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From home and away, advice for a first lady

It was tough-love talk from one high-profile professional mother to another, only this hard-hitting counsel did not come in a phone call or a letter. It appeared in The Times of London this month under the headline, “My advice to Michelle Obama: Learn to Like the Back Seat.”

The pointed words came from Cherie Blair, a lawyer, mother of three and the wife of Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister of Britain. Brace yourself for big letdowns in your life as first lady, she warned Ms Obama, a lawyer, mother of two and the wife of President-elect Barack Obama.

“You have to learn to take the back seat, not just in public, but in private,” advised Ms Blair, who writes regularly for The Times of London. “When your spouse is late to put the kids to bed, or for dinner, or your plans for the weekend are turned upside down again, you simply have to accept that he had something more important to do.”

“It is something of an irony that in these days of pushing for equality those of us married to our political leaders have to put their own ambitions on hold while their spouses are in office and keep their views to themselves,” Ms Blair continued. “I, at least, had my career. That is not an option for Michelle Obama.”

The unsolicited advice reflects the passionate debate stirring among working mothers in the United States and abroad as they watch Ms Obama finalise her transition from hospital executive to self-proclaimed mom-in-chief in the White House. While Ms Obama has publicly embraced her soon-to-be assumed role as first lady, many women remain deeply divided over whether she will become a pioneer or a dispiriting symbol of the limitations of modern working motherhood.

The discussion has bubbled up on blogs, Internet magazines, television interviews and radio talk shows among ordinary women and some prominent ones, including Ms Blair and Carla Sarkozy, the wife of President Nicolas Sarkozy of France. The issue is argued with particular intensity, not simply because Ms Obama will be the first black woman in the position, but also because she had maintained a high-powered career and put it on hold to help her husband campaign for the presidency. She had been earning more than $300,000 a year as a Vice-President at the University of Chicago Medical Centre.

In January, Ms Obama, 44, will become the second first lady in history to have had an active career until shortly before entering the White House, according to Myra Gutin, a scholar of first ladies at Rider University in New Jersey. (Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, another lawyer, was the first.) She is only the third to hold a graduate degree, Gutin said. (Ms Clinton and Laura Bush, the current first lady, also hold graduate degrees.)

And so while many people have cheered Barack Obama for breaking racial barriers, some argue that his wife remains bound by a traditional role that seems too small and too ill-fitting for a thoughtful, Ivy League-educated executive.

Leslie Morgan Steiner, editor of Mommy Wars, an anthology of essays (Random House, 2006), argued on the NPR programme “Tell Me More” that Michelle Obama had been “put in a box” and was only celebrated in the news media after she decided “to put her family first.”

In the online magazine Salon, Rebecca Traister bemoaned what she described as the “momification of Michelle Obama,” criticising the news media’s focus on Ms Obama’s search for schools for her two young daughters, her fashion sense and her pledge that her No. 1 job is “to be Mom.”

But other women argue that modern mothers should have the right and the opportunity to shift gears at various stages in their lives. The women’s movement was about having and making choices, they argue. So, they say, why should an educated, working woman like Ms Obama who decides to put her career aside for a time to focus on her family be considered a victim?

Ms Obama has pledged to use the first lady position as a bully pulpit to argue for better work-family balance and for military spouses, among other things. And her champions insist that she will remake the role of first lady, as opposed to the role remaking her.

In fact, the connections she makes in Washington and the lessons she learns about the inner workings of the Oval Office may ultimately give her career a boost, some say.

“Let’s face it: If he serves one or two terms, when she leaves the White House, she’s going to be made a partner at any law firm in the country,” said Karen O’Connor, director of the Women and Politics Institute at American University. “It’s not like the normal woman who gives up her career to follow her husband someplace. In this situation, every year in for Michelle Obama is another $100,000. This is almost an investment.”

Ellen R. Malcolm, president of Emily’s List, said some people failed to recognise the prominent platform she would gain as first lady.

Ms Obama has made that argument herself, describing her feelings about giving up her career to support her husband’s bid for the presidency.

“I miss my colleagues, I miss my work, I enjoyed what I was doing,” Ms Obama said on CNN in February. “But this is really pretty significant. My view of career is that I can always have whatever career I want. That’s why I, I don’t question that I can go back to that job or go back to something else interesting.”

Her European counterparts have taken a different stance. Ms Blair continued to work as a lawyer during her husband’s time as Britain’s Prime Minister. “It never entered my head to give up work,” she said.

Ms Sarkozy, the first lady of France who is a singer and a mother, made a similar choice. Currently on tour promoting her third album, she described Ms Obama as “a great, strong, intelligent woman.” And she made it clear that she, like other first ladies with successful careers, has struggled to find the right equilibrium.

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