The Audacity of Hope

Tired and stressed, we had little time for conversation, much less romance. When I
launched my ill-fated congressional run, Michelle put up no pretense of being happy
with the decision. My failure to clean up the kitchen suddenly became less endearing.
Leaning down to kiss Michelle good-bye in the morning, all I would get was a peck on
the cheek. By the time Sasha was born—just as beautiful, and almost as calm as her
sister—my wife’s anger toward me seemed barely contained.
“You only think about yourself,” she would tell me. “I never thought I’d have to raise a
family alone.”
I was stung by such accusations; I thought she was being unfair. After all, it wasn’t as if
I went carousing with the boys every night. 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 that 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.
It was only upon reflection, after the trials of those years had passed and the kids had
started school, that I began to appreciate what Michelle had been going through at the
time, the struggles so typical of today’s working mother. For no matter how liberated I
liked to see myself as—no matter how much I told myself that Michelle and I were
equal partners, and that her dreams and ambitions were as important as my own—the
fact was that when children showed up, it was Michelle and not I who was expected to
make the necessary adjustments. Sure, I helped, but it was always on my terms, on my
schedule. Meanwhile, she was the one who had to put her career on hold. She was the
one who had to make sure that the kids were fed and bathed every night. If Malia or
Sasha got sick or the babysitter failed to show up, it was she who, more often than not,
had to get on the phone to cancel a meeting at work.
It wasn’t just the constant scrambling between her work and the children that made
Michelle’s situation so tough. It was also the fact that from her perspective she wasn’t
doing either job well. This was not true, of course; her employers loved her, and
everyone remarked on what a good mother she was. But I came to see that in her own
mind, two visions of herself were at war with each other—the desire to be the woman
her mother had been, solid, dependable, making a home and always there for her kids;
and the desire to excel in her profession, to make her mark on the world and realize all
those plans she’d had on the very first day that we met.
In the end, I credit Michelle’s strength—her willingness to manage these tensions and
make sacrifices on behalf of myself and the girls—with carrying us through the difficult
times. But we also had resources at our disposal that many American families don’t
have. For starters, Michelle’s and my status as professionals meant that we could
rework our schedules to handle an emergency (or just take a day off) without risk of
losing our jobs. Fifty-seven percent of American workers don’t have that luxury;
indeed, most of them can’t take a day off to look after a child without losing pay or
using vacation days. For parents who do try to make their own schedules, flexibility