BOOKS: Becoming

I’ve had the pleasure of having Michelle Obama in my car for the last several weeks, telling me her life story. Her book Becoming is a great telling of a remarkable life, and I especially enjoyed hearing it in her own voice. She vividly describes the Southside neighborhood she grew up in, and the people that surrounded her there, from her admirably gritty parents and protective older brother to all the extended family members, neighbors, schoolmates, teachers, and other characters in her story. She went from an underprivileged beginning to graduating from Harvard and being recruited into a top law firm, and while she makes it clear where it took grit and hard work to get there, she is equally clear on her indebtedness to the many other people who provided opportunity, encouragement, or inspiration along the way. It’s a theme throughout the book recognizing where the course of her life benefited from active help or influential examples, and being mindfully grateful to them. I found each chapter of her life interesting to hear about: the student from the South Side slowly finding her confidence in the wider world at a selective “magnet” high school and then Princeton University, the Harvard Law alum landing a job at a top law firm but then wondering about finding true fulfillment and a sense of social contribution in her work, the successful public sector executive wrestling with how to balance career and motherhood, the non-politics-loving spouse of a rising political star getting drawn into an all-consuming political campaign, and finally the First Lady finding her own way to carry out that unofficial role with its own heap of expectations. You’ll find some politics in here, as would be inevitable given the course of her remarkable life, but not as much as you might think. (By the time she stated explicitly near the end, it was not the least surprise to hear that no, she has no intention of ever running for President herself.) You’ll also find plenty of interesting stories of what it’s like to live in the White House and enveloped by a Secret Service cocoon (like “Hi, this is Sasha’s Mom, Sasha would love to come to that play date if you wouldn’t mind providing the social security numbers and birthdates of everyone in your household and letting the Secret Service sweep your house beforehand…”). But ultimately, I think her book is a distinctive perspective contributing to the never-ending conversation on balancing career, family, and fulfillment. There were moments when I got teary-eyed (like the loss of her father, or the loss way too young of a college friend), and in the end I was teary from painfully missing have such a good and decent family in the White House.