fantastically simple pregnancy, and a straightforward delivery, while Malia, now
almost three, waited at home with my mom. Our new baby was beautiful, a little
lamb-child with a full head of dark hair and alert brown eyes—the fourth corner
to our square. Barack and I were over the moon.
Sasha, we planned to call her. I’d chosen the name because I thought it had
a sassy ring. A girl named Sasha would brook no fools. Like all parents, I found
myself wanting so much for our children, praying that nothing would ever hurt
them. My hope was that they’d grow up to be bright and energetic, optimistic
like their father and hard-driving like their mom. More than anything, I wanted
them to be strong, to have a certain steeliness, the kind that would keep them
upright and forward moving, no matter what. I didn’t know a thing about what
was coming our way, how our family’s life would unfold—whether everything
would go well or everything would go poorly, or whether, like most people,
we’d get a solid mix of both. My job was just to make sure they were ready for it.
My stint at the university had left me feeling worn out, putting me in a far-
from-perfect juggle while also straining our finances with the expense of child
care. After Sasha was born, I debated whether I even wanted to return to my job
at all, thinking that maybe our family would be better served if I stayed home
full-time. Glo, our beloved babysitter, had been offered a higher-paying nursing
job and had reluctantly decided she needed to move on. I couldn’t blame her, of
course, but losing Glo rearranged everything in my working mother’s heart. Her
investment in my family had allowed me to maintain my investment in my job.
She loved our kids as if they were her own. I’d wept and wept the night she gave
her notice, knowing how hard it would be for us to balance without her. I knew
how fortunate we were to have the resources to hire her in the first place. But
now that she was gone, it felt like losing an arm.
I loved being with my little daughters. I recognized the value of every
minute and hour put in at home, especially with Barack’s schedule being so
irregular. I thought once again of my mother’s decision to stay home with me
and Craig. Surely, I was guilty of romanticizing her life—imagining it had
actually been fun for her to Pine-Sol the windowsills and make all our clothes—
but compared with the way I’d been living, it seemed quaint and manageable,
and possibly worth trying. I liked the idea of being in charge of one thing rather
than two, of not having my brain scrambled by the competing narratives of home
and work. And it did seem that we could swing it financially. Barack had moved
from an adjunct position to a senior lecturer at the law school, which gave us a
tuition break at the university’s Lab School, where Malia was soon to start