First grandmother ‘quite the lady about town’

[jefferson_dem]

First grandmother ‘quite the lady about town’
President’s mother-in-law was initially reluctant to move to Washington

The Associated Press
Tues., Feb. 16, 2010



WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama's mother-in-law lived her entire life in Chicago, so it was only natural that her move to the White House came with some resistance. Try it for three months, her son-in-law says the family suggested.

A year later, it seems Marian Robinson is here to stay.

She spends a lot of time looking after granddaughters Malia, 11, and Sasha, 8, but has been carving out a new life for herself, too. In the words of the president, she's become "quite the lady about town."

The widowed Mrs. Robinson has made friends and has had friends over to the White House. She goes shopping on her own, enjoys visits to the Kennedy Center and takes Malia and Sasha to and from school just about every day — all while enjoying a level of anonymity that has Obama and her own daughter, first lady Michelle Obama, feeling both pleased and a bit envious at the same time.

"She's quite the lady about town," Obama said. "But the nice thing is that she just walks out the gate and goes."

Mrs. Robinson has given few interviews since moving to the White House. But she has made it clear that she was cool to the idea of moving and that she only did so reluctantly. She left several siblings behind in Chicago.

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35417508/ns/politics-white_house/?ocid=twitter

[Saphire]

1. Good for her. I'm glad she was able to carve out a new life

for herself and to give the girls a somewhat "normal" life.

[leftofcool]

2. "But the nice thing is that she just walks out the gate and goes."

Hopefully followed by a few Secret Service Agents.

[Love Bug]

3. I envy her being able to have such an impact on her granddaughter's lives

What a blessing for them! Some day when Malia and Sasha are much older, they'll be telling their own grandchildren about how great it was to have grandma there when they lived in the White House. It's convenient for the Obamas too, to have someone they trust ready and willing to watch the girls.

I'm sure she has a Secret Service detail. Miss Lillian, Jimmy Carter's mother, had one and she would complain about how they wouldn't help her carry groceries into the house. They have to keep their hands free at all times, of course, but to someone who was raised around men who would open doors for women, it must have seemed strange to Miss Lillian that they would let an old lady carry her own stuff.

[Captain Hilts]

4. Good for her. I've been wondering what she's been doing. nt

[MindandSoul]

5. She sounds like a nice, "real" lady! No wonder her daughter turned out so great!

[Cha]

6. It's good for Marian Robinson and

excellent for the Obamas to have her with them at the White House! Who wouldn't want a grandmother like her to watch over your children when you were elected to do the awesome task of leading our country?

[BR_Parkway]

7. You can almost picture him, tiredly heading upstairs at the end of the

day, rubbing another headache and thinking "tomorrow I'll stay with the girls, she can go down there and deal with these idiots - she might have better luck"

I know my grandmother would have never put up with all this lying and hypocrisy and she'd have gotten folks like the Repub leadership in line pretty darn quick!