The internet has come to expect catchphrases from the former First Lady of the United States: “put preparedness and adaptability way ahead of fear”; “health is built on balance. Balance is built on health”; and the famous quotation “when they go low, go high”.
The Light We Carry by Michelle Obama is a holiday classic. Even from a quick skim it’s easy to gather a handful of mantras that would make good tweets. The nuggets of wisdom lend themselves well to T-shirt slogans for those of us that are prone to setting new year resolutions and are in need of motivation and inspiration. And while self-help books can offer useful advice for personal improvement, The Light We Carry is not really a self-help book. Rather it is a thoughtful, consoling and reassuring meditation on the power of self-esteem, compassion, and good parenting, written with deep insight, understanding and sincerity.
The motif of light is used to convey interesting ideas on fostering power on a personal and communal level. The book is split into three parts that deal with the challenges of fostering emotional fortitude as a shield against self-doubt, shame and hopelessness.
The book opens with Obama reflecting on the cane her father used to support his frame as his body succumbed to multiple sclerosis when Michelle was four or five years old. The impact of the disease was not only visible in her father’s “severe left-legged limp” but also served to mobilise her and her brother Craig to “leverage our young bodies to help our dad back to his feet - As if any one of us could fix anything”.
Here is the crux of one of the poignant lessons the book offers: witnessing her father’s physical struggle with illness upset the archetypal image of her father as protector and introduced a newfound understanding of the fragility and uncertainty at the heart of the family.
“We were starting to understand that Dad’s illness left us more vulnerable as a family - we were learning that life was not in our control.” Yet her father managed to preserve an important aspect of his agency: “my father would just laugh the whole thing off, downplaying the fall, signalling that it was okay to smile or crack a joke”. His sense of humour served as “yet another well-worked tool,” like an emotional shock absorber, cushioning his fall in his children’s eyes.
He was able to show them that his disability didn’t stop him from being able to laugh at himself and focus on the one thing he could still control: the ability to still be light-hearted in his home, offering his children that gift of emotional consistency despite the change in his physical circumstances.
Obama largely addresses the book to young readers who are eager to bring about change in the world but are losing the strength and hope in their ability to transform deeply flawed and unjust societies. Some of the readers have written impassioned letters to her. Some are from socially-economic disadvantaged backgrounds, sharing their dreams of being “bigger than Beyonce”. Most are struggling with mental health difficulties from their experience of discrimination resulting from divisive politics that foster hateful attitudes and actions against marginalised people and communities.
Obama’s triumph is in the story she tells about a childhood misunderstanding - an argument with a teacher that frustrated her. When she complained about the clash with the teacher, her mother told her “Come home. We will always like you here”. In that passage, we get a clear understanding of the meaning of the title The Light We Carry. Michelle’s mother’s reassurance is simple: not everyone has to like you, so long as you get what you need and are entitled to. (Advocating for one’s rights should not involve having to be liked.) She offers her daughter a valuable message that shows great sensitivity to her uniqueness, she didn’t demand she change her personality in order to make herself amenable to the teacher.
Obama acknowledges her privilege in having a home where she “got to bathe in gladness as a child”. Her light is ignited and stoked by people who love her, enabling her to go out into the world to identify and cultivate compassionate relationships without viewing other people’s glow as a threat to her own brightness.
A powerful lesson in accepting and respecting our own and each other’s differences, vulnerabilities and virtues.
