Former first lady Michelle Obama responded to a listener’s question about mothers during her podcast on Wednesday, arguing society is giving mixed signals about motherhood.
Obama took a question from a listener as she spoke to actress Halle Bailey on her podcast, “IMO with Michelle Obama & Craig Robinson.” The listener, Abigail, noted that she is a first-time mom and high school music teacher who took a year off to take care of her child and was looking for advice about reentering the workforce while balancing being a mother.
“Our maternity leave policy is ridiculous if you have to follow one, because most of it is three months, four months. I mean, that doesn’t even give a woman’s body time to fully heal,” Obama said, “Even if you’ve had a natural childbirth, let alone let your hormones stabilize, because your body is still saying, ‘I am feeding this child, literally breastfeeding.’ So your hormones are telling you to do one thing. And the societal structure is telling you to do something else.”
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She argued that society doesn’t support mothers’ “biological needs.”
“And I think we first have to understand that that is actually going on. You know, we don’t live in a society that fully respects and values childbirth. Like, we want people to have them – ‘don’t have an abortion!’” Obama said. “But you know, we’re not really thinking about how do we create an environment for all women to be able to heal, be focused, and then make the decisions at the right time about when they’re ready to move on.”
She closed her thoughts that the system doesn’t work for mothers because the necessary support systems aren’t there for them.
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The former first lady said she likes committing to things with 100% commitment, but said women need to forgive themselves for sometimes dividing their attentions.
“I think we have to tell ourselves that really, sometimes 40% is OK. Sometimes 30% is OK, sometimes 70% is OK, right? Because we talked about this earlier, the children are way more resilient than we give them credit for,” she said. “You know, they’re not going to stop loving us because we leave the house and go do a job. It doesn’t work that way, you know. They aren’t going to be broken if Mom has a passion that she wants to pursue, but it’s hard to know that when your baby’s one.”
