Michelle Obama Watch

Should Michelle make a work and family policy one of her programs? She has certainly alluded to making family-work balance a priority. Well, Ellen Goodman of The Washington Post Writers Group via The Kansas City Star, suggests that creating or encouraging a work and family policy should be one of Michelle’s foci, in her article “Michelle Obama Can Push Work-and-Family changes.”

Goodman goes to say,

“Michelle Obama wisely listed her first priority as seeing her daughters through the transition. And she presented herself as a woman who has “had to juggle being mom in chief and having a career for a long time.” If, as she routinely said during the campaign, it’s a struggle for her — a woman with resources and a grandma in chief — imagine how much harder it must be for others.”

So what will happen if this 45-year-old mom in chief, and wife of a man who “gets it,” makes the personal her political issue? What would a serious work-and-family policy look like?

And, is it just me, or did Goodman slyly suggest that Michelle use her influence with her husband to push a work and family policy forward.

Says Goodman,

“Every president’s wife has a list of jobs including that of trusted adviser, the role often trivialized as pillow talk. But what a chance this is to use the spotlight on the first family to illuminate other families. What a chance Michelle Obama has to become mom in chief to a nation struggling to keep it together.“

I think that Michelle will make work and family a priority in her national initiatives. That has been her “platform” throughout the campaign. Now, how she goes about it is totally her call. Whether it’s through pillow talk, as Goodman suggests, or through a full-throttle engagement, I feel confidant that Michelle will be influential in a revised national work and family policy. posted by Bridgette of http://www.trailblazer-firstlady.blogspot.com *Photo source is unknown