Michelle Obama's Story Of Becoming

Michelle Obama's biography, "Becoming", was just published on November 13, 2018. In it, the former First Lady chronicles the foremost experiences that have shaped and transformed her life; starting with her childhood on the South Side of Chicago, through the setbacks and achievements that led to her life in the White House. In this NPR podcast, journalist Audie Cornish talks to Michelle Obama about "Becoming", and beyond.

Although Michelle Obama is a high achiever in her own right in terms of her career as a corporate lawyer, the instantaneous question is what's it like being married to Barack Obama?

In Cornish's words, according to the impression she got from Michelle Obama, Barack Obama is 'the kind of guy who is up at night staring at the ceiling, and you ask him something, hoping he'll say something romantic, and he says he's thinking about income inequality.'

Jokes aside, Michelle Obama did not have it at all easy in her private life: in the book she reveals that she had a miscarriage early on and had to undergo treatment to conceive. In her words:

"I treated it like a mission," she says. "No matter how hard we tried, we couldn't seem to come up with a pregnancy." She had a miscarriage and, later, the couple conceived their two daughters through IVF treatments.

Michelle Obama describes herself as a "box ticker"; there were quite a bit of discouragements as she tried ticking boxes and achieving her goals. Referring to Princeton, her guidance counselor at high school told her she was not "good enough for the place". Michelle Obama calls this "planting the seeds for failure," something she describes as sowing a feeling of failure before it actually happens. She thinks that often happens with women, and underrepresented minorities. 

However, she completed her "Becoming": slowly, step by step, going through rough patches and also seizing her chances with patience and determination.