Dreams From His Mother

To me, the most enigmatic feminist icon in this whole primary drama has been the woman with a man's name who's been dead for more than a decade: Barack Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro.

When I was writing a post awhile back that could roughly be summarized as "Hillary: Is She Good for the Women?" (my answer: no), I found myself drawn again and again to this intrepid woman, 5 years older than Senator Clinton, and the life that reads more like Nadine Gordimer than Encyclopedia Brittanica. Her son told Time, "She wasn't comfortable seeing her life confined to a certain box", and this at a time, the 1950's, when the choices for women were still mostly constricted to house and home. Ann Soetoro apparently didn't get the memo. And while her personal choices surely cost her children some measure of stability (luckily, the candidate's grandmother, another mysterious force, was there to serve as a bedrock), Soetoro also gave them a powerful model for idealism and feminism in action.

She's described from her teen years invariably as ahead of her time, off-center, challenging conventions at every turn. The candidate's half-sister described her this way to the New York Times:

"That was very much her philosophy of life, to not be limited by fear or narrow definitions, to not build walls around ourselves and to do our best to find kinship and beauty in unexpected places."

Obama has called her "the kindest, most generous spirit" he has ever known, but also added that she carried a certain "recklessness" in pursuing her dreams.

At 18, in the early 60's, she married a fellow student, an African, already pregnant with the future candidate. Soon Dad was gone, and she plowed ahead with her ambition to become an anthropologist. Eventually, she met an Indonesian, married him, and off they went to Jakarta, the new husband, the white woman, and the mixed-race child in tow. There the son got early morning lessons of English, Mahalia Jackson, MLK speeches and the young Obama didn't entirely appreciate it, to which she would say "this is no picnic for me either, buster."

Obama headed back to Hawaii for school, under the care of Ann's parents, a decision that friends report was very painful for the mother to make. She became more and more immersed in Indonesian culture as her husband became more and more Westernized, and eventually he is gone too. She went on to build a microfinance program more than a decade before Oprah ever started talking about it. A young female colleague said this about her to the Times:

"I feel she taught me how to live. She was not particularly concerned about what society would say about working women, single women, women marrying outside their culture, women who were fearless and who dreamed big."

Another colleague told Time that Ann once "despaired" of her son ever having a social conscience, a fear that was put to rest when he became a community organizer in Chicago. Friends say she reveled in talking about her children's accomplishments.

Last year, I remember watching Obama intently as a reporter asked him how his mother would react to her son's meteoric rise. It was a moment when his grandiloquence disappeared. He said she would cry and cry, and then, in my recollection (I couldn't find the clip), he mostly demurred. As someone who also lost a mother at a relatively young age, I have found that any success, any milestone is a celebration muted by the fact that I can't call my Mom to tell her about it. I can't help but believe that the candidate's victory this week must be made somewhat bittersweet by the fact that his indomitable Mom isn't here to watch it. I'd like to think that somewhere, she has a front-row seat. But I'm guessing Ann Dunham Soetoro, who believed in her kids, herself, and the capacity to do some good on earth, didn't believe much in angels on a cloud.

Comments

[AshevilleVoice]

. What haunted me most in the pages of Dreams From my Father was Ann's rare capacity for unconditionally love. I was a single mom when my daughter was two, and so I know that the pride that Ann gave her young son in his absentee father and African heritage required truly remarkable spiritual attainment. She must have had that ability that I've so often failed at to let go of resentments, forgive others their shortcomings, and honor them for their aspirations. Is there anything more essentially Christian, more universally at the heart of all true spiritual paths, than to love and to keep faith that the good and light in life will always prevail over the darkness? Ann's never failing push to transform society, her fearless ability to be at the pioneering forefront of cultural change, and her devotion to her children as embodiments of an emerging world without racism are inspirational.

Knowing about Barack's remarkable mom moves his message out of the box of clever political dialog into the possibility that we can create the world that Ann envisioned. It's so much bigger than the hope that a woman or a black man might someday be a US president. It is the belief that raising our kids with values, investing in their education, and encouraging their capacity to dream will lift us all up, and move us to see that true power is about our ability to transform society from the bottom up.

[tinarm]

You caught exactly how I feel. I am a single white mother of one who has been on chemo for 7 years. I have fought everyday of that to make sure that my daughter is a success despite our difficulties. Obama is an inspiration of what can be, not what most think will be. I look at him and his mother and I hope I can be as good as her.

[bluevillage]

Time Magazine, April 21, 2008, issue has a great piece on her, "A Mother's Story," and juxtaposes photos of Barack and Stanley Ann that show how amazingly alike they look. Friends of hers have said they see her smile in his.

[bluevillage]

In I think his first Charlie Rose interview, after the publication of his first book, Charlie asked him about his mother and Obama said he'd rather not talk about her, he gets too choked up.

[XME]

I'm sure that for him, it's sad that she's not her to see how many have embraced him in a way that is rare in our country.

[brwnizofmine]

What I find most amazing is that he looks like me, but it seems that his spirit is so much different than mine. He's lived a different life than me. He's been taught to appreciate people and things around him, to believe the best about people. I can only pray that I can instill that in my children.

It seems that he represents the best in all of us. He's what brings us together.

[PatrickforO]

We can all be proud of Obama - I'm sure his mother would be, and I know his grandmother is.

[apoyo]

She is watching and she is proud. And she continues to guide him.

Compare what Stanley Ann's child did after college and what Hillary's child did after college.

[lunadove]

I couldn't blame Chelsey if she wanted a more quiet life, that is not to her discredit. While she was still young, she had horrible disfunctional family experiences in the spotlight of the entire world. Those issues are hard anough to deal with, it may have made her a bit shy to expose herself in such a manner in her own life.
I will not judge Hillary as Mother. I do not agree with her as a politician, but one cannot see the intimate way a Mother nurtures her child from the outside. We all have different paths to fulfill as well, and Chelsey is finding hers. Hillary is proud of Chelsey, I am proud of my Sons, we are all proud of Obama...well, most of us.

[pupbayer]

Geez. Hillary's child has only been out of college for a few years. Give her a little time.

[SusaninIN]

The reference was about taking a job to help others as opposed to taking a high paying job to better one's own life. Time doesn't have anything to do with the choices that was made. I don't think there is anything wrong with wanting a lucrative career, but turning down one in favor of helping to make others lives better is something to definitely be admired. It does show the difference in priorities in the parents lives. Children usually learn to value what their parents value.

[remc]

As a woman who has been told more than once by several very different people that I am "too independent for my own good", I admire Stanley Ann so much. Obama is such a positive reflection of her, how can he help but be a feminist, or better yet, a true humanist?

Thanks for a great post!

[SeriousBlack]

Wonderful post, Ms. Keenan!

[SeriousBlack]

Now that's what I call an authentic feminist woman.

While not always applicable, here are surely two good examples of the old adage of the apple not falling far from the tree:

Barbara Bush : George W. Bush

Ann Soetoro : Barack Obama

[katzooks]

Beautiful read. Thanks so much.

More in this vein, here's a great March 2008 article on Obama that has gotten lost in media shuffle. Nothing earth-shattering, just an overview of his life and his family, up to this point, which includes stories about his grandmother, Madelyn, a "Rosie the Riveter in a bomber plant," who injected into Obama's youthful psyche, "that very midwestern, sort of traditional sense of prudence and hard work."

His mother, Ann, is here, too. A highly intelligent woman, an anthropologist, a feminist before her time. Barack's sister described her like this: She was always very good at finding a language that the other person would understand, regardless of where they were from, or their socio-economic background. And I think that"s something that"s been given to us, a major gift that"s bestowed on us."

And yet, his mother was also a dreamer, a romantic, who used to "pull her children from bed to look at a particularly beautiful moonrise."

A nice convergence of influences. Those who say that "nobody knows" who Obama is should start here, then spend the next several months actually listening to what he has to say. I have every confidence they'll be pleased to know him.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/03/obama200803?currentPage=1

[gladys46]

Thank you for that! Now, let me stop weeping and just retain Obama's gosh, great victory speech on Tues. nite .... any person should have been ultimately inspired!

And, thank you Ann Dunhan Soetoro ... thank you so, so much!

[MariaHopeful]

Can you imagine that she would have been only 24 or 25 years of age when she was waking up at 5am to teach her child before sending him off to school. What discipline and foresight? That whole family is just intriguing. I hope historians and or script-writers are hard at work to produce a roots-like saga about the Obamas and the Durhams.

[Bluejay00234]

Great reading, thanks.

[janekat]

What a stretch - get real...

Sounds like rationalization to me - the writer feels guilty for not supporting the first serious female candidate and is grasping at straws to excuse themselves for going for a man over a woman.

[XME]

Here's news for you...not all women feel obligated to support the "first serious female candidate" just because they are women.

We rated her by the standards that we rated all candidates, and MANY women simply feel that Obama would make a far superior candidate, and that the reasons have nothing to do with him being a male.

I can assure you that we feel no guilt in knowing that we supported the candidate we feel would make the best president...even though that candidate wasn't "the female candidate". Women have no obligation to support women simply because they're women with disregard to any other issues or concerns about them.

[SusaninIN]

Is it so difficult to believe in the good in people? Do you not see that Stanley Ann is a true feminist? She didn't ask for permission, nor wait to see how others viewed her. She just went out there are lived the life she wanted by not being confined within sterotypical roles. And she apologized to no one for that. We have so few people in todays world to look up to. Please do not disparage the ones we have!

[vcabq]

Wow, sounds like you are really Dick Cheney posing as janekat. This is such a Dick comment.

[jpcline004]

Sounds like rationalization to me - janekat feels guilty for not supporting the first serious black candidate and is grasping at straws to excuse themselves for going for a white person over an african american.

[southernsepia]

Talk about stretching. You had to bend pretty far to find something to criticize here.

Beautiful post, I love her free spirit.