'Single mom' emerges as real mentor of young Obama

[bigtree]

At their home in Jakarta, Ann Dunham poses in this undated photo with her second husband, Lolo Soetoro, their daughter, Maya, and Barack Obama.)

By Janny Scott

IN THE condensed version of the Barack Obama story, his mother is simply the white woman from Kansas. 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 Obama.

Kansas was merely a stop-off in her childhood, wheeling westward in the slipstream of her furniture-salesman father. In Hawaii, she married an African student at the age of 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 4am for correspondence courses in English before school. She brought home recordings of Mahalia Jackson and speeches by Martin Luther King. And when 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 her mother'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, Obama's half-sister.

"That was very much her philosophy of life – not to 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."

Soetoro, who died of ovarian cancer in 1995, was the parent who raised Obama, the Illinois senator running for the Democratic presidential nomination.



Barack Obama Sr. poses with his son in the Honolulu airport during Obama Sr.'s only visit to see his son while he was growing up in Hawaii. Young Barack was in the 5th grade when the photo was taken.

He barely saw his father after the age of two. Though it is impossible to pinpoint the imprint of a parent on the life of a grown child, people who knew Soetoro well say they see her influence unmistakably in Obama.

They were close, her friends and his half-sister say, though they spent much of their lives with oceans or continents between them. He would not be where he is today, he has said, had it not been for her . . .



article:
http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/39Single-mom39-emer...

[wileedog]

1. OMG HE'S A RACIST!!11!1!

[bigtree]

2. easy

please

[wileedog]

14. Fair enough

But there are those who are "outraged" that he sat and listened to a black pastor for 20 years who has expressed the hardships and frustrations of his lifetime, who has put into words the inequalities given to certain people in this country.

And they believe that Obama is not fit to lead this country because he listened to those words and did not react with the proper amount of white horror.

Easy, indeed.

[roguevalley]

24. and there are those who refuse to see Clinton's connections to

Rev. Moon and the Fellowship as bad. Easy, indeed? Right.

[alteredstate]

11. Enjoy your stay at DU.

[Muttocracy]

3. was also published in NYTimes - additional photos

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/14/us/politics/14obama.h...

[bigtree]

6. nice

thanks

[Frances]

16. Thanks for the link

It's well worth reading the whole article

[loveangelc]

4. lol Obama was chubby. He probably weighed more there than he does now. lol.

[JoFerret]

5. She sounds amazing

.

[kid a]

7. sounds like an incredible woman! thanks!

GOBama

[ampad]

8. Thanks bigtree

rec

[alteredstate]

9. Thank you for posting this wonderful article!

[JI7]

10. that's for posting this bigtree

[jefferson_dem]

12. What a wonderful story Barack Obama has to offer this nation. He will make a fine POTUS.

[skooooo]

13. Barack was a chunky little guy!

[Frances]

15. Thanks

I especially liked the photos

[stillcool]

17. thank you!

bookmarking your thread for a later read.

[Drunken Irishman]

18. Obama looks a lot like his grandpa!

[thevoiceofreason]

19. Bigtree

Every time I'm ready to cuss you as a partisan, you do things like this.

I'm starting to think you're one of the brightest bulbs in the DU chandelier.

Peace. And thanks.

[bigtree]

23. our Democratic party

. . . is very well represented by our two candidates. I'm only truly partisan when something threatens our party.

I think the question which stands out in this controversy is whether Obama actually shares the more extreme and controversial views his pastor has expressed. I don't believe he does. I think it's more reasonable that his views have been shaped by the totality of his life experience, which includes the influences described in the article that his mother provided.

As far as his overall character goes, I believe Barack Obama is a good Democrat, a proud American, and a gentleman. That belief hasn't changed, despite the efforts made to associate his views with the strident rhetoric his pastor has offered from his pulpit.

[Abacus]

31. Perfectly said.

Thanks!

[redstate_democrat]

20. lol Barack was big-boned as a child!

His mother was an amazing woman.

[bling bling]

21. That was an amazing article to read. Thank you for posting this. n/t

[MzShellG]

22. Thanks, bigtree. I'm glad you decided to stick around after all. nt

[Breeze54]

25. Single Mom's Rule!

She set a great example for little Barack.

[babylonsister]

26. Lovely. Thank you, bigtree. And love the pix! nt

[HCE SuiGeneris]

27. Nice presentation bigtree.

[tishaLA]

28. thanks bigtree

you're a good one.

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

29. His mother's parents were from my formative years area - I was born and raised in El Dorado, Kansas

It's nice to know that from such a narrow-minded small town at least three liberal free thinkers sprang (his mother, my sister and myself). My mother was a Democrat, but was a child of the Depression and small-town Kansas, and her mind was not as completely open as Mr. Obama's mother's was.

[Forkboy]

30. Well,this is surely going to piss off Dan Quayle.