In his new book, A Promised Land, Barack Obama notes his political career and aspirations were major sources of conflict in his marriage.
When Obama was a state senator in Illinois, Barack and Michelle Obama had their kids, Malia and Sasha, and Michelle felt like Barack was not holding up his end of the bargain in parenting, not to mention the strain childcare put on their finances. They started arguing more after having kids, and Michelle told Barack:
“This isn’t what I signed up for…I feel like I’m doing it all by myself.”
Later, when Barack Obama wanted to run for the U.S. Senate, Michelle expressed substantial hesitancy and tasked two friends with trying to talk him out of a Senate run. She worried about having to maintain two households in Washington and Chicago. And she also laughed when Barack hinged all his bets on covering extra expenses through writing a book, Barack realizing “an unwritten book was hardly a financial plan.” Michelle told him, before the Senate run that this would be the final straw.
That the marriage between Barack and Michelle Obama wasn’t perfect is not surprising, despite their stable image and exterior. What I did find interesting was the intersection of Barack Obama’s lofty political aspirations, the sacrifices his wife and family had to make, and the incompatibility with such expectations with marriage and supporting a family. I found this aspect of their marriage interesting after reading one part of the book, where Michelle told Barack what my girlfriend often tells me.
If Michelle was hesitant about Barack running for the Senate, you can imagine how she reacted to Barack wanting to run for president. He said “we could win” in trying to convince her it was a great idea, and then she said “You mean you, Barack. Not we.” She hated politics and always did, and especially hated the transience and lack of stability it gave their family. She hated the exposure it gave her family. He kept trying to talk her into the possibility, to which she responded (and effectively ended the conversation):
“God, Barack…when is it going to be enough?”
When is it going to be enough?
It is perhaps a hint of narcissistic arrogance that led me to chuckle — part of me is just like Obama! But these were serious words my girlfriend has told me on more than one occasion. I am not a household name like Barack Obama, and I’ve eschewed the term for a very long time because of its negative connotations, but I can’t deny I am ambitious at this point. My family had extremely high expectations for me. But I can’t say my parents are responsible for it — I have extremely high expectations for myself.
I am currently a special education teacher in Baltimore City Public Schools. For most people, just being a teacher is a lot. Just being a teacher comes with significant responsibilities and stress, and it stresses me out beyond belief sometimes. But being a teacher wasn’t enough. I have to be a writer and editor on the side, and I have to write a lot to keep up with my creative goals and ambitions. Then, I applied for a Master’s Degree and got in.
At this point, my girlfriend was happy about it when I told her. But then she asked me the same thing Michelle Obama asked Barack:
When is it going to be enough?
And then I kept taking on new responsibilities. I decided to be a layout editor for my teacher’s union. I wanted to keep up running 65 miles a week and running marathons. I decided to take on an additional role in my special education department.
Maybe this was out of my people-pleasing tendencies and my flat-out inability to say no to most things. Or maybe, like Barack Obama wonders about himself, I might have an inflated sense of my own importance. Most of the tasks I take on are service-oriented and admirable to most people, but Obama questions his own selflessness through an MLK sermon called “The Drum Major Instinct,” where people want to “lead the parade” and reconcile our selfish goals with selfless aims, and we wrap our “blind ambition” in the vocabulary of selflessness and service. For Obama, his family always had to make sacrifices for his ambitions.
I’m not setting out to be president, but a recent career ambition I started to pursue was attending law school part-time and do so while I continued teaching. So for four years, I wanted to push myself to the brink, working 50–60 hours a week and attending law school on the side. On top of that, I’ll probably be married and trying to start a family.
Yeah, having kids, being married, while being a teacher and in law school sounds like an absolutely brilliant plan, right? Obama questions what guides him, what motivated him to pursue (in his words) megalomanic goals. He questioned whether it was vanity, whether it was something deeper like “prov[ing] myself worthy to a father who had abandoned me.” My father never abandoned me, but he has crazy high expectations as a Chinese immigrant who believes the only worthy careers are being doctors or engineers. I certainly related to Obama’s deep internal reflection, because after I made my decision to go to law school (with my mind already set when I talked to my girlfriend), she asked me again:
When is it going to be enough?
Honestly, I don’t know. I know certain people really respect this inner drive to always strive for better and more. My girlfriend’s father really does and he has functioned most of his life in the same way, but I can certainly see the cost ambition puts on relationships and family. You can argue my family’s lofty expectations are behind my constant push for more and better, to never be satisfied, but (pardon my language) fuck that shit. I have always marched to the beat of my own drum and reject anything else besides myself is guiding me towards what honestly are selfish ambitions.
No, I don’t have a family or a marriage right now. I also do not consider myself a careerist and have always preached about how relationships with God and others supersede career and work…but recently, I don’t know if I’ve practiced what I preached. And in my early 20s, I rationalize that most of my friends are putting their career aspirations first so they can secure more stable and happy futures. But I’m not quite sure I’m seeing the future. I just see directly what’s ahead of me and how I can get from point A to point B.
So I ask myself again: when is it going to be enough?
After I graduate from law school, am I still going to be a teacher? Or am I going to seek something more “prestigious” to succumb to other people’s definitions of prestige? The question applies not only to my relationship but to myself. I realized I’ve thought about this interaction between Barack and Michelle Obama not only because it’s reflected conflict in my own relationship, but conflict within myself. I am never happy where I am. I always have to push for more, to keep going up the staircase. Barack and Michelle Obama are obviously still together, but if you’re the President of the United States for eight years, your family had to sacrifice everything for you to be there. Being president is the epitome of putting your career over your family.
When is it going to be enough?
I don’t know, but I realize it’s progress now that I’m asking. And I will wrestle with the balance between this instinctual ambition and my family and relationships for the rest of my life.
Photo 5365619 / Barack Michelle Obama © Joshua Wanyama | Dreamstime.co
Originally published on Medium on June 13, 2021.