How Would You Feel if Daddy Ran For President?

So much of the last decade had been about trying to strike a balance between my family and my work,figuring out how to be loving and present for Malia and Sasha while also trying to be decent at my job.

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But the axis had shifted: I was now trying to balance parenting with something altogether different and more confusing — politics, America, Barack’s quest to do something important. The magnitude of what was happening in Barack’s life, the demands of the campaign, the spotlight on our family, all seemed to be growing quickly. After the Iowa caucuses, I’d decided to take a leave of absence from my position at the hospital, knowing it would be impossible, really, to stay on and be effective. The campaign was slowly consuming everything. I’d been too busy after Iowa to even go over and box up the things in my office or say any proper goodbye. I was a full-time mother and wife now, albeit a wife with a cause and a mother who wanted to guard her kids against getting swallowed by that cause. It had been painful to step away from my work, but there was no choice: My family needed me, that mattered more.

And so here I was at a campaign picnic in Montana, leading a group of mostly strangers in singing