Michelle Obama Talks on Fatherhood and Women’s Issues
From NBC/NJ’s Carrie Dann
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A day after the revelation of Jesse Jackson’s crude
criticism of Barack Obama’s speeches on fatherhood and
faith-based initiatives, this morning Michelle Obama was talking about
fatherhood, responsibility and accountability.
"There's government responsibility and accountability, and then there's
individual responsibility and accountability," she said in response to a
young woman's reference to the Democratic nominee's emphasis on fatherhood.
"One never cancels out the other."
Her remarks came in response to a question from 25-year-old audience member
Ibbaanika Bond, whose boyfriend has been trying to regain custody of their
child after she, an unwed mother, gave up her son Noah for adoption, an action
she now says she regrets. 
Craig Lentz, the son's biological father, took the case against Noah's
adoptive parents to the Missouri Supreme Court on the grounds that he never
agreed to the adoption. (NBC's Kansas City affiliate did a story on the case.)
Referencing Obama's efforts to put fathers' responsibility into the
spotlight, Bond insisted, "There is a system in this country that, even in
court, they're keeping people from doing that. People want to take care of
their children."
After listening to the young mother's passionate appeal for legal justice,
Obama agreed that the family court system is flawed, but added that her
husband's directive to parents is aimed at those who fail to take an active
role in children's lives despite available resources.
"I want to make sure that people, that people understand that as Barack
talks about his personal experiences growing up without a father, that in no
way doesn't recognize that there are serious problems in the system," she
said. "As we are talking about that fight, we also have to recognize that
there are some people who do have complete ability and access to do what they
need to do."
The Kansas City roundtable, held at the
city's University
of Missouri campus, was
the aspiring First Lady's second in as many days. Yesterday, she held a similar
event in Pontiac, Michigan, before a crowded auditorium of
mostly black women where they discussed soaring health care costs and
unemployment.
Today's audience was also made up of almost all women, but the crowd in the
more affluent university area was more mixed. Participants mentioned
college-loan payments and day-care fees as monthly costs that drive them to
scrimp and cut corners.
Obama used the roundtable audience, as she did yesterday, to describe her
husband's understanding of women's issues through the prism of the strong --
but sometimes struggling -- women in his life.
His own mother, she said at the beginning of her remarks, was "very
young and very single when she had him." And, Obama added, he has observed
his wife's attempts to reconcile motherhood with her career aspirations.
"He sees me, his wife, who struggles every day with that guilt that we all
hold deep in our hearts as women," she said. "That guilt that you
don't have the choice to stay home, and even if you do, you feel guilty."
"He has seen me struggle with this my entire life," she added.
"Trust me, Barack understands the struggles of women."