NYT, pg1: A Mother's Influence; A Free-Spirited Wanderer Who Set Obama's Path

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: The Long Run
A Mother’s Influence
This is part of a series of articles about the life and careers of contenders for the 2008 Republican and Democratic presidential nominations.

A Free-Spirited Wanderer Who Set Obama’s Path
By JANNY SCOTT
Published: March 14, 2008


(Courtesy of the Obama family)
Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro with son Barack in Hawaii.

In the capsule version of the Barack Obama story, his mother is simply the white woman from Kansas. The phrase comes coupled alliteratively to its counterpart, the black father from Kenya. On the campaign trail, he has called her his “single mom.” But neither description begins to capture the unconventional life of Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro, the parent who most shaped Mr. Obama.

Kansas was merely a way station in her childhood, wheeling westward in the slipstream of her furniture-salesman father. In Hawaii, she married an African student at age 18. Then she married an Indonesian, moved to Jakarta, became an anthropologist, wrote an 800-page dissertation on peasant blacksmithing in Java, worked for the Ford Foundation, championed women’s work and helped bring microcredit to the world’s poor.

She had high expectations for her children. In Indonesia, she would wake her son at 4 a.m. for correspondence courses in English before school; she brought home recordings of Mahalia Jackson, speeches by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And when Mr. Obama asked to stay in Hawaii for high school rather than return to Asia, she accepted living apart — a decision her daughter says was one of the hardest in Ms. Soetoro’s life.

“She felt that somehow, wandering through uncharted territory, we might stumble upon something that will, in an instant, seem to represent who we are at the core,” said Maya Soetoro-Ng, Mr. Obama’s half-sister. “That was very much her philosophy of life — to not be limited by fear or narrow definitions, to not build walls around ourselves and to do our best to find kinship and beauty in unexpected places.”

Ms. Soetoro, who died of ovarian cancer in 1995, was the parent who raised Mr. Obama, the Illinois senator running for the Democratic presidential nomination. He barely saw his father after the age of 2. Though it is impossible to pinpoint the imprint of a parent on the life of a grown child, people who knew Ms. Soetoro well say they see her influence unmistakably in Mr. Obama....

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/14/us/politics/14obama.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=all

[Hekate]

1. KnR It's really nice to actually get to see this woman fleshed out. She was remarkable. nt

[hisownpetard]

2. Beautiful article. I wish she were alive to see what her son has accomplished.

I'm sure she would be proud.

[papau]

3. As with everything -Obama lies about mother and religion

Obama says he was raise in a Christian household

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/12/22/531492.aspx
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2007/12/23/2007-12-23_im_no_muslim_says_barack_obama.html


but then
Obama says "I was not raised in a religious household... My mother's own experiences... only reinforced this inherited skepticism."
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1546298,00.html

but then
Obama's mother is recalled as calling herself an atheist
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-0703270151mar27,0,14968,full.story

[Hekate]

4. Buzz off back to GD-P with the sour negativity, would you? nt

[papau]

7. negativity =noting lies on NAFTA&meeting/intent to pass social programs "no cost told to CNBC"/Iraq

out in 16 months (don't worry - we will re-evaluate after we are elected"

The small lie (I assume lies come in various sizes) about religion fits the pattern of the big lies about policy.

[Hekate]

9. You have your own toxic little sandbox. I assume this was posted here to bypass all that.

It's a good article. About his mother. And the people who knew her personally.

Bye.

Hekate

[frazzled]

5. That's not a contradiction

You can be raised in a "Christian" household that is not a religious household, nor even necessarily a "believing" household. If you celebrate Christmas, even just with a tree and presents (and it is clear from this article that his mother made a tree for them, even in Indonesia, with peppers)-- then in the common parlance--and especially to non-Christians--you are being raised in a Christian household. (Especially, perhaps, his grandparents')

I can say that I was raised in a Jewish household: but my mother was agnostic and actually antagonistic toward organized religion. Still, we had a Passover seder each year, ate Jewish foods, and my extended family was more observant.

When Obama says he was raised in a Christian household he means above all that he was not raised in a Muslim household. Get it?

[papau]

6. nope - the implication is brought up Christian - secular Jew uses word "secular" for a reason

[Hekate]

8. You're right, but it's just WAY too nuanced for those whose minds are entirely closed.

:eyes:

You and I both know what it means to be culturally Christian or culturally Jewish -- In my case all four of my grandparents were Roman Catholic, but both of my parents chose to walk away from the Church when my brother and I were infants. And I mean they turned their backs on it. But they didn't replace their childhood religion with another one -- my mother simply preached ethics and humanistic values straight out of the Enlightenment, and her view of world religions was informed by reading The Golden Bough. Were we Christian? No -- but I thought we were because we were surrounded by Christians, and because we weren't anything else.

Barack Obama's family wasn't anything else either. Christianity is the default religion in American culture, what with all the public displays of Manger scenes and Easter sunrise services and all. They weren't Muslim. They weren't Jewish. They weren't Buddhist. They were culturally Christian.

But for Freepers and even some DUers, this is just soooooo hard to grasp.

Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners, btw, has known Obama for over 10 years and is well-acquainted with his spiritual journey. Read all about it in Sojo online, February 28 edition.

Hekate

[Cha]

10. The great threads I'm finding in

Politics/Campaigns! I can see why these are here instead of GDP..too much fighting over them?

I already cross-posted one these links from P/C to GDP today..I might do another, thanks.

Obama had an amazing upbringing and the result couldn't be more dramatic.

[DeepModem Mom]

11. Feel free anytime, zidzi, to repost any article in GDP.

GDP is very distressing to me these days -- and I post pretty much on a neutral basis, as a news junkie with FYIs, so I'm much more comfortable just now in this little corner. But if you'd like to give anything more exposure in that forum, please do!

DMM

[Cha]

12. Thanks DeepModem Mom..

I have a lot of ignores so I'm happy as a clam over there but I happened to catch some articles on the front page and followed them here and couldn't believe all the wealth of info:)

I don't start threads but I cross posted the info on Obama not going to cede PA on a PA thread in GDP. I just have to remember to keep checking this place out. :hi: