If Momma’s Not Happy…
First Lady Michelle Obama is on the cover of the November issue of Prevention magazine. In the interview she shares her thoughts on marriage, motherhood, and fitness. One reader at Grio.com commented, “Send this article to all women’s magazines around the world. First Lady Mrs Michelle Obama understands balance … If momma isn’t happy nobody in the house will be happy!”
Mrs Obama says that she learned “what not to do” from her mother and First Grandmother, Marian Robinson, according to Grio, courtesy of the AP.
“She’d say being a good mother isn’t all about sacrificing. It’s really investing and putting yourself higher on your priority list,” Mrs. Obama said. She said Robinson put her own two children first, sometimes to the detriment of herself.
“She encouraged me not to do that,” Mrs. Obama said.
“Throughout my life, I’ve learned to make choices that make me happy and make sense for me. Even my husband is happier when I’m happy,” Mrs. Obama said in her first interview with the women’s health monthly. “So I have freed myself to put me on the priority list and say, yes, I can make choices that make me happy, and it will ripple and benefit my kids, my husband and my physical health.”
“That’s hard for women to own. We’re not taught to do that,” she added. “It’s a lesson that I want to teach my girls.”
Asked for a definition of happiness, Mrs. Obama said it’s when daughters Malia, 11, and Sasha, 8, “are good and when my family is whole.” She expressed relief that early in the year after moving from Chicago the girls came and told her they liked living in the White House.
“My happiness is measured against theirs. When they’re in a good place, I feel really good,” she said.
When speaking about marriage the First Lady cited her husband’s “emotional honesty” as one of the things that she finds attractive about him.
As for her much publicized workout routine, Mrs Obama stated that she strives to be “on the cusp of being in the best shape that I can be” in, but has found she needs to work a little harder at it the older she gets. As a result, she has begun to incorporate more Pilates moves and stretching into her workouts to maintain flexibility.
She is also is working on balancing her diet, which she said has “no absolute no’s.”
“Overall, it’s good, but there are some great bakers” at the White House, she said, noting that pie is always available. “So for me, it’s about setting up new boundaries. I had some challenges with that, but I’m balancing out.”
At 45 Mrs Obama has no fears of growing older. “To me, with age, everything has gotten better.”
The November issue of Prevention will be available newsstands Oct. 6.
Posted by Aminah Hanan
