Becoming

 by Michelle Obama

Scott County Library hardcover 421 pages

genre: memoir

Published: 2018

I got the print book (so I could see the pictures) and the audiobook so I could listen while I drove. I read a mix of both and am glad to have finally read this! I have a lot of post-its and scraps of paper so this may be a very random post!

Page 23 - I love how she shares that her dad taught her and her brother Craig "that most people were good people if you just treated them well." She has definitely modeled that behavior herself!

Page 25 - It made me sad that a police officer accused her brother of stealing the bicycle he had been given. That this is a normal fact of life for black children makes me even more sad. (And it hasn't changed in decades . . . )

Page 39 - Systemic racism! Her grandpa and uncles (and many other black men) were unable to join a union and get a good-paying job. They were blocked from doing the things that would allow them to move up - buying homes, sending their children to college, etc. "It pained them, I know, to be cast aside, to be stuck in jobs that they were overqualified for, to watch white people leapfrog past them at work, sometimes training new employees they knew might one day become their bosses. And it bred within each of them at least a basic level of resentment and mistrust: You never quite knew what other folks saw you to be."

Page 68 - I laughed when she wrote about working in a factory as a young woman. ". . . I'd spent the last couple of months working an assembly-line job, operating what was basically an industrial-sized glue gun at a small bookbinding factory in downtown Chicago - a soul-killing routine that went on for eight hours a day, five days a week, and served as possibly the single most reinforcing reminder that going to college was a good idea." This was Louie's experience! He said working in a factory helped his GPA more than anything else.

Page 79 - This was an "oooh" moment for me. "I tried not to feel intimidated when classroom conversation was dominated by male students, which it often was. Hearing them, I realized that they weren't at all smarter than the rest of us. They were simply emboldened, floating on an ancient tide of superiority, buoyed by the fact that history had never told them anything different." That last sentence! Perfection. And thought-provoking. When confidence is a  substitute for ability and knowledge, that's not a good thing.

Page 104 - I like this sentence and can relate to it! When she and Barack left a theatre performance early, she worried about what her co-workers would think. "I cared too much, in general, about finishing what I'd started, about seeing every last little thing through to the absolute heart-stopping end, . . . " Her "box-checker" mentality - I get into that mode, too! I can drive myself crazy thinking I have to do something just because I think I have to do it.

Page 187 - I can't relate to this sentence, but it is well-written and makes me think of people I care about who have struggled with fertility. "It turns out that even two committed go-getters with a deep love and a robust work ethic can't will themselves into being pregnant. Fertility is not something you conquer. Rather maddeningly, there's no straight line between effort and reward."

Page 275 - "Barack was the right person for this moment in history, for a job that was never going to be easy but that had grown, thanks to the financial crisis, exponentially more difficult. I'd been trumpeting it for more than a year and a half now, all over America: My husband was calm and prepared. Complexity didn't scare him. He had a brain capable of sorting through every intricacy." Reading this makes me wish he could have had a third term instead of what we have now . . . 

Page 289 - Oh my word! This section made me love the Bushes even more! (That's one thing I can give Donald Trump credit for - I am even nostalgic for George and Laura Bush.) "Even on the First Lady's side, staffers were putting together contact lists, calendars, and sample correspondence to help me find my footing when it came to the social obligations that came with the title. There was kindness running beneath all of it, a genuine love of country that I will always appreciate and admire." When Michelle came to visit at the White House, Laura Bush took her on a tour. She also invited her to come back with the girls and had her own daughters show them the "fun" parts of living in the White House. I'm so very grateful for the graciousness of the Bushes!

Page 323 - It was and is easy to see how the Obamas feel about one another. "Barack is a good listener, patient and thoughtful. I love how he tips his head back when he laughs. I love the lightness in his eyes, the kindness at his core." It's hard to realize that every decision they made, including a date night in NYC while he was in office, was critically examined and torn to shreds. It's amazing they were able to maintain any sense of normalcy and relationship health in those eight years!

Page 330 - When she decided to focus on healthy eating and exercising, she explains her focus on children. "It's tough and politically difficult to get grown-ups to change their habits. We felt certain we'd stand a better chance if we tried to help kids think differently about food and exercise from an early age." Yes, older doesn't always mean wiser. It can mean stuck in your ways and impervious to change!

Page 354 - Obama tells of a time a mom at her daughters' school asked Malia if she was afraid to play basketball outside on the school courts. How sad AND wonderful that Malia was able to answer, "If you're asking me whether I ponder my death every day, the answer is no." What a weird way to experience childhood and adolescence! With secret service men, strict protocols, and people always wanting to get close to you . . . no fun. I'm glad the woman later wrote a note of apology, realizing that she had put a child on the spot in an unfair manner.

Page 361 - "Friendships between women, as any woman will tell you, are built of a thousand small kindnesses like these, swapped back and forth and over again." This immediately made me think of some of my amazing girlfriends! We're there for each other! I am blessed.

Page 370 - Ugh. This quote. "'The single most important thing we want to achieve,' the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, had declared to a reporter a year earlier, laying out his party's goals, 'is for President Obama to be a one-term president.' It was that simple. The Republican Congress was devoted to Barack's failure above all else." Wow. This entire passage is hard to read. And her reponse is, too. "I found it demoralizing, infuriating, sometimes crushing." I'm so glad she took the high road over and over and over. When a politician's goal has nothing to do with what's best for the country or his constituents, that's a problem.

Page 377 - "What a lot of people don't know is that the president sees almost everything, or is at least privy to basically any available information related to the country's well-being. Being a fact guy, Barack always asked for more rather than less. He tried to gather both the widest and the most close-up view of every situation, even when it was bad, so that he could offer a truly informed response. As he saw it, it was part of his responsibility, what he'd been elected to do - to look rather than to look away, to stay upright when the rest of us felt ready to fall down." What a contrast with the current president!

Page 407 - She doesn't say his name, but when she talks about bullying, it's clear. ". . . a man who among other things demeaned minorities and expressed contempt for prisoners of war, challenging the dignity of our country with practically his every utterance. I wanted Americans to understand that words matter - that the hateful language they heard comign from their TVs did not reflect the true spirit of our country and that we could vote against it. It was dignity I wanted to make an appeal for - the idea that as a nation we might hold on to the core thing that had sustained my family, going back generations. Dignity had always gotten us through. It was a choice, and not always an easy one, but the people I respected most in life made it again and again, every single day. . . . When they go low, we go high."

Page 408 - Okay, she names him. And adds this perspective: "It was precisely what so many of us hoped our own children would never need to experience, and yet probably would. Dominance, even the threat of it, is a form of dehumanization. It's the ugliest kind of power." 

Page 416 - "I grew up with a disabled dad in a too-small house with not much money in a starting-to-fail neighborhood, and I also grew up surrounded by love and music in a diverse city in a country when an education can take you far. I had nothing or I had everything. It depends on which way you want to tell it." I'm so glad for love and family and respect for humanity. I'm grateful to God for His love, mercy, and grace. I truly don't understand how other Jesus-followers can be fans of President Trump. He seems rather the antithesis of what Christ represents. (Not that the Obamas are model believers . . . but at least they are decent human beings!)

Page 419 - In her epilogue, she writes, "Becoming requires equal parts patience and rigor. Becoming is never giving up on the idea that there's more gowing to be done." The title of her book and her message about who she is are powerful and thoughtful.

Extra car notes:

• ubiquity of smoking in public in the 1980s - I don't think my kids would remember that, but I do.
• 7436 South Euclid Avenue, Chicago - the South Side. I wonder who lives there now.
• Cushing Syndrome / her dad's M.S. - such a young death!
• some of her young mom anguish bugged me . . . "suck it up" is what I wrote. But then I thought about how stressed I got sometimes (and dramatic) . . . I need to have compassion and understanding. Empathy isn't always my strength.
• I am interested in reading Barack's books - Dreams From My Father (1995) and The Audacity of Hope (2006).
• Christmas in Hawaii / Malia's fever / change in flights / missing gun control vote - This was another place where I thought it was obvious that he should fly back and she could stay with his grandma and their little girl in Hawaii. But second-guessing other people's decisions is silly.
• Duh - working mom challenges. It's a real thing. I was raising my kids primarily in the 90s and it was hard to try to be a good mom AND a good employee. This is not a new dynamic.
  
• LOVE the graciousness of the Bush family!!!
• Valerie Jarrett - I'm curious to learn more about her.
  
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