Barack Obama's mother was not your average mother.

[nebula]

His worldly outlook was instilled in him by his grandparents, Hawaiian upbringing,
and a remarkable woman named Ann Dunham Obama, Ph.D.

A 7-page article about her life appears in Time magazine this month.

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Finally, someone has written about Stanley Ann Dunham Obama Soetoro, Barack Obama’s mother. I’ve been carrying a torch for her for months now as she was a remarkable woman who was a dreamer and according to some said to be incredibly level-headed with lots of street smarts yet said by others to be reckless. I think she was brilliant and remarkable. In a post months ago, I said I would have loved meeting and knowing her and her mother.

She married Barack Obama Sr. three months after she becomes pregnant with his child. They were both students at the time. He was a dynamic, captivating, mesmerizing intellectual and the first black student at the University of Hawaii. He left Hawaii and his family when Barack was one year old and went to Harvard to further his education. He could have gone to another school with a scholarship and taken Ann and Barack but he chose not to.

Ann dropped out of college and was a single mom with a black child in 1961. How many women in that situation, at that time in our history and with only a modest amount of help from her parents earned a bachelor’s, master’s and PhD to become one of the world’s foremost authorities in micro finance?

Her story was very unusual, she did unusual things for a woman at that time, but she had the ability to make even the most difficult situations work for her and her children.

She picked up her young son and moved to Indonesia to marry a man she hardly knew and had another child. She was not your average mother but she was the one who raised Barack and his sister Maya both of whom are extremely successful.

Ann lived in various places all over the world. The more you learn about Ann, the more you see of her in Barack, that defining level of complexity. She was interested in making the world a better place and constantly worked toward that end. She rarely talked about racism or sexism, but lived her life being totally empathetic to all forms of injustice. She was put off by ideology and rhetoric and looked more at what could be done and did it thereby defining the thin line between hope and realism.

To read more about Barack’s extraordinary mother, http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1729524-7,00.html">click here. It’s a Time/CNN account of Ann Dunham Obama written by Amanda Ripley. It’s a worthy read.


Grandparents


Mother, grandfather


Wife, kids, sister, brother-in-law


http://www.kansasprairie.net/kansasprairieblog/?cat=32

[DerekJ]

1. United Colours of Benetton.

United Colours of Benetton.

[Stephanie]

3. No kidding.

It's going to be the first multi-culti WH. I love the last photo with the sis and the kids.

[DerekJ]

4. What ethnicity is his sister's husband?

[tishaLA]

5. IIRC he's Chinese-Canadian

[dkf]

2. Yup, I love reading about Obama's mom.

She was the true female trailblazer and she did it all on her own, even without a man.

Now THAT is an independently successful woman.

[sandnsea]

8. microfinance is one of the biggest successes in decades

It's really telling that she was implementing a policy that is really changing the lives of poor women all over the world, and like you say, did it on her own. Now she is a woman to admire, and when a man does her wrong, she knows what a pair of boots are for. No wonder Barack married a woman like Michelle.

[SunsetDreams]

6. What a touching story...

His mother sounds like one great lady who accepted everyone without reservation.

I see that spirit in Obama. She would be proud of him!

[EFerrari]

11. He has an expansiveness, a tendency to include first off, that

is very attractive. I hope we know how to appreciate that.

[Raine]

7. Beautiful family

they will make us all proud when he is in the Whitehouse! :-)

[Catherina]

9. What gorgeous photos of a gorgeous family

His mother's story is as inspirational as his. Thanks for posting it

[AtomicKitten]

10. Her son is pretty amazing and a living testimony to his mom walking a different path.

The coolest bit of trivia I heard from Michelle Obama was that Barack has never missed a parent-teacher conference through this campaign. He took the girls trick or treating in October. His devotion to his family is clear.

[cooolandrew]

12. Which debunks any muslim story or he hates white folk. His mother was a great humanitarian.

His books add greater detail to this and are a must read although the second is more policy orientated.

[democrank]

13. Beautiful family.

~PEACE~