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« Top 10 Posts of the Month | Main | Thoughts on Afghanistan from a Marine Wife »

July 5, 2011

What You Don't Know about Obama's Mama

A review of Janny Scott's new biography, A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mother.

Jennifer Grant

In a culture of “helicopter parenting,” in which mothers are tempted to manage every moment of their children’s lives to ensure future success, it's peculiar that no one seemed interested in Barack Obama’s mother when his political career began to skyrocket. Maybe the anomaly of his absentee, Kenyan father was so enticing that no one gave much thought to the oddly named Stanley Ann Dunham. No one, that is, except Janny Scott.

In 2008, Scott left her job as a New York Times reporter to research the life of then Senator Obama’s late mother. She interviewed hundreds of Dunham’s family members, colleagues, and friends. She traveled all over the world, tracing her subject’s journeys. Scott’s meticulous research shows; hers is an absorbing book that details Dunham’s rich, disordered life.

Having read Scott’s book, the fact that Dunham has been summarized — perhaps most often by the president himself — as “a white woman from Kansas” seems comically hollow. It was with much more care that Scott chose the title A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mother for her biography. Scott said that if she had used the adjective unconventional in the title, “some people would have thought it was a pejorative. Others would have thought it was high praise.”

“Singular,” she wrote, “is neutral. But there’s no mistaking its meaning: This person was remarkable, one of a kind.”

A family friend of the Dunhams described the milieu in which Dunham grew up as a “Leave it to Beaver . . . kind of society.” Indeed, Dunham gave birth to the son who would be known as “Barry” when Leave it to Beaver was still on the air. (She stopped using her unusual first name after high school.)

Ann Dunham, however, was the anti-June Cleaver. In 1960, for instance, when racial intermarriage was against the law in about half of the United States, she married an African man. During a period in our history when divorce was not commonplace, Dunham divorced. Twice. Whereas Wally and the Beav’s mother was an ever-present fixture dressed in dresses and pearls in her spotless home, Dunham lacked a “Ward” of her own to pay the bills. She had a more disheveled appearance, supporting her children with help from her parents, working as a consultant, and piecing together an academic and anthropological career across the globe.

Of his mother, President Obama told Scott, “she was not a well-organized person. And that disorganization, you know, spilled over.”

Dunham worked in Hawaii, Indonesia, India, Thailand, and Nairobi over the course of her adult life, sometimes living continents away from her children. When President Obama was 10, for instance, he spent the school year in Hawaii with his grandparents while his mother worked in Indonesia. She would later join him, but again leave him in her parents’ care in Hawaii during his four years of high school. Meanwhile, she conducted research for her dissertation and worked in international development in Southeast Asia.

In Scott’s book, striking descriptions of Honolulu where “jagged volcanic ridges parade against the sky like dinosaurs’ backbones” or of Indonesian snacks of “sticky black rice sprinkled with coconut” might fill you with the kind of wanderlust that contributed to Dunham’s life as an expatriate. But that travel came at a price both for Dunham and her children.

Dunham’s daughter, President Obama’s half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng, describes her and her brother’s childhood and “broad” and “adventurous.” But, Soetoro-Ng has said, they were “a little untethered” and drifted “in and out of worlds.” What Soetoro-Ng and President Obama sometimes longed for, it seems, was more groundedness — a little more June Cleaver and a little less Margaret Mead.

In his interview with Scott, however, President Obama said his mother gave him the “most important gift a parent can give – a sense of unconditional love that was big enough that, with all the surface disturbances of our lives, it sustained me, entirely.”

“What is best in me, I owe to her,” President Obama has written. “She was the kindest, most generous spirit I have ever known.”

Dunham was deeply curious and empathetic, as Scott’s book details, described by some family members and friends as a spiritual person whose life centered on improving the condition of some of the world’s least privileged people. But she was not religious. Her daughter said Dunham considered Christ “a wonderful example” but “felt that a lot of Christians behaved in un-Christian ways.” Growing up, her family attended a Unitarian church and were, as Scott describes them, “religious humanists.”

“At Christmas, children reenacted the birth of Jesus Christ, Confucius, and the Buddha,” Scott wrote. “The church encouraged community service and tolerance, and pushed for social justice.”

A friend of Dunham’s who is a Roman Catholic said he learned not to mention his faith to her. She had what he described as a “mocking quality” about religion. “And a sneer,” he told Scott.

Whether she was living in the States or abroad, Dunham was always aware that she didn’t “fit in.” Indeed, she seemed intent not to do so. Her second marriage ended, Scott suggests, in part because she refused to socialize with her husband’s colleagues and their wives at cocktail parties. She was told she should “sit with the women and talk about your children and your servants,” but she complained that “middle-aged white Americans talked about inane things.” She refused to be the “little wife” and was unperturbed by how others viewed her.

Dunham was aware that she had more important work to do. In addition to being a key figure in the development of microfinance, she was, however imperfectly, raising a child who would become the 44th President a few years after her death.

That Dunham lived life with an open and broken heart, seeking to empower some of the world’s most resource-poor people, is admirable. Perhaps more of us could follow her example of questioning some conventions and dislodging our desire for the things that moth and rust destroy in favor of living authentically and serving others. My best efforts as a Christian are to work to integrate these efforts with my faith and my responsibility to the family given to me by God.

Comments

I have often wondered about President Obama's mother. Her seeming independent and unconventional spirit, perhaps because President Obama's childhood more closely reflects mine than any other I know of. Did she have any idea who she was raising? What he would become? Thank you for the review. I can't wait to read it!

Fascinating.

She was told she should “sit with the women and talk about your children . . . ” but she complained that “middle-aged white Americans talked about inane things.” She refused to be the “little wife” and was unperturbed by how others viewed her.

My friends and I have had similar experiences in conservative circles. Women are segregated from men and mostly talk of recipes and home economics. Not bad in themselves...but some of us long for more. We are wired to talk of ideas . . . theology, politics, social-justice, culture--and then figure out how to initiate Christ-like action in those areas.

Unbelievable! I suppose this is to be a compassionate and balanced approach to this woman. Without the research or the time of thinking and investigation of this person, I can describe her. She is a typical out of control hippie love child of the sixties. She had no constraint, no foundation, no parameters and "drank the kool-aide" of that revolutionary and hedionistic time. And because of her wander-lust, our country is now paying an enormous price because of the instability she left as her hallmark in her son's life. It is a curious thing how the left can be so enamered of such tragically and dangerously flawed people. The scorn of the "June Cleaver" picture of womanhood is the baseless group think of bitter left leaning women. Yet, had the current occupant of the White House been given a more reasonable early life, we can but surmise that his presidency would be less destructive and his life approach more stable. I refuse to be impressed by this mess of a woman. I see her lingering handwork every day and it is systematically destroying our once great nation.

I think it's sad and pitiful that Obama's mother did not live to see the day he became President.....she deserved to see that honor. Beyond that, I think that what's more germane to the discussion is that Obama refers to himself as a Christian, but voluntarily spent 20+ years under the tutelage of the venom-spewing, white-hating, America-hating, Bible-twisting "Reverend" (what's reverential about him?) Jeremiah Wright. It is impossible for Obama to "not have known" Wright was saying and pushing such incendiary and racist ideology, and feeding this to children.

Many people have reviewed this book and seen it as hagiography. We need to be careful when reading such accounts.

I struggle with mixed feelings about Ann Dunham. I want to admire her, even half as much as I admire her son, but then, how could she leave him for such long periods of his childhood? She had choices; there are challenging graduate programs and research programs in Hawaii, sacrifice though it might have been for her to adapt her interests to what was available to be with her son. Countless academic and professional women do this with seldom a pang.I speak from experience.

June Cleaver was SOOOO evil! I'm glad Durham saw through it all.

We are all so smart about the lives of others. Most insertions of opinion are but a projection of our own weakness. Gossip is the Devils Radio.

June Cleaver evil? I know it was tongue in cheek but my mother resembled June Cleaver in all her good ways. Hardworking, faithful, honest - but my mother also reached out to the poor in the inner city at times and was far more involved in our church. My saintly mother had 2 areas I might question. First, she asked me not to marry "one of them" when I went to work overseas in a country of people with color. This is the core of racism; others are not good enough to marry "us" the way God made them. Second, she encouraged unquestioning obedience of the USA during War. Mothers often shame their sons into the military by calling those who oppose war or refuse to kill in obedience to Christ's command to love enemies "cowards".

It's really ashame that people look to the government to solve thier problems. They blame the hard times on the government, and not where it belongs. We are not facing people in our world today, they are but puppets in the hands of a santanic force, that is hidden in dark places. Yes! That's in the Bible. I would like to see obama impeached, as I don't believe he's a president material and far from being a Christian. He has no leadership for the benifit of the Country. These are, I believe reason enough, but God's still in Charge. God Bless Israel.

One other possible fault June Cleaver may have shared with American Christians today is materialism. There was starvation and suffering in the 50's but she may have succumbed to the pressure of her peers to show that she "married well" - and thus pressured her husband to work harder and longer at a meaningless job for money he didn't need. Is this why the majority of people on the mission field are female? Ez. 16:49 "'Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.

what a surprise - she was a whacko head-in-the-sky liberal like her son...well, firstly, where's the record of that 1960 "marriage" - non-existent...and talking about "no Ward to pay the bills", just HOW did all those bills get paid anyway????...Harvard ain't cheap, last I heard...and lastly, in reciting all this woman's travels, HOW ABOUT A PASSPORT so WE CAN VERIFY where she was on that fateful day little barack was born? - non-existent

Interesting to learn about his mother. People are complex; they are not black and white and we all have our glories and our flaws. Seems Obama's mother is just like the rest of us.

Morag, It is disturbing to read comments like yours; you have no idea what women faced in the academy in Ann Dunham's day and mine (I am two years younger than she was.) The academy was fairly hostile toward women in most disciplines in the 1960s-1980s. My mother was a professor of Dietetics and Nutrition-- the only field outside of nursing or education open to her in the 1930s. When I decided to do graduate work in the 1970s, I was nearly always the only female in my seminars and had to endure comments about the design of bras and other demeaning personal subjects. I was the first woman to teach in a "hard" or "core" subject at two colleges (at least they were trying to open up the academy in the 1970s). Children were not welcome on campus, and there was always suspicion that a woman would always put her family before her career. I can understand well how torn Ann Dunham was, even though her own mother had broken ground as a professional woman in business. Please honor those of us who broke ground for you to have a fine career in academia as well as a family; Ann Dunham made it possible for you to enjoy what you have today.

"Perhaps more of us could follow her example of questioning some conventions and dislodging our desire for the things that moth and rust destroy in favor of living authentically and serving others."

Oh, please. This woman stroked her own ego by abandoning her children--who might have actually *needed* her *and* a father--so she could "serve" people she apparently thought more deserving of her time. Being a mother didn't facilitate her moral preening about how wonderful and giving she was--and her children coped by imagining this was unconditional love. As a friend of mine said, "She dumped her kids on her parents to go self-indulgently write dissertations and globe trot in contempt of her birth culture. The Ivy League ethos writ large."

I agree that Dunham has quite a remarkable story, full of difficult decisions, like many other women. Though her story is intriguing and thought-provoking, I hardly think she is to be regarded as an example of "questioning some conventions and dislodging [the] desire for the things that moth and rust destroy in favor of living authentically and serving others." Surely authentic living includes serving God by taking care of and investing in what He has given us, especially our family, whether we work in the home or not. I hope we can find better examples of such women.

What a load of manure. She played absentee mom to pursue PhD dreams, dumping her kids on her parents.

Thanks for this interesting article! I agree with "Overworked" who said : "We are all so smart about the lives of others. Most insertions of opinion are but a projection of our own weakness. Gossip is the Devils Radio." Great comment.

I agree with Emily and 'Overworked'. I find it very troubling to read some of these hateful and divisive comments on a Christian blog. Jennifer, it was a great article, thanks for shedding some light on this woman's life.

I am simply impressed with this woman and the remarkable son she brought into our world. She obviously molded him in many ways, much more so than Obama Senior, even though she may have been distant at times. I have not yet read the book and cannot say it is hagiography. But what courage to have married an African man in the 1960s. And what unusual commitment and curiosity she must have had to work in the Third World and pursue a PhD in anthropology. As a missionary, I respect her a lot just for those things.

Now we have an idea as to why the President also seems to "sneer" at christianity, and also does not find it a significant religion. His mother seems to have been a free spirit.

The Kentucky Parson's judgmental attitude and self-congratulatory self-righteousness encourages me whenever I encounter "Christians" like me to go back to the Gospels and learn more about the Jesus who unlike the Kentucky Parson didn't consider social darwinism a thing to be clung to and who loved even the whores, tax collecters, radicals, Romans, and even the Scribes and Pharisees. I have no idea what drove Ms. Dunham to do the things she did in her life, but I do understand the contempt she had for a certain kind of "Christian" we all too often encounter.

Learning about the President's mother sure sheds light on the whys of so many attitudes he seems to have. Religion is only something to embrace when you need votes--explains a lot!

Interesting and well written article, but I suggest readers beware of categorizing Ms. Dunham as remarkable, courageous, or as a good example of unconventional motherhood. What courage is required to abdicate one's place as a mother? None, really. One just goes, leaving responsibility to others while following one's own will-o-the-wisp desires. Rather, it would have taken courage to remain with her children and shape her life around them, finding ways to accomplish her life's work (whatever that might have been) without abandoning the most important and challenging career a woman could ever pursue...motherhood. And yes, motherhood requires sacrifice on the part of the mother. This begs the question: Just what more important work could Ann Dunham have had than to be a mother to her children?

More important, I see a woman created in the image of the very God she seemed to mock (from testimony of acquaintances interviewed by the author). I read the review and see a woman who seems to have searched for something she never found...peace and fulfillment. I see a woman who chose her own way, seeking for herself "treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy" (Matt.:19ff).

I find it sad the President (based on this article) seems to have never really experienced the kindness and generosity of "the kindest, most generous spirit I have ever known" as either child or adult. I am saddened by the apparent truth that Ms. Dunham never experienced the joy of motherhood even with all its inconveniences, those moments that can only be experienced by a mother and that create priceless memories. I wonder if she really even knew her children...their likes, dislikes, special abilities, talents.

I find the President's statement that his mother gave him a sense of "unconditional love that was big enough that...it sustained me, entirely" interesting. From the outside looking in, it seems to me the way his mother chose to live her life is the very antithesis of unconditional love. One does not by choice abandon those whom one loves unconditionally.

I personally find nothing admirable in her "seeking to empower some of the world's most resource-poor people" instead of nurturing her children with the love and support of a mother present in their lives. Please don't raise the premise that some of us are not meant to be mothers; according to Scripture, God opens and closes the womb, and all we mothers are imperfect human beings.

Each of us is "a spiritual person" for each of us is created in the image of holy God (Gen. 1:26, 27). (Please note this does NOT include animals or any other species!) In that she was not remarkable or unusual, for it is a true statement about every person who has been or ever will be born.

Neither do I see anything admirable about how she lived her life, nor do I as a Christian see an example to follow. [Please note there are many who would probably make the same statement about my life, albeit for different reasons.] Readers of this review and the book must be careful to not romanticize her life's choices, but should look closely at how she lived her life in light of God's word. I believe that Ms. Dunham lived her life with a broken heart because she refused to turn from her own way and turn to the only One who could satisfy her need and heal her broken heart.

I must add that only God knows the heart of Ms. Dunham and her ultimate choice of belief. All I can do is look at the facts presented in this review and draw my own conclusions from the information available. I hope that my conclusions will be proven wrong in the light of eternity.

In Romans 12: 1,2 Paul exhorts me (all Christians) "...by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." As a Christian "...by grace [I] have been saved through faith and that not of [myself]; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For [I am] His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that [I] should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:8-10). If living a life in submission to God and submitting to the control of the Holy Spirit, God's children will be living authentically and fulfilling His specific plan for each of their lives.

I am sad that Ms. Dunham missed God's blessing on and in her life (according to the article's research) and that she apparently died without hope according to Scripture. Remember that the reality of who God is and His truth does not depend on whether one believes or not. He is, was, and ever shall be! God said it, I choose to believe it. Do you?

I believe that I am to pray for those who do not believe and choose to go their own way to come to Christ and be set free as only the Son of God can set free (John 8:31-36). I am to pray for those who think they have embraced truth but have instead believed a lie..."...Supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings [presidents] and all who are in authority ...for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time..." (1 Timothy 2:1-8).

Every day I am aware that but for the grace of God there I might be. I am thanking God for all those who have prayed and continue to pray for me. I am thanking Him for His mercy and grace that has no end and is greater than all my sin, for His perfectly unconditional love. A love so perfect, so unconditional that I can do nothing to make Him love me less or to make Him love me more. "The LORD has appeared of old to me, saying: 'Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with loving kindness I have drawn you'" (Jer. 31:3). What a beautiful word is "everlasting" for it means His love was lavished on me before the foundation of the earth, before I was born for He has no beginning or end. Knowing every mistake, every rebellious thing, every thought good or bad, that I would ever commit or have, He loved me any way! None of us has ever been without His love, but some choose not to believe or accept it. There in lies the saddest statement made: Oh, what might have been!

My prayer for those who will read this article, the book it reviews, and the comments written in response to the review is that you will each examine your heart in the light of God's word so that you will not come to a point where you cry out "Oh, what might have been, if only I had...!"

Sally, your comments are opinions at best-- too little fact. Only God knows the heart of mankind. It's interesting to read the biased comments and opinions who don't know his mother or her son. I wonder if any of you who criticize could be in the place where he is. Unconventional as she was, her did a remarkable job and it takes a village to raise a child. She could have done what Casey Anthony did, but she didn't.

I'm also disturbed by the many people who seem to think they're qualified to make deeply personal judgments about a woman they never knew--who, in fact, seem to pride themselves on their ability to judge others from a distance.

The nature of some of these comments also highlights how contemporary American Christian culture glorifies the nuclear family, a relatively new concept that would have been foreign to anyone in Jesus' time. Ann Dunham didn't abandon her son. She left him in the care of his grandparents. That's a big difference. It wasn't so long ago that it was common practice for several generations to live together and share childcare responsibilities. But, as usual, American Christians confuse the anomaly of 1950s-era American culture with the Gospel of Christ.

I think the President's choices regarding his own family are the final and best commentary on the family options both his father and mother selected.

I agree with John. I know nothing about Barack Obama's mother, so why would I judge her based on some book that purports to know her? Because of his political beliefs? Please read 1 Corinthians 13.

May God bless the president for his kindess and care for those who are disadvantaged.

How interesting that the Obama fans above did not bring out the book's clarification of this:

"During his presidential campaign and subsequent battle over a health care law, Mr. Obama quieted crowds with the story of his mother’s fight with her insurer over whether her cancer was a pre-existing condition that disqualified her from coverage.

In offering the story as an argument for ending pre-existing condition exclusions by health insurers, the president left the clear impression that his mother’s fight was over health benefits for medical expenses.

But in “A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mother,” author Janny Scott quotes from correspondence from the president’s mother to assert that the 1995 dispute concerned a Cigna [i]disability[/i] insurance policy and [b]that her actual health insurer had apparently reimbursed most of her medical expenses without argument."[/b] --New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/14/us/politics/14mother.html?_r=2

To Donna S:

The President does not "sneer" at Christianity nor does he "not find it a significant religion". How could this be so when on more than one occasion he has publically identified himself as a committed Christian? One may disagree with his self-identification as a matter of discernment or question his understanding of what Christianity really is. But to accuse President Obama of "sneering" at the Christian faith is to bear false witness, thereby revealing more about the precarious state of one's own Christianity than of Obama's.

Hopefully the book will verify that not only did they attend a Unitarian Church, that was referred to as the Red Church on the hill(Communist), but Ann's high school was known then to be infiltrated with communist teachers and she as well as her parents were avowed Marxist Atheists. Wondering if all of the above is in fact, true?

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