We will always like you here

[boxofdelights]

I'm falling in love with Michelle Obama's mother, Marian Robinson.

Once, when I was in high school, and unhappy about having to deal with a math teacher who struck me as arrogant, my mom heard my complaint, nodded understandingly, and then shrugged. "You don't have to like your teacher, and she doesn't have to like you," she said. "But she's got math in her head that you need in yours, so maybe you should just go to school and get the math." She looked at me then and smiled, as if this should be the simplest thing in the world to grasp. "You can come home to be liked," she said. "We will always like you here."

--Michelle Obama, The Light We Carry

Comments

[lilysea]

I'm very glad Michelle Obama had the mother that she did.

I had the opposite experience - I was desperate for all of my teachers, and all of the teacher-librarians, to like me, because my parents didn't like me.

[boxofdelights]

My mom didn't like me either. Fortunately for me, from nursery school through eighth grade, I went to a school that was all about valuing every child for what they were.

[lunabee34]

I love that.

[lcohen]

that's lovely.

[silveradept]

That is a useful way of framing it, although I wonder how much better the math could have been had there been friendliness between them.

(At this time if the world, I also wonder how much of that perceived arrogance could have been racism or sexism of one sort of another, but I don't know what schools she attended to know if that would actually be a factor.)