When former President Barack and Michelle Obama’s children left for college, the two had very different reactions to their daughters leaving home.
During an interview last week on her podcast, “IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson,” the former first lady told guest Jon Stewart:
“Barack cried when they went to college … I was like, BYE!”
Stewart shared that he and his wife missed “the energy and excitement of the kids being around” after they became empty nesters.
Mrs. Obama didn’t share the same sentiment.
“I don’t,” she said. “I love them … Now Friday nights aren’t wrecked with terror and fear about, ‘Where are you? Where are you?’”
Jon Stewart respectfully pressed the former first lady and attempted to clarify what he was getting at.
“The thing I miss, though, is the job,” he shared. “Like, don’t you miss … it gave meaning and a pattern to my life.”
“I’m good,” replied Mrs. Obama. “Look at all this meaning. I have a wonderful pattern. I love my schedule. I have a great schedule, and it’s all mine.”
The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh suggested that kind of response qualified Michelle Obama for being a “total raging narcissist.” He noted, “Michelle had only two kids. She was rich and famous for most of their childhoods so she would have had a fleet of nannies and assistants doing most of the grunt work. And yet she still couldn’t wait for the kids to leave because the minor demands they made on her time and energy were still too much for her.”
Taking Mrs. Obama’s comments in full, she went on to emphasize that she had spent considerable family time with them and loved to see their “emancipation and growth.”
“I’ve spent my children’s entire lives raising them to be independent, confident young women who are ready to build great lives for themselves,” she added.
Since Focus on the Family’s founding nearly a half-century ago, from Dr. Dobson to Jim Daly, and via our counseling and parenting experts, the ministry has regularly emphasized that mothers and fathers shouldn’t just be focused on raising great children – but raising up future adults who love and seek to serve the Lord.
Parenting is a high and sacrificial calling that can be challenging, of course. But letting go and watching our children spread their own wings can be both satisfying and terrifying – and sometimes all at the same time.
Michelle Obama’s seemingly cavalier and caustic reaction to her daughters going off to college may strike many of us more sentimental fathers and mothers as cold. We may find it difficult to relate to – especially when we pass by empty rooms and see their chair at the table empty, too.
Christian author Tim Challies recently summed up the competing and even conflicting emotions he and his wife experienced when dropping their children off at college. As many may know, the Challies’ son, Nick, who he mentions below, wound up dying suddenly while at college. An autopsy found it was due to an undetected heart defect:
We knew this marked the beginning of the end of our family as we had always known it. It was not like Nick was leaving the family or seceding from it, but we knew that from this point forward, things would never be the same. He would come home after this, but this would no longer be his home in the same way. He would return, but return as a changed man. Other people would now be forming him, and other people would enjoy his company more than we would. There would be no going back after this. Our family would be different and soon enough, his sisters would follow. It was almost like facing the reality of death, though it wasn’t a life that was ending, but a phase of family life—a phase we had very much enjoyed and were loath to end.
But we knew this was right and good. We firmly believed that we had taken Nick just about as far as we could and that it would be best for him to continue growing in a different context. He needed to step away from the safety nets of home, he needed to become his own man, he needed to begin to make his own way through this world. We knew that, and he knew that, though in the moment such knowledge did little to assuage our grief.
Christian parents will likely find far more solace and comfort from Tim Challies’ reaction to children growing and going than from Michelle Obama’s interview with Jon Stewart. Here’s how he concluded his reflections on dropping children off at school:
“So, my friend, as you glance in the rearview mirror and see emptiness where just a few days ago you saw a familiar face, as you sit in the silence, and as you miss that one who owns so large a piece of your heart, trust that the pain will lessen in the days to come. And as you trust, entrust that sweet child to the care of the Lord.”
Thank you, Tim.
The post Michelle Obama vs. Tim Challies on Dropping Children Off at College appeared first on Daily Citizen.
Daily Citizen