Baby Tree: Michelle Obama to dads: "Be better" (& her tips for moms, too!)

Carolyn Robertson

posted in Celebrities

With her 8-year stint as the First Lady drawing to a close, Michelle Obama sat down this week for an interview with Oprah Winfrey as part of the White House Summit on the United States of Women.

The conversation covered a wide range of topics, from Mrs. Obama's "swagalicious" husband ("Watching my husband walk off of Marine One and go to the Oval Office, it’s like, mmm, mmm, mmm," she admitted) to her post-White House plans.

While they touched on some lighthearted topics "I want to go to Target again," she said of her post-White House goals - the pair also delved into some serious and thought-provoking issues.

Issues like a woman's self-value, what we need to teach to our daughters, and all the ways in which men need to step up.

Here are a few of my favorite segments from the First Lady's 45-minute long interview:

On the importance of self-value and self-worth:

Oprah Winfrey: "The root of every dysfunction I've ever encountered, every problem, has been some sense of a lacking of self-value or of self-worth. We live in a world where you are constantly being bombarded by images that encourage you to be liked, literally, and it's a lot to live up to."

Michelle Obama: "Our first job in life as women, I think, is to get to know ourselves. And I think a lot of times we don't do that. We spend our time pleasing, satisfying, looking out into the world to define who we are; listening to the messages, the images, the limited definitions that people have of who we are... It takes taking the time to know who you are to be able to deal with the onslaught of negative messages that you're bound to get."

"I came into this with a pretty clear sense of myself... so when you hear the 'smack talking' from outside the world, it's easy to brush that off, because I know who I am."

"I think as women and young girls, we have to invest that time in getting to understand who we are and liking who we are. Because I like me. I’ve liked me for a very long time. So for a long time, I’ve had a very good relationship with myself. But you gotta work to get to that place.”

On prioritizing herself and her children:

“So you remember Malia and Sasha were little itty-bitties when we came into office. I mean, it still moves me to tears to think about the first day I put them in the car with their Secret Service agents to go to their first day of school. And I saw them leaving, and I thought, ‘What on earth am I doing to these babies?’

“So I knew right then and there my first job was to make sure they were going to be whole and normal and cared for in the midst of all this craziness. And then I started to understand that if I was going to protect them, I had to, number one, protect myself and protect my time.... If you do not take control over your time and your life, other people will gobble it up. If you don't prioritize yourself, you constantly start falling lower and lower on your list, your kids fall lower and lower on your list.”

On her advice to men:

“Be better. Be better at everything. Be better fathers. Good lord, just being good fathers who love your daughters and are providing a solid example of what it means to be a good man in the world, showing them what it feels like to be loved. That is the greatest gift that the men in my life gave to me. And we’ve talked about this, the fact that I never experienced abuse at the hands of any man in my life. And that’s sad to say that that’s a rare reality. So men can be better at that.

“Men can be better husbands, which is be a part of your family’s life. Do the dishes. Don’t ‘babysit’ your children. You don’t ‘babysit’ your own children. Be engaged. Don’t just think going to work and coming home makes you a man. Being a father, being engaged, all that stuff is important. Be a better employer. When you are sitting at a seat of power at a table of any kind and you look around you and just see you, it’s just you and a bunch of men around a table, on a golf course, making deals, and you allow that to happen, and you’re okay with that — be better. . . Just be better.”

I didn't expect to enjoy this interview as much as I did, but there really are a lot of gems throughout. If you have the time - or if you can make the time - to watch it, I'd recommend you do.

If Michelle Obama wasn't a role model to me before, I would have to say she is now. Because wow, that woman has got it together. I consider myself a fairly confident, competent person, but I do still struggle to really define myself. Who am I outside of somebody's mother, somebody's wife, somebody's employee? Who am I on my own, separate from my responsibilities to other people, separate from their expectations of me?

Those are big questions, and I think that a lot of us tend to shelve them when we become mothers. Who has time for that kind of self-reflection when your baby is crying? When your kids need to be picked up from school? When there are scraped knees to tend to and broken hearts to mend?

But then one day those kids will grow up and, to some extent, they'll move on. Who will I be then? I don't think I want to wait that long to find out.

What do you think of Michelle Obama's comments?

14 times President Obama seemed struck by baby fever: