Yes, even Michelle Obama took all the mental load when her daughters were born.

No one escapes the shackles of the heterosexual couple, not even Michelle Obama. During an interview broadcast on December 15, the lawyer returned to the first ten years of the daughters and the accumulated resentment against her husband. The couple has since overcome their difficulties and the lawyer is glad he hasn’t given up.
If the outcome is happy for the Robinsons-Obamas, each story is unique and no one is destined to remain in an unbalanced relationship.

Michelle Obama, wife and mother

Who doesn’t love Barack Obama? Supportive and competent politician, devoted father, loving husband, man like the others… During her appearance on the Revolt program on December 15, Michelle Obama nevertheless confided that she had had many problems supporting her husband in the ten years following the birth of their daughters . The lawyer had to perform many family and domestic tasks, while her husband concentrated on his career. And his hobbies. Very transparent about the accumulated rancor, the essayist admits that she counted the slightest diaper changed by her husband during these first years of parenthood.

He complains that “marriage it’s not 50/50, sometimes it’s 70/30, sometimes 60/40 (at the expense of women, of course). And current numbers prove him right: twenty years after the birth of the Obama daughters, mothers are still mostly involved in domestic and family tasks.

Early childhood and the hectic life of man

Michelle Obama also acknowledges that early childhood can cause great tension within a couple:

Children are terrorists. They are demanding, they don’t talk, they can’t communicate, they always cry, they are irrational and selfish… But you love them more than anything, you can’t blame them! […] So you turn against each other.

True, the tyrannical nature of little ones can overwhelm parents and lead to arguments. But it would be too easy to invoke the impetuous and demanding temperament of children to justify all the conflicts within the couple. The systemic immobilism of men who by default privilege their life away from home would scandalize the most resistant of companions, and has nothing to do with children. In the case of Michelle Obama, the grudges have subsided over time and she has always been able to keep in mind the qualities of her husband, even in her most difficult moments.

A nice message to qualify

With her customary transparency and directness, Michelle Obama shades a society that still sees heterosexual marriage as a relatively egalitarian panacea. She allows thousands of women to identify and feel guilty at the same time: yes, it’s difficult, yes, it’s unfair and no, it’s not just happiness. It’s also a lot of frustration and sacrifice. And it is thanks to the public messages of influential women that thousands of others are able to accept their bitterness and claim a more egalitarian world.

But if the Robinson-Obama couple insisted, this does not mean that each partner must at all costs grit their teeth in the face of injustice, under the pretext that her man is “stuffed with quality”. When the inequalities within the couple are too great, turning away is in no way synonymous with failure.