The Dictatorship
Michelle Obama isn’t ready to be a matriarch — and she doesn’t have to be
Last week’s installment of “IMO,” the podcast Michelle Obama hosts with her brother, Craig Robinson, was called “What Losing Our Mother Taught Us About Love, Life, and Family.” Marian Robinson, who lived in the White House with the Obamas for eight years, died May 31 last year, and the siblings talked about what a major shift it is even for people in their 60s to lose a parent. Their father died of multiple sclerosis 34 years ago, and, for Obama, losing the woman who had been her lifelong rock — especially during the stressful White House years — left her facing the reality that she’s “next up.”
You don’t really become an adult until your parents are gone.
Michelle Obama
In a previous appearance on Jay Shetty’s “On Purpose” podcastObama revealed that she’s in therapy to figure out what her life means outside of the constraints of traditional family roles and, in part, to “talk about how my relationship with my mother has affected how I think about things.”
“You don’t really become an adult until your parents are gone,” she said on last week’s podcast with her brother. “When your parents are not in that spot of managing and maintaining, we become the parent, we become the convener, we become the glue.”
And by “we,” she means women, who are expected to broadennot reduce, their mothering role as they age. They become Madea, Big Mama, Ma’dear, the family center who keeps the traditions, makes holiday magic, cares for the family’s newest members and sets family expectations. Aging, exhausted mothers never retire. If they live long enough, they become matriarchs.
Last week, I went to my backyard shed to prepare for my Mother’s Day gardening. As I rifled through my stash of spades, gloves and tomato cages, I saw a dusty cardboard crate with my handwriting on the side: “Grandma’s dishes.”
In the 1960s, my mother, then a military wife living in Japan, bought the set of Noritake bone china for her mother. To my knowledge, my grandmother — a country woman whose kitchen cabinets held Corningware and enamel pots — never used the delicate plates with the lacy blue pattern. And although the dishes sat in our dining room cabinet for decades after my grandmother died, I never knew my mother to even take a sip from one of the thin teacups.
During a decluttering frenzy years ago, I’d stored the china in the shed. “Why am I holding on to this?” I mumbled to myself.
Maybe it’s because the china, vintage and unused, represents the dreams my foremothers never realized. How desperately they longed to be accepted and worthy of something that fancy!
But the plates also represented the miracle of a young, Black couple from the Jim Crow South raising a child overseas. How do I let go of the graceful bowls that held their dreams? What parts of my mother should I allow to slide into the past, and which parts should I preserve for the future?
The dictionary definition of matriarch, “a mother who is the ruler of her family and descendants,” implies royal power, firm control and undisputed leadership. But I daresay many women assume the matriarch title reluctantly, and with a healthy dose of passive aggression. They wake up one day and find themselves the keeper of the family flame simply because no one else will keep it.
If Obama doesn’t want to become her tribe’s connective tissue, then she may also need to use her time in therapy to define what it means to be a matriarch.
Apparently, Obama isn’t having it. During the podcast, she reminded her brother that she’s the younger sibling — and younger than her husband, the former president.
“I’m not next up,” she joked with Robinson. “I delegate that power to you. I’m not really ready.”
Who can blame her? It’s a cruel twist to tell a woman she needs to become the top trad-gran after she’s already dedicated the lion’s share of her life to her family. If Obama doesn’t want to become her tribe’s connective tissue, then she may also need to use her time in therapy to define what it means to be a matriarch. It definitely shouldn’t mean being everything to everyone until you’re in the grave.
“After all that I’ve done in this world,” she told her brother and “IMO” guest Taraji Henson in April“if I am showing [my daughters] that … I still have to show people that I love my country, that I’m doing the right thing, that I am … going high all the time — even in the face of a lot of hypocrisy and contradiction — all I’m doing is keeping that crazy bar that our mothers and grandmothers set for us.”
Last Mother’s Day weekend, we said goodbye to my mother, my dearest friend. In the disorienting months since, my grief has been drowned out by the Call of the Matriarch howling at my door. I became the repository of three generations of Christmas ornaments, two generations of recipes, nearly five generations of family history and the manager of a four-generation family home.
It’s taken me a while to test the boundaries of my own matriarchal powers. Slowly, I dared to cancel some holidays and downgrade others. (This Easter, for example, there was no big family meal, no new outfits, no backyard Easter egg hunt.) Not everyone who visits my home is entitled to a meal, although everyone is free to eat whatever’s in the fridge. I thank God for social media, which helps me maintain family connections, because I’m never writing greeting cards or sending thank-you notes again. It’s hard enough to squeeze in a call. Housework and meal prep are now team sports. I prioritize my passions and expect others to shape themselves around me. And my new (self) love language can be summarized in one word: “No.”
My new (self) love language can be summarized in one word: “No.”
As this Mother’s Day approached, I found myself filled with teary gratitude for all that my mother sacrificed for me. I’m looking for new ways to honor her. Because she rarely could, I’ll stake out “me time” in the garden. Then I’ll nap or read or both. I hope Obama will find meaning for herself this Mother’s Day, too.
And as the new family matriarch, I’ll take a sip from one of those pristine teacups and then place the dishes on OfferUp. Yes, dear Mother, we’ve always been worthy of the best.
Desiree Cooper
Desiree Cooper is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist and the author of two books. Her essays and articles have been widely published, including Oprah Daily and The New York Times. www.descooper.com
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President Donald Trump called the celebrations in the streets of Iran “fantastic” following the killing of the country’s supreme leaderAyatollah Ali Khamenei, during a brief phone call with MS NOW on Saturday night.
Trump told MS NOW that he’s seen the celebrations in Iran and in parts of America, after joint U.S.-Israel airstrikes killed Khamenei.
“I think it’s fantastic,” the president said of the celebrations. “I’ve seen them in Los Angeles, also — celebrations.”
“I’ve seen them in Los Angeles, celebrations, celebrations,” Trump said, accentuating the point.
The interview took place roughly 11 hours before the Pentagon announced the first U.S.military casualties of the war. U.S. Central Command said three American service members were killed in action, and five others had been seriously wounded.
Revelry broke out in Iran, the United States and across the globe on Saturday, with Iranians cheering the death of Khamenei, who led Iran with an iron fist for more than 30 years, cracking down on dissent at home and maintaining a hostile posture with the U.S. and Israel.
Asked how he was feeling after the strike on Khamenei, whose death was confirmed just a few hours earlier, Trump said it was a positive development for the United States.
“I think it was a great thing for our country,” he said.
The call — which lasted less than a minute — came after a marathon day, which began in the wee hours of the morning with strikes on Iran and continued with retaliatory ballistic missiles from Tehran targeting Israel and countries in the Middle East region that host U.S. military bases.
The day ended with few answers from the White House to increasing questions about the long-term future of Iran, how long the U.S. will continue operations there, and the metastasizing ramifications it could have on the world stage. In fact, the president has done little to convince the public to back his Iran operation, nor to explain why the country is at war without the authorization of Congress.
On perhaps the most consequential day of his second term, Trump did not give a formal address to the public, nor did he hold a press conference. Instead, he stayed out of public view at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Palm Beach, Florida, where he attended a $1 million-per-plate fundraising dinner on Saturday evening.
But throughout the day, Trump took calls from reporters at various new outlets, including from MS NOW at around 11 p.m. ET.
The strikes, known formally as “Operation Epic Fury,” came after months of talks over Iran’s nuclear program, and warnings from Trump that he would strike Tehran if they did not agree to his often shifting conditions.
At 2:30 a.m. ET on Saturday, Trump posted a video to social media announcing the operation, which he said was designed to “defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people.”
“The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost and we may have casualties. That often happens in war,” Trump said when he announced the strikes on Iran.
Mychael Schnell is a reporter for MS NOW.
Laura Barrón-López covers the White House for MS NOW.
Three U.S. service members were killed and five seriously wounded as the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran, U.S. Central Command said Sunday morning.
The three service members — the first Americans to die in the conflict — were killed in Kuwait, a U.S. official said.
Several others sustained minor injuries from shrapnel and concussions but will return to duty, the Pentagon said. The identities of the dead and wounded have not been made public.
“The situation is fluid, so out of respect for the families, we will withhold additional information, including the identities of our fallen warriors, until 24 hours after next of kin have been notified,” Central Command said in a statement.
The U.S. and Israel launched sweeping airstrikes on Iranon Saturday, killing Ayatollah Ali Khameneithe country’s supreme leader for nearly four decades. Iran has vowed retaliation and hit several U.S. military bases across the region.
According to U.S. Central Command, Iran has also attacked more than a dozen locations, including airports in Dubai, Kuwait and Iraq, and residential neighborhoods in Israel, Bahrain and Qatar.
Israel Defence Forces said Sunday that Iran fired missiles toward the neighborhood of Beit Shemesh, killing civilians. The missile hit a synagogue, killing at least nine people, according to the Associated Press.
AP reported that authorities said at least 22 people were killed and 120 others wounded when demonstrators tried to attack the U.S. Consulate in Karachi in Pakistan.
The violence came after the United States and Israel attacked Irankilling its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Police and officials at a hospital in Karachi said that at least 50 people were also wounded in the clashes and some of them were in critical condition.
On Sunday, Israel Defence Forces said on X, “It’s official: All senior terrorist leaders of Iran’s Axis of Terror have been eliminated.”
President Donald Trump told CNBC’s Joe Kernen on Sunday that the operation in Iran is “moving along very well, very well — ahead of schedule.”
In a phone call with MS NOW late Saturday, Trump called the celebrations in the streets of Iran “fantastic” following the killing of Khamenei.
Confirming Khamenei’s death, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday: “We have eliminated the tyrant Khamenei and dozens of senior figures of the oppressive regime. Our forces are now striking at the heart of Tehran with increasing intensity, set to escalate further in the coming days.”
The exchange of hostilities comes after weeks of fragile negotiations between the U.S. and Iran over Iran’s nuclear operations.
Esmail Baghaei, a spokesperson for Iran’s foreign ministry, called the joint U.S-Israeli attack an “unprovoked, unwarranted act of aggression” in an interview with MS NOW’s Ali Velshi on Sunday. He said Iran’s nuclear program has been used a pretext for the attack.
“We have every right to defend our people because we have come under this egregious act of aggression,” Baghaei said.
Trump announced the attack early Saturday during a short video posted on his Truth Social account. He called for an end to the Iranian regime and urged Iranians to “take back the country.”
Negotiators and mediators from Oman were supposed to meet in Vienna on Monday to discuss the technical aspect of a potential nuclear deal.
Rep. Eric Swawell, D-Calif., told MS NOW’s Alex Witt on Sunday afternoon that the president’s military operation in Iran was illegal, echoing what many lawmakers have said in citing that under the U.S. Constitution only Congress can declare war.
“This is a values argument. We don’t just lob missiles into other countries when we are not provoked, attacked and have no plan for what comes next,” he said.
“We have been shown zero evidence that anything changed in Iran from last year when the president did not come to Congress and took a strike on Iran,” Swalwell said.
In June the U.S. struck three Iranian nuclear sites. Trump said the facilities had been “completely and totally obliterated.” But experts and U.S. officials said the sites were damaged but not destroyed.
Erum Salam is breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian and is a graduate of Texas A&M University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Follow her on X, Bluesky and Instagram.
Akayla Gardner is a White House correspondent for MS NOW.
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