Barack's Mother-In-Law holding down the Obama family fort

[TeamJordan23]

Holding down the Obama family fort
'Grandma' makes the race possible
By Scott Helman, Globe Staff | March 30, 2008

CHICAGO - She is the linchpin of Barack Obama's presidential campaign, and yet she does not raise money, plot strategy, lead conference calls, or carry a BlackBerry, which, in her day, was an unassuming fruit that grew on bushes.

Marian Robinson does, though, carry an exalted title in this race: mother-in-law. And from that perch, she makes the whole thing run.

A steely 70-year-old matriarch with a raspy voice and seen-it-all laugh, Robinson manages the family while Obama and his wife, Michelle, venture to the far reaches of the campaign trail. Amid the daily chaos of the marathon primary campaign, it often falls to Michelle's mother to keep the Obamas' two daughters - Malia, 9, and Sasha, 6 - grounded, not to mention fed, bathed, and in bed by 8:30 p.m.

"The whole time I'm raising Craig and Michelle, I am telling them that, 'Look, you see, I am raising my kids, so don't you all have any kids that you expect me to help you raise,' " Robinson said with a laugh last week, in her first extended interview of the campaign. "And look at what I'm doing!"

In fact, she cannot imagine anyone else doing it.

"If somebody's going to be with these kids other than their parents," she said, "it better be me."

Every presidential candidate, when deciding whether to run, weighs the promise of the White House against the inevitable strains the grueling campaign will place on a family. The Obamas, young enough to have daughters in elementary school, have not been shy about their struggles to maintain relative normalcy, a challenge that has only grown with the Illinois senator's political success. They have worked hard over the past year not to let politics intrude on their daughters' daily lives.

But it is difficult to imagine that being possible without the support of Robinson, who retired from her part-time bank job last summer, lives off a pension from her late husband's job, and resides in the house on Chicago's South Side where Michelle Obama and her brother grew up, about 4 miles from the Obamas' current home.

"I am standing here breathing in and out with any level of calm because my 70-year-old is home with my girls," Michelle, 44, told voters in Chillicothe, Ohio, late last month, on one of the dozens of campaign trips she has made in recent months. "There's nothing like grandma."

And here, as Robinson begins to discuss the rules she must follow, it becomes clear where Michelle Obama gets her trademark candor.

The 8:30 bedtime? "That's ridiculous!" Robinson said. The TV-for-an-hour rule? "That's just not enough time," she said.

Michelle Obama said she learned these strict routines from her mother. But Robinson, now that she's a grandmother, finds them confining.

"I've heard say, 'Mom, what are you rolling your eyes at? You made us do the same thing,"' Robinson said. "I don't remember being that bad. It seems like she's just going overboard."

It's not just Michelle, though. Barack Obama, when he talks to his daughters from the road, often inquires about the status of things on the homefront: Have they had their baths? "He checks," Robinson said.

Full Article: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/03/30/holding_down_the_obama_family_fort/?page=full

[gblady]

1. I was wondering...

thanks for posting this....I have wondered who watched the girls while their folks campaign...
sounds like they're well cared for...