a chance to talk with past first ladies. Hillary Clinton, who had been Barack's political rival for so long, gave Michelle advice on selecting schools for her girls based on the Clinton family's experience raising Chelsea in the White House. Both Rosalynn Carter and Nancy Reagan offered moral support.
Michelle recalls thinking about the time she was headed to her new, high-achieving high school, and how she was gripped with doubt over whether she was good enough to compete with the other students. She applied the lesson she learned then—that confidence is an inner state of mind, one we sometimes have to conjure up. Was she "good enough" to be first lady? Yes, she was, she told herself.
Michelle found a new school in Washington, D.C. for Malia and Sasha to attend. It was the same Quaker school that Chelsea Clinton had attended when her father was President. The girls were driven to school in a motorcade accompanied by armed Secret Service agents, which made Michelle feel terrible—now that their dad was President, her girls couldn’t have a normal childhood.
Michelle worried about the girls nonstop on their first day of school, but they came home happy and looking forward to their new lives. Like typical kids, they seemed to take everything in stride.
Michelle's mother Marian, now 71 years old, moved to the White House with the Obamas. She didn't want to leave Chicago, but after pressure from Michelle and her brother Craig, she agreed for the sake of her granddaughters.
Still, Marian continued to live by her own rules and maintained her independence from White House life: She declined Secret Service protection, stayed away from journalists, did her own laundry, and left the grounds whenever she wanted to. If someone recognized her and asked if she was Michelle Obama’s mother, she wouldn't admit to it.
In the last few months of campaigning, Michelle and Jill Biden had become close friends. Jill, who was a community college English professor, shared Michelle's interest in helping military families. The five Biden grandkids were always happy to play with the Obama girls.
In January 2009, Barack was sworn in as U.S. President. Nearly two million people crammed into the National Mall and the surrounding parade route to take part in the festivities. Before the ceremony, Michelle stood with Barack while he practiced placing his hand on Abraham Lincoln’s red Bible—a key part of the ritual in which he would vow to protect the Constitution.
After the swearing-in ceremony, the Obamas got into the presidential limousine to lead the parade to the White House. A long day of speeches and celebrations culminated in the couple attending 10 different inaugural balls that night, each one with the same format: Barack was introduced to the attendees as the song “Hail to the Chief” played. He spoke briefly, and then he and Michelle danced on stage to the Etta James' song "At Last," which the Obamas had chosen for their first dance. (Beyoncé famously performed it at the first of the balls.) As she danced with Barack, Michelle felt comfort in knowing they were still the same couple they always had been through 20 years of marriage.
The final party was a private affair for friends and family, but Michelle was too exhausted from the epic day to enjoy it. It was 2 a.m. by the time they arrived, and the day had been nothing short of a whirlwind. Barack assured her that she didn’t have to attend, and she promptly went to bed.
Barack had to get to work immediately after the inauguration. America's 2008 financial meltdown had occurred a few months before he took office, and the economy was in free fall. Nearly 750,000 jobs were lost in January 2009 alone. The economic crisis was a top priority, but there was also ongoing fear about possible terrorist attacks.
Despite Barack's heavy responsibilities, the family had more time together than they'd had in years. Having the family living quarters upstairs from the Oval Office gave the Obamas a chance to eat dinner together almost every night. Barack wasn't commuting to another city every week any more. Their life was, in some ways, more "normal."
Of course, in other ways the family’s life was far from normal. Their new home, for example, had 132 rooms, 35 bathrooms, and 28 fireplaces spread out over six floors. It also had a movie theater, gym, florist shop, and bowling alley. The master suite that Michelle and Barack slept in was larger than the entire apartment her family shared when she was growing up. The building was staffed by an immense crew of housekeepers, painters, electricians, plumbers, florists, chefs, laundry workers, and ushers who worked to keep the place in perfect condition. Barack had three military valets whose sole job was to make sure his wardrobe was always cleaned, pressed, folded, and shined.
Michelle learned quickly that although the presidential family lives rent-free in the White House, they still have a lot they have to pay for. Every month they received an itemized bill for groceries, toilet paper, and other supplies. They had to pay for guests who dined with them or stayed overnight in one of the White House rooms. Michelle learned to supervise the chefs to keep the food costs reasonable. If they were granted free rein to prepare whatever they wanted, they would fly in delicacies from across the globe.
The White House staff was always warm and welcoming to the Obamas, and the family enjoyed interacting with the various staff members. Barack would watch basketball games and talk sports with the butlers. Malia and Sasha would make smoothies and popcorn in the kitchen after school.
Everything in the White House is designed to keep the President safe. The windows are fitted with bomb-resistant glass and kept securely closed at all times. Opening one for a breath of fresh air is not an option. A crew of shoppers picks up groceries and supplies anonymously at various stores throughout the Washington, D.C. area to make sure no one sabotages the President's stomach.
Michelle wanted to loosen the formality of the White House in part to make things more "normal" for her daughters. She told the staff the girls had to make their own beds in the morning. She also started to arrange playdates so the girls' friends could come to the White House. The Secret Service required the friends' parents to supply their Social Security numbers before bringing their children over to play, which created some awkward moments. But the children didn't care; they just wanted to play.
It was important to Michelle that the other parents saw her as Malia and Sasha’s mom, not as the first lady. Michelle made it a priority to invite her daughters’ new friends’ parents for lunch or community events.
Michelle coordinated with the permanent White House staff in planning traditional social events, such as the black-tie Governor’s Ball and the Easter Egg Roll, a family event that had been taking place since 1878. In the Obamas' attempt to make the White House more open and comfortable for everyone, they added more tickets to the Easter Egg Roll for military families and city schoolchildren.
Michelle knew the first lady had to participate in White House social events, but she was determined to be more than a gracious hostess, a "well-dressed ornament who showed up at parties and ribbon cuttings." She wanted to see what the first lady could accomplish for the American people, and first on her list was food and nutrition.
Michelle knew that most of what Americans understood about food came from advertising. Busy parents had been indoctrinated to believe that convenience food—boxed, frozen, and processed—was good to eat. At the time, few people were singing the praises of fresh carrots and just-picked tomatoes. Michelle hoped to start a conversation about healthy eating and challenge the powerful food and beverage industry to be more honest about what they were producing and selling.
Even though she knew nothing about gardening, Michelle worked with a group of elementary school kids to plant a garden on the South Lawn. Growing vegetables at the White House was a good way to shed light on the fact that nearly a third of American children were overweight or obese. Type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure were common among young people.
Two months after moving to the White House, Barack and Michelle flew to London so Barack could attend the London G20 Summit (G20 was short for Group of 20, which were leaders from the world's 20 largest economies). America's financial crisis was causing economic disasters all over the world, and leaders were getting together to express their concerns and make a plan to move forward.
On the same trip, the Obamas visited Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip at Buckingham Palace. Michelle thought the White House was opulent, but she realized it was a mere dollhouse compared to this 775-room palace that was 15 times its size.
The Queen held a reception for the Obamas and the other G20 leaders and spouses. In one moment, Michelle found herself standing alone with the 82-year-old Queen, who commented, "You're so tall." Michelle, who is 5 feet 11 inches, made a small joke about her high heels, and the two women laughed about how uncomfortable their shoes were.
As the pair laughed, Michelle placed her arm around Queen Elizabeth’s shoulder and the Queen placed her hand on Michelle’s back. Michelle had no idea she was breaking British protocol, but no one was ever supposed to touch the Queen. The Queen didn't seem to mind—the Obamas were invited back to visit her many times afterward—but of course, the media captured the moment and criticized Michelle for her glaring lack of grace and manners. Michelle saw that she was facing at least four years of trying to do everything perfectly so the media couldn't find fault with her—an impossible task.
The next day, Michelle visited the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School, a London girls’ academy known for its outstanding achievers. More than 90 percent of the students were minorities—many were immigrants or Black—and Michelle knew that even with their high intelligence, they would struggle to be seen and heard. She talked to the girls about her own upbringing and education—how she was raised in a working-class neighborhood and her salvation was school and pursuing the chance to get admitted to the best colleges. Before she left, she hugged as many of the girls as she could.
In her new role as first lady, Michelle had many moments when she felt unworthy and incapable of the job, and the media underscored that belief. Often she felt like her personal identity had been wiped out in her quest to "act the part" of the President's wife. But when she visited this London school filled with smart, eager girls who were much like she was as an adolescent, she found her identity again.
She realized who she was and who she could be as first lady aligned perfectly. This time when she asked herself the question that haunted her throughout her life—am I good enough?—she finally knew she was.
These chapters focus on how the Obamas learn to navigate their public and private lives, Michelle's fears about her family's safety, and her successful initiatives for children's health and military families. Michelle is now firmly entrenched in her role as first lady—and every day makes her more fully aware of the advantages and disadvantages of that role.
Barack had been in office for four months when Malia and Sasha received the present they'd been promised throughout his campaign. Senator Ted Kennedy gave them Bo, a seven-month-old Portuguese water dog. The entire family loved Bo, and he was permitted to wander through most of the White House rooms.
About the same time as the puppy joined the family, Barack and Michelle went on a date in New York City to have dinner and see a Broadway show. They had given up the customary date night they used to enjoy in Chicago, and the pair wanted to have an evening alone. Of course, the Secret Service had to plan every move, block off streets, and thoroughly check out every patron who entered the restaurant. Since the couple had to travel in the presidential motorcade, streets were blocked off and traffic was halted.
When they stood up to leave the restaurant, the other diners applauded them. Michelle felt flattered but uncomfortable, and she wondered whether some of the diners were happy they were leaving. At the theater, the Obamas' arrival held up the start of the performance because of the necessary security checks. Even though Michelle enjoyed the show, she realized that she and Barack were a nuisance. The presidential couple could not go on a date outside of the White House without causing disruption.
Michelle felt guilty for having wanted time alone with her husband, and wondered how previous presidential couples had dealt with life in the public eye. Now that she was first lady, it seemed like the press, the Republican Party, and an array of other detractors were judging every move she made.
At some point during Barack's campaign for President, the media started to pay attention to Michelle's clothes. While Barack could show up every day wearing the same dark suit and no one would ever notice, journalists commented nonstop on whether Michelle was wearing short sleeves or long sleeves, high heels or flats. At public appearances and press conferences, she was often asked, "Who made that dress?"
As first lady, Michelle's appearance was scrutinized even more. Fortunately, she loved fashion and loved dressing up. She became famous for mixing and matching designer couture with clothing she bought from J.Crew or Target.
Michelle had to pay for all her own clothes, except for couture gowns that designers loaned her for formal events, and that were later donated to the National Archives. (Shortform note: The Smithsonian Museum's First Ladies exhibit includes dresses worn by Frances Cleveland, Lou Hoover, Jacqueline Kennedy, Laura Bush, and Michelle Obama. It also displays the China patterns they chose for White House dinners.)
Most of the time, the press praised Michelle for her bold style, but there was criticism, too: On a family trip to the Grand Canyon in Barack's first year as President, the media attacked Michelle for wearing shorts when she disembarked from Air Force One. Even though it was 106 degrees outside, they proclaimed it undignified for the first lady to wear such casual clothes.
Michelle’s wardrobe stylist and personal aide helped her to choose outfits that met the all-important "optics" standard. "Optics" was jargon for public perception—how something looked to the media and American public. Optics mattered so deeply to Barack's and Michelle's staff that when Michelle decided that she wanted to get her hair cut in bangs, her staff suggested they float the idea by Barack's staff first.
Even though Michelle had been educated at Princeton and Harvard, the optics question the staff needed to address was, "What does Michelle's haircut say about her?" In the end, she got the bangs.
Michelle began to think that her clothes mattered more to the media than anything she said or did. But she decided that instead of griping about it, she would use it to her advantage. If the American public wanted to look at her outfits in photographs, maybe they'd also read about what she was doing while she wore those clothes.
Michelle strategized ways to use the media's fashion obsession as a way to garner attention for issues and causes she cared about, like children's nutrition. When Vogue magazine asked her to be photographed for a cover story, she at first thought it was frivolous and indulgent, but then decided that it was important to have a woman of color on a major magazine cover. She went ahead with the magazine shoot.
Chapter 22 opens with Michelle describing a nightmare in which her daughter is attacked by a cheetah that is brought to the White House—along with a lion, a tiger, and a panther—for the Obama family to pet and admire.
It was one of many nightmares Michelle had about her family's safety. She felt uneasy that other people were in control of so many aspects of their lives. Secret Service agents would tell them when it was okay to cross the street; staffers would schedule bathroom breaks for their long drives. Michelle never had to worry about carrying car keys or cash. She found it nerve-wracking and uncomfortable to not be in control, especially since she had been taught self-reliance and self-sufficiency at an earlier age.
As President, Barack was constantly handling whatever the world's latest disaster was: a revolution in Egypt, an earthquake in Haiti, a BP oil rig off the coast of Louisiana leaking crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Whether the problem happened in America or not, the American President had to respond in some way.
Michelle understood that as President and first lady, part of their role on the world stage was to model compassion. If Barack wasn't able to travel to comfort the victims of tragedies, Michelle sometimes went. She and Jill Biden traveled to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake in which tens of thousands of people had been buried alive.
Barack won approval of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, which increased Americans' access to health insurance. The new law was both loved and hated. Like most presidents, Barack had fans, but he also had enemies, and some of them were quite vocal. The real estate developer and TV personality Donald Trump had begun considering a presidential run in 2012, and he started circulating rumors about Barack—specifically, he questioned whether Barack was actually born in Hawaii and was an American citizen.
Trump revived an argument that conspiracy theorists had invented during Barack's campaign for President, saying that Barack was born in Kenya and his Hawaii birth certificate was a fake. Trump now claimed that none of Barack's kindergarten classmates remembered him and that his birth announcements in the Honolulu newspaper were a hoax. Conservative news outlets threw more gasoline on the "birther" rumors by repeating Trump's claims.
In November 2011, a 21-year-old man named Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez parked his car on Constitution Avenue, aimed an assault rifle at the top floors of the White House—the First Family's living quarters—and started firing. The bullets hit the building and cracked the protective ballistic glass in a window, but no one was hurt. Michelle and Barack were out of town at the time. Still, it was a reminder to Michelle of how vulnerable her family was and that there were people out there who wanted to hurt them.
Throughout Barack's first term, Michelle found ways to make a difference for Americans, but she first had to learn how to strategically use her position as first lady. Michelle knew she couldn’t meddle publicly in West Wing matters. Voters elected her husband, not her.
She took a cue from Hillary Clinton, who was now Barack's Secretary of State but was first lady from 1993 to 2001. Hillary was crucified by the press for taking too strong a role in her husband's administration, particularly regarding health care reform. Michelle knew she had to employ more subtle tactics to accomplish her goals.
She started a leadership and mentoring program for high school girls. Each teenager was nominated by her school principal or guidance counselor, then paired with a female mentor, many of whom held jobs in the White House. The girls went on field trips, attended career coaching sessions, and got together once a month with Michelle to talk about anything they wanted to talk about. Michelle wanted the girls to feel comfortable coming to the White House, so they would grow up to feel comfortable in any room anywhere in the world.
Michelle felt like she owed a lot to young girls all over the world. She believed she owed her own success—her leap from urban Black girl to Princeton, Harvard, and finally the White House—to the many people who helped her along the way. There was Aunt Robbie, the piano teacher who held Michelle to strict standards. Her mother, who advocated for her throughout her school years. Her father, who taught her how to box and throw a football just like he taught her older brother Craig. Her teachers in high school. Her mentors at Chicago City Hall who modeled how to be a successful working mother.
Michelle knew from personal experience that it matters when someone shows a genuine interest in helping you find your way. And it matters especially for minorities and women since these groups are more likely to doubt themselves—because society has doubted them.
Michelle, often accompanied by Jill Biden, visited military hospitals and was moved by how the injured soldiers and their families retained their optimism and pride despite terrible setbacks. In private conversations with Michelle, soldiers would often tell her that the last thing they wanted was pity.
She felt so inspired by the soldiers’ resilience—and that of their spouses and children—that she started a new initiative called Joining Forces. The concept was to establish concrete ways for Americans to rally around military service members, veterans, and their families and support them through wellness, education, and employment.
Joining Forces worked in tandem with the public and private sectors to find jobs for veterans and help them get access to higher education. It also created media campaigns to fight the stigma behind PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder.
Michelle's biggest and most visible success came from the seeds planted in her South Lawn garden. Using the garden as a springboard, Michelle was able to establish a larger initiative for children's health with the goal of ending the child obesity epidemic.
Despite driving rainstorms and marauding birds and beetles, the garden produced more than 90 pounds of produce in only 10 weeks. The elementary school kids who helped her plant the garden returned to pick and eat the fruits of their labor. Some of the vegetables were served at the Obamas' dinner table; the rest were donated to a local nonprofit serving the homeless.
The garden created a lot of positive publicity that Michelle capitalized on to deliver these messages:
As part of the initiative, Michelle and her staff developed the Let’s Move! campaign to get kids exercising. Michelle hula-hooped on the South Lawn and guest-starred on “Sesame Street” to discuss vegetables with Big Bird. When reporters from health magazines interviewed her, she pointed out that rising obesity levels meant rising health care costs, and many poor Americans didn't have access to fresh, affordable produce.
Michelle's campaign for family health resulted in several victories, including better labeling for sodas and other beverages, a commitment by the suppliers of school lunches to cut fat, sugar, and salt in their meals, and the establishment of a federal task force on childhood obesity. Leaders from professional sports leagues agreed to help promote the "60 Minutes of Play a Day" campaign to get kids exercising more. Disney and Warner Bros. agreed to air special programming aimed at getting kids to live healthier lives.
Michelle believes she hit her stride with her Let's Move! campaign. She was able to marshal her leadership and organizational skills to do something that mattered. She now understood the power of being first lady: The role offered her a huge media platform. She could use what she saw as the job's biggest negative—constant media scrutiny—to achieve meaningful goals that would help Americans.
One of Michelle's smaller but most enjoyable victories was convincing the President's senior advisors to let her throw a big Halloween party for kids at the White House. At first, the advisors insisted it would be too frivolous and costly during America's tough economic times. ("The optics are just bad," they said). But Michelle argued that during tough times, it was important to make sure kids still had fun. On Halloween night in 2009, about 2,000 tiny pirates, princesses, and superheroes—the children of military families and White House staff—walked up the White House lawn to trick-or-treat with the President and first lady.
Starting in 2011, Michelle made a concerted effort to start spending more time with her girlfriends, especially her old friends from Chicago. She recognized how much they supported her when she was a new mother, when she was on the campaign trail with Barack, and during other tough periods in her life.
Every few months, she'd invite a dozen friends to join her at Camp David, the woodsy presidential retreat in Maryland. Michelle encouraged her old friends to leave their families, careers, and responsibilities behind for a few days and just enjoy themselves. The women would exercise together, drive around in golf carts, and ride bikes.
One of Barack's goals as President was to find Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks on America in 2001. He had been in hiding for years and was considered the world's most wanted man.
In early 2011, Barack told Michelle that the military had located bin Laden, but he said that nothing would happen quickly because much planning was needed. On a Sunday in May, a group of U.S. Navy SEALs followed Barack's command and stormed a compound in Pakistan, where they killed bin Laden. No American lives were lost in the ambush, which was a huge victory for Barack and the United States. After Barack addressed the nation to relay the news, people around the world celebrated.
Michelle described a number of women who served as mentors for her at different times in her life—from her boss at her work-study job at Princeton to her colleagues at Chicago City Hall to past first ladies in the White House. Each mentor helped her to see what kind of person she could become.
Name three of the most important mentors in your life. Next to each name, write what they've helped you to achieve.
Think of an important goal in your life. Name that goal, and then name a few people who might be able to serve as mentors to help you achieve it. (If you don’t know of anyone, consider places where you might look for a mentor.)
Think of someone that you could mentor right now—someone who is trying to learn something you already know, or enter an industry or community that you’re already familiar with. Name that person and what you might be able to offer him or her.
When Michelle moved to Washington, D.C., she had to work harder to maintain her relationships with her Chicago girlfriends. But because these friends had always been her "circle of strength," she made an extra effort to keep them close (for example, planning getaways at Camp David with them).
List three people who are part of your circle of strength. Next to each name, write how that person supports you.
How often do you communicate or spend face-to-face time with these three people? Name three ways you could increase that time.
These chapters focus on Barack's second term in the White House, Michelle's higher education and girls' schooling initiatives, and the Obamas' campaign against gun violence. Now that Michelle has had four years of experience as first lady, she’s able to settle into her role and achieve more of the public-service goals that matter to her.
Barack's popularity soared briefly after bin Laden was killed, but by late summer 2011, Barack was taking a beating by a group of Republican senators who voted down almost all of his bills. The county was still in a dismal economic state from the 2008 financial meltdown. Americans were worried about a possible recession. Many politicians and voters blamed Barack for the mess. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said that the Republican Party’s most important task was to make sure Barack was “a one-term president.” It seemed that despite the state of the country, the Republicans had only one goal, and that was to see Barack fail.
That same summer, Michelle, Malia, and Sasha were scheduled to travel to South Africa for a goodwill visit. Michelle had speeches to make and meetings to attend. She planned to hold several community events where she could talk about health and wellness.
During their trip, Nelson Mandela invited them to his home. Mandela was 92 years old at the time, and even Malia and Sasha were awed by the chance to meet the great man who had made such a profound impact on South Africa and the world. He challenged his country’s all-white apartheid government, and at age 44, he chose to go to jail rather than turn against his principles. He was kept behind bars until he was 71, and many of his friends were tortured and killed. Ultimately, Mandela negotiated South Africa's transition to a democratic government, and he was elected as its first president.
Mandela didn't speak more than a few words to Michelle and the girls—he was hard of hearing, and Michelle wasn't even sure he understood who they were. But still, Michelle left feeling humbled by the chance to gaze into the legendary man's eyes and say hello.
On her flight back home to Washington, Michelle thought about how Mandela had sacrificed so much, but he wasn't bitter about it. He kept believing that somehow his sacrifices would be worthwhile, that his country would be better off because of them. He had to wait decades to see any progress, and yet he never gave up hope. She realized that she needed to learn to have the patience that he had. She needed to accept that change and progress happen slowly, and sometimes you just have to wait.
When she returned to the United States, Michelle campaigned for Barack's re-election. She felt certain that Barack could accomplish a lot if the voters gave him four more years. Although Michelle never relished campaigning, it seemed harder than ever because the Republicans were dead set on proving that Barack should not be re-elected. Their candidate, Mitt Romney, was doing extremely well in the polls, only slightly behind the incumbent President.
As the couple got back on the campaign trail, Michelle learned to use the power of the Internet and social media to campaign for Barack. She used Twitter for the first time, and she talked to "mommy bloggers" who were big influencers, especially among women. Meanwhile, she visited three cities a day, three days a week to speak at campaign events. It was exhausting.
On election night in 2012, the Obamas were back in Chicago. Michelle felt like more was riding on this election than on the election four years prior—she felt like the entire nation was judging Barack's performance over the last four years, and perhaps hers as well. On top of everything else, she hated the thought that if they lost the election, she would have to upend the girls' lives again, moving them away from the schools they loved and good friends they'd made in the last four years.
She was terribly anxious and couldn't stand watching the results come in, so she retreated to a room away from the television. Finally, Barack came in grinning and told her that he had won. Michelle was relieved—America was giving the Obamas "permission to keep working."
Only five weeks after the election, America faced a horrific tragedy when a gunman with a semi-automatic rifle shot and killed 20 first-grade students and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. The shooter was a mentally disturbed 20-year-old man who had "scorn for society." America was in shock.
Shortly after he received the news, Barack asked Michelle to come to the Oval Office—the only time in eight years that he needed his wife by his side in the middle of a workday. The two embraced, but neither had any words to say. Like most Americans, they were devastated by the tragedy.
The next morning, Barack held a press conference and addressed the nation, attempting to offer some solace for America's grief. As he wiped away his tears, he promised to do whatever he could to pass better legislation regulating gun sales in America. The next day, he traveled to Connecticut to speak at a prayer vigil for the victims and their families. Michelle was too shaken to go, plus her daughter Sasha was playing a small part in The Nutcracker with the visiting Moscow Ballet, and Michelle felt like she needed to be there for Sasha. As she watched the show, Michelle felt incredibly thankful that her daughter was alive. "My whole being was grateful for her," she writes.
The country was in the midst of a terrible period of gun violence. On January 29, 2013, just six weeks after the Sandy Hook school shooting, Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old honor student from the South Side of Chicago, was shot and killed on a Tuesday afternoon while hanging out near a playground with her friends. As a majorette with her high school's marching band, she had performed at Barack's inauguration just a few weeks before.
Michelle went back to her hometown to meet Hadiya's parents and attend the funeral in South Side. Hadiya's parents were very much like her own—working-class people who deeply loved their children. Michelle hoped that her attendance at the funeral would draw attention to how many American kids were getting killed by guns and force politicians to pass more sensible gun laws.
Soon afterward, Michelle embarked on a violence prevention campaign in Chicago. She got local business leaders and the mayor to expand programs for at-risk youth in the city. She met with students from a South Side high school where gun violence had killed or injured dozens of classmates. The students told her that the most dangerous days were the days when the weather report was "80 degrees and sunny." On good weather days, the gangs were always more active, so the students learned to stay inside for safety.
Michelle was honest with the students, telling them that getting more restrictive gun legislation passed was difficult—the National Rifle Association held a lot of power over Congress through their campaign donations. The violence issue was daunting and could not be solved easily. But she could offer them a tiny ray of hope: She told them to use school as their way out. If they studied hard, they could get into good colleges and find their way into a better life. She told them that education had been her savior, and it could be theirs as well.
Michelle knew that mere words from the first lady wouldn't magically turn these kids’ lives around, but she wanted to offer them a different narrative than the one they so often heard—that as black inner-city kids, they were doomed to failure. She believed that by telling them her story, they might see "a glimpse of a way forward."
Concerned about the number of school-age children who were being killed by gun violence, Michelle launched an education initiative called Reach Higher. The goal was to get more kids interested in continuing their education beyond high school—whether through a professional training program, community college, or four-year college or university—by making them aware of the ways they could get there.
Michelle knew that her own success in life was largely due to parents, teachers, and mentors who pushed her to do her best and reminded her that she was important. She also knew that many school-age kids, especially in urban areas, did not have mentors or role models to make them aware of what they could achieve. These kids needed to learn what their career and college opportunities were and how they could access them. Reach Higher provided financial assistance to high school guidance counselors to help students get into college, set up programs for summer internships and learning opportunities, and made it easier for students to obtain federal financial aid.
The final pages focus on Sasha and Malia's life in the White House, the last year of the Obama administration, Hillary Clinton's and Donald Trump's campaigns for the presidency, and the 2017 inauguration of Donald Trump. After the inauguration, Michelle and her family depart the White House, and her next stage of “becoming” begins. After eight years of an extremely unusual life, she must now adjust to the world beyond the White House and the new reality that her daughters are nearly grown.
In the Obamas’ eighth year at the White House, Malia graduated from high school and traveled to Europe. At Malia's graduation ceremony, Michelle looked over at Barack, who had tears in his eyes as Malia walked across the stage, and felt sorry for him. Since Barack was ending his second term as President, he was nearly finished with his service to the country and would soon have more time to spend with his daughters. But now Malia was an independent young woman who was ready to leave the nest. Both parents felt sad that their oldest was preparing to leave home.
Michelle feels proud of Sasha and Malia for how well they thrived while living in the shadow of the presidency. The lack of privacy was hard on the entire family, but excruciating for two teenagers who were constantly followed by a security team. (When Malia wanted to go to the prom, the Secret Service made the huge concession of letting her ride in a car her date was driving, but they followed right behind them in another car.)
The Secret Service agents assigned to the girls made it a point to dress down so they wouldn't stand out so much. They would wear board shorts and T-shirts instead of black suits to make them look less conspicuous. One agent who accompanied Sasha to elementary school became a favorite among her classmates; they would all beg him to push them while they'd swing on the swing set.
The girls understood that their father’s position placed on their shoulders a great deal of pressure and responsibility—if they made a mistake in public, it could be broadcast to the entire world. Michelle and Barack realized this was unfair—they had both engaged in typical teenage shenanigans like experimenting with cigarettes and alcohol, but they didn't have the whole world watching them.
Perhaps more invasive than all the public and media scrutiny were the people who would try to take photos of the girls when they were out in public. Even worse, people would sometimes ask—or demand—to take a selfie with one of the girls. Malia learned to respond by saying, "You do know I'm a child, right?"
Barack and Michelle declined all media requests for interviews with the girls. In 2008, they had allowed the girls to be interviewed for the TV show Access Hollywood when Barack was campaigning for President. Even though the show was harmless and the girls were utterly charming, Michelle always regretted putting their children on public display.
By the time the girls were teenagers, they were allowed to decide whether they wanted to attend White House events, including the President's annual Turkey Pardon, which the girls thought was downright silly.
Of course, Malia and Sasha enjoyed incredible privileges because of their father's job, too. They lived in one of the country's most opulent buildings; they met famous musicians, actors, and other celebrities at White House events. They traveled with their parents to countries around the world.
Even though their White House years were far from normal teenage life, the girls handled their positions with grace and dignity. And they had both grown into intelligent, kind, thoughtful young adults.
Michelle reflects that being first lady was the "greatest honor of her life." She felt extremely privileged to have served the country that she loved.
As Barack’s presidency neared its end, Michelle looked back at his years in office and evaluated what progress the country had made: She saw fewer wounded soldiers during her visits to military hospitals. The Centers for Disease Control reported improved statistics on childhood obesity. The country had seen five years of job growth. Twenty million Americans had health insurance who didn't before. More than 1.5 million military families had received help in finding jobs.
Another major change came from a separate branch of government: The Supreme Court affirmed that same-sex couples were allowed to marry in all 50 states—a landmark decision that met with cheers from many parts of the country. The White House staff lit up the building with rainbow-colored lights to represent the gay pride flag.
Michelle was so excited about the court decisions that she and Malia evaded Secret Service agents and snuck out of the White House to see the light show and the happy crowd that had gathered.
Michelle's vegetable garden, her pet project from her first year as first lady, was still going strong after more than seven years. It produced about 2,000 pounds of vegetables every year.
Before leaving the White House, Michelle doubled the size of the garden as a way of making it even more permanent. She added pathways, benches, and an arbor, then held a dedication ceremony. Her current and former staff and many supporters attended, as well as two of the fifth graders who had helped to plant the garden—who were now seniors in high school.
Michelle saw that America still had much to accomplish: Congress had voted down all gun control bills. Osama bin Laden had been killed, but now ISIS was a growing threat. Chicago's homicide rate was increasing.
And racial violence everywhere appeared to be on the upswing: A black teenager named Michael Brown had been shot by a cop in Ferguson, Missouri. A black boy named Tamir Rice was shot dead by Cleveland police while playing with a toy gun. In June 2015, nine black people were killed at a Methodist church in Charleston, South Carolina, after inviting a 21-year-old white man into their Bible study group. The man waited until they bowed their heads in prayer, then shot them.
Those who had proclaimed that Obama’s election to the presidency signaled an end to racism in America were clearly wrong. In fact, Barack and Michelle were aware that their time in the White House may have indirectly contributed to some of the violence. America still had citizens who were uncomfortable having Black people in high positions. "The hatred was as old and deep and dangerous as ever," Michelle writes.
At the White House, Michelle, Barack, and Malia met with Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani teenager who had been shot by the Taliban because she advocated for girls to go to school. Six months after Malala’s visit, an extremist group kidnapped 276 Nigerian schoolgirls, again sending the message that girls should not be allowed access to education.
In response, Michelle launched a government-wide initiative to help young girls around the globe have better access to education. Michelle felt a personal investment in making sure girls could go to school: Education was her ticket to a better life, and she knew it would be true for others as well.
Barack assisted in securing funding for Michelle’s initiative, called Let Girls Learn. Michelle called on celebrity friends, including Stephen Colbert and Kelly Clarkson, to add some star power to her campaign. She enlisted Diane Warren to write the pop song "This is For My Girls." Profits from the song helped to fund girls' education around the world. Michelle even guest-starred on James Corden's YouTube show Carpool Karaoke to help raise awareness.
In April 2016, Michelle and Barack made one last trip to England to visit with Queen Elizabeth and her husband, Prince Philip. The Queen's staff informed them that Prince Philip wanted to drive the couple to Windsor Castle in his Range Rover. They also informed them of strict protocol—Barack was instructed to sit in the backseat with the Queen; Michelle was to sit in the front with Prince Phillip.
Michelle and Barack had not been in a car driven by anyone except Secret Service agents for the last eight years, and now their driver would be a 94-year-old man. When the Obamas landed in a helicopter alongside the Range Rover, the Queen surprised everyone by inviting Michelle to get in the back seat with her. Michelle was taken aback—she didn't want to get caught in another international faux pas like seven years ago when she touched the Queen.
The Queen saw Michelle’s hesitation and said, "Did they give you some rule about this? That's rubbish. Sit wherever you want."
Michelle spoke at the 2016 Democratic convention. It was her third time speaking at the convention, but the first two times she was supporting her husband's candidacy. Now she was supporting Hillary Clinton, who had been Barack's opponent in 2008 but was now his Secretary of State.
To an even greater degree, her speech made a case against Donald Trump, the Republican candidate. For the past year, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump had been locked in a fierce competition for the presidency. Michelle saw Trump as a bully who demeaned women and minorities, and she believed firmly that he would be a terrible President. In her convention speech, she spoke the now-famous phrase, "When they go low, we go high," referring to the Trump campaign's attempts to slander Hillary's reputation.
As both campaigns moved ahead, a secret recording of Donald Trump speaking in 2005 was leaked to the media. He was talking privately to television host Billy Bush, using vulgar words to describe women and bragging about what he could and would do to them.
Like many women, Michelle was horrified—and yet she also found his words to have a shockingly familiar ring. "Every woman I know recognized it," she writes. "Dominance, even the threat of it, is a form of dehumanization."
Michelle funneled her fury into writing a speech to combat Trump's misogyny. She delivered it in Manchester, New Hampshire, a few weeks before the election.
Polls showed that Hillary was ahead with a comfortable lead. The day before Election Day, the Obamas joined the Clintons at a final rally in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania was a key state to win, but the crowd that showed up for Hillary Clinton was huge and jubilant. To Michelle and Barack, it seemed certain that she would win.
But the next evening as the votes were being tallied, Barack seemed worried. The numbers weren't adding up the way experts had predicted—Hillary was falling behind. Michelle didn't like the way things were going and couldn't stand the pressure of waiting for the final results, so she went to bed. She wanted to block it out of her mind until the morning. Ultimately, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, but Donald Trump won the Electoral College vote, and Trump was elected President.
Barack, concerned about backlash and division in the country, asked Americans to respect the institutions of democracy, their new President, and each other. Michelle knew that it was the current President's job to help people accept the election's outcome.
Still, Michelle was bereft, and many of her staff members, who were mostly women and minorities, were in tears. She tried to comfort them by telling them that one election did not erase all the work that they had done in the last eight years.
Moving out of the White House was highly emotional for the Obamas. Michelle felt grateful to the many staff members who were like family to her. Saying goodbye was especially hard for Malia and Sasha, who had grown up with these people around them. The permanent White House staff—butlers, ushers, florists, chefs, housekeepers—would now go on to serve the next President, while the people who came in with the Obamas would move on to new jobs elsewhere.
At a goodbye ceremony before the Inauguration, the staff presented the family with two flags: one from Barack’s first day and one from his last day as President of the United States.
It was difficult for Michelle to suppress her unhappiness as she watched Donald Trump's inauguration. From her seat on the stage in front of the U.S. Capitol, Michelle looked around at the sea of white male faces in the incoming administration. She worried that much of the progress they had made toward more diversity in the White House would now fade away.
At the book's conclusion, Michelle has entered a new chapter of her life. She’s ready to find a new identity now that she has much less responsibility and more time to reflect. As she ponders who she is now and what her next steps will be, she realizes that she is still "becoming," that there is no end point to evolving as a human being.
People often ask Michelle about running for office, but she has no political aspirations. She was never a fan of politics, and after living through Barack's two years as U.S. Senator and eight years as President, she is even less of a fan. She is unhappy with Donald Trump's actions in his first year as President—she gets angry watching the news and she sometimes loses sleep over current events—but she holds fast to hope for the future of America.
Michelle writes that “becoming” requires patience and belief in the future. It requires understanding that there is always more work to be done. And most of all, it requires optimism—"a form of faith, an antidote to fear," she writes.
Although America is far from perfect, she loves her country for all the optimism it offers. Her time in the White House let her look deeply at American’s contradictions and injustices, but it also made her privy to its idealism and resilience.