Nearly two months after her death, Michelle Obama is reflecting on her late mother’s “enoughness.”
On Monday, July 29, the former first lady paid tribute to her late mother, Marian Robinson, on what would have been her 87th birthday in an Instagram post that included an intimate photo of the mother-daughter duo smiling at one another and embracing.
“Today would have been my mom’s 87th birthday,” Obama began the post’s caption. “These past couple of months have been tough without her, and I am so grateful for the outpouring of love you’ve shown our family along the way.”
According to a statement released by the family at the time, Robinson died “peacefully” on May 31, leaving behind a close-knit tribe that includes Michelle, Barack, Michelle’s brother Craig, his wife Kelly, and each couple’s two children.
“Even though she’s no longer with us, I still think she’s worth celebrating,” Obama continued in her birthday tribute.
She added that what she loved most about her mother was that “She always felt like she was enough.”
Obama recalled the various ways her mother exuded confidence and gratitude for what she had, from proudly decorating their “tiny” two-bedroom walk-up apartment for the holidays to mastering her own hairstyling at home.
”And because she felt like she was enough, she could help others feel that too,” she continued. “She did that countless times for me and my brother Craig. She did it for her family and friends. She did it for the staff at the White House. She did it for everyone she knew.”
Toward the end of her caption, Obama explained she was using her mother’s birthday as an opportunity to celebrate “the immense power there was in her enoughness.”
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While Robinson was alive, she became a fixture at the White House during Barack Obama’s tenure as president. She was a caregiver and fierce protector of her grandchildren, Sasha and Malia Obama.
Of her role as a caregiver she famously said, “If somebody is going to be with these kids other than their parents, it better be me.”
“We needed her. The girls needed her. And she ended up being our rock through it all,” the family wrote about time spent with Robinson at the White House in their statement announcing her death in May.
In her birthday tribute caption, Obama declared, “I am committing myself to carrying forward her legacy of lifting up others the best I can.”
Obama’s relationship with her own mother isn’t the only mother-daughter relationship she has been reflecting on lately. During a recent appearance on Melinda French Gates’ podcast “Moments That Make Us,” the former first lady shared more insight into how she raised her daughters to be “independent,” “valued, and valuable humans in the world” while living in the White House.
True to Robinson’s legacy of empowering others, Obama told host Gates, “I never felt my job was to create mini-mes or create people who were going to live out some brokenness in me or fill some hole or to be my friend. As my girls joke, I always said — my favorite line was, ‘I’m not one of your little friends.’ “
Obama also explained the unique pressure a “First Kid” faces and how her daughters managed to handle it.
“They are watched. They had to learn how to balance the unwanted attention, but do it politely. To build their own lives in the spotlight and not be eaten up by it,” she noted. “Those girls had to be smart and confident and independent straight away — even when they were living in a house with butlers and maids and florists. But I was raising them thinking, ‘You’re not going to live here — and with me — forever. So I’ve got to hand you your life soon and let you manage it.’”
