NYT, pg1: Striking a Balance While Becoming a First Family

[DeepModem Mom]

Striking a Balance While Becoming a First Family
By JODI KANTOR
Published: November 5, 2008


(Doug Mills/NYT)
The Obama family is making plans to move to Washington.

....One day after the presidential election, the Obama family of Chicago’s Hyde Park is only beginning to figure out how to become the first family of the United States.

As the first African-Americans in the role, they will be a living tableau of racial progress, and friends say they are acutely aware that everything they say and do — the way they dress, where Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7 , go to school, even what kind of puppy they adopt — will brim with symbolic value. “Here’s an intact black family, a happy family, with beautiful kids and a loving extended family,” (Verna) Williams said, “and they happen to live in the executive mansion.”

For President-elect Barack Obama and his family, leaving Chicago means dismantling the protective cocoon they have built around them. Throughout the campaign, Malia and Sasha, who will become the youngest White House occupants in decades, spent many hours in their grandmother’s tiny South Side apartment, in the same building where their mother was raised. Their private school at the University of Chicago is laced with neighbors and allies who watch over the girls with loving vigilance....

On Wednesday afternoon, Mrs. Obama spoke with the first lady, Laura Bush, who invited her and her daughters to visit the White House soon. The hunt for a new school begins now, Mrs. Obama told friends....

As parents, the Obamas believe in giving their daughters some sway over decisions that affect them, she said. And so, note to headmasters: The preferences of Malia (pronounced mah-LEE-ah), a solemn-eyed Harry Potter fan, and Sasha, the family ham, could weigh heavily. (Although the Obamas could send their daughters to one of the capital’s public schools, which are in the midst of a major overhaul, many Washingtonians expect them to look closely at Georgetown Day School or Sidwell Friends, which Chelsea Clinton attended.)

While the Obama White House will surely entertain the usual Washington dignitaries and foreign heads of state, the most prized guests might be the girls’ friends. “We may see sleepovers at the White House, groups of young girls in their sleeping bags hanging out with Sasha and Malia,” Ms. Williams said....

***

The Obamas will come to Washington with a fifth family member, one who has so far remained mostly out of the spotlight. Marian Robinson, Mrs. Obama’s mother, is a widow and retired bank secretary who has served as the girls’ chief caretaker during their mother’s frequent absences. Aides say they do not yet know whether Mrs. Robinson will formally move into the White House, but it is certain that Malia and Sasha’s grandmother will be near at hand and available when her parents have to travel. “They are extremely close to their grandmother,” (Sandra) Matthews said. “That’s why Michelle has been able, with the ease and peace of mind, to be gone.”...

As first lady, Mrs. Obama has said, she plans to make herself an advocate for working parents, particularly military families, urging better access to child care for all. Trying to juggle public duties with two young children, she will be a living illustration of the very issue she describes. “She’s going to be engaging in the balancing act herself,” said Doris Kearns Goodwin, the presidential historian....

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/us/politics/06family.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin

[orwell]

1. Let's move First Grandma...

...into the People's House.

I'm sure they can find an extra bedroom somewhere...

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

2. How about the Lincoln Bedroom?

There's poetic justice in that, I think.

[NotThisTime]

3. I agree!

[Cha]

4. This is so exciting..what we've been working

so hard to happen and now it begins! Pinches self. OUCH!