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May. 11th, 2019 07:26 am
scattered thoughts
AOC made a thread of tweets about her family leave policy, that includes 3 months of leave for both fathers and mothers, and setting up her workplace as a site where parents could feel free to bring their babies, and then concluded that we needed to rethink how hostile modern work is to family life and I wanted to cry.
The parts that stuck out the most to me in Barack Obama's and Michelle Obama's books were their chapters on their married life, and how they raised their kids together, or rather, Michelle raised their kids basically by herself so that Barack could go off and do his Senate thing. But that she was basically seething with resentment the entire time.
I went back to The Audacity of Hope, Chapter 9, on family, and in it, Barack quotes Elizabeth Warren on the Two-Income Trap, and describes how angry Michelle was at him, and how clueless he was about it. Honestly I wanted to smack him when he wrote this: "I made few demands of Michelle - I didn't expect her to darn my socks or have dinner waiting for me when I got home. Whenever I could, I pitched in with the kids. All I asked for in return was a little tenderness. Instead, I found myself subjected to endless negotiations about every detail of managing the house, long lists of things I needed to do or had forgotten to do, and a generally sour attitude. I reminded Michelle that compared to most families, we were incredibly lucky. I reminded her as well that for all my flaws, I loved her and the girls more than anything else. My love should be enough, I thought. As far as I was concerned, she had nothing to complain about."
He goes on to reflect that only when the girls got older, did he start seeing why she was angry. Angry about having to be both committed mother and political wife, and also putting her own ambitions on hold for his Senate run.
In Michelle Obama's book, which I don't currently have on hand, there's a section where she talks about Malia's first fever, which happened while they were in Hawaii, and during an important Senate vote in Congress on gun control, where Obama's presence was needed. Barack agonized over whether to stay or not, and eventually decided to stay and skip the vote. His vote would not have been decisive, but he was excoriated for being on vacation during the vote in the media.
What strikes me so much about this couple, trying to do everything right, was still the paucity of imagination in Barack Obama's governing. Why couldn't he have re-done his own staff's family leave policy, as AOC did? Why couldn't he have pushed for a change in the way votes were tallied so that he didn't have to be physically present for it to count? (Honestly wonder why any of the others didn't do that as well.) Why couldn't he have taken charge of the conversation more - even as he recounted solutions - his proposals were modest as best.
The parts that stuck out the most to me in Barack Obama's and Michelle Obama's books were their chapters on their married life, and how they raised their kids together, or rather, Michelle raised their kids basically by herself so that Barack could go off and do his Senate thing. But that she was basically seething with resentment the entire time.
I went back to The Audacity of Hope, Chapter 9, on family, and in it, Barack quotes Elizabeth Warren on the Two-Income Trap, and describes how angry Michelle was at him, and how clueless he was about it. Honestly I wanted to smack him when he wrote this: "I made few demands of Michelle - I didn't expect her to darn my socks or have dinner waiting for me when I got home. Whenever I could, I pitched in with the kids. All I asked for in return was a little tenderness. Instead, I found myself subjected to endless negotiations about every detail of managing the house, long lists of things I needed to do or had forgotten to do, and a generally sour attitude. I reminded Michelle that compared to most families, we were incredibly lucky. I reminded her as well that for all my flaws, I loved her and the girls more than anything else. My love should be enough, I thought. As far as I was concerned, she had nothing to complain about."
He goes on to reflect that only when the girls got older, did he start seeing why she was angry. Angry about having to be both committed mother and political wife, and also putting her own ambitions on hold for his Senate run.
In Michelle Obama's book, which I don't currently have on hand, there's a section where she talks about Malia's first fever, which happened while they were in Hawaii, and during an important Senate vote in Congress on gun control, where Obama's presence was needed. Barack agonized over whether to stay or not, and eventually decided to stay and skip the vote. His vote would not have been decisive, but he was excoriated for being on vacation during the vote in the media.
What strikes me so much about this couple, trying to do everything right, was still the paucity of imagination in Barack Obama's governing. Why couldn't he have re-done his own staff's family leave policy, as AOC did? Why couldn't he have pushed for a change in the way votes were tallied so that he didn't have to be physically present for it to count? (Honestly wonder why any of the others didn't do that as well.) Why couldn't he have taken charge of the conversation more - even as he recounted solutions - his proposals were modest as best.
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