This is from a piece on a Psychology Today blog, that references my last book Baby Love about mothers who envy their daughters. It's good to see professionals who understand the subtext of complex relationships.

Half a century after Deutsche, Susie Orbach, Kim Chernin and others argued that young women's expanding career opportunities can (albeit not always) arouse a mother's envy. A daughter may hold herself back, terrified that, if she does surpass her mother, she will be forced to eat of those proverbial poisoned apples - in the form of maternal disapproval, distain, guilt. Or, she may hope to win approval by her success, only to find that success does not give her mother pleasure; instead, her mother responds with envy, which a daughter experiences as disapproval.

This is a hotly debated subject, amd many experts deny and reframe what looks like maternal envy as maternal concern. And yet I hear from so many women who have felt undermined by their mothers. And mothers who have struggled with their jealousy of their daughters.

My feeling is not enough light has been shed on the subject, and, like mental illness, the kind of wounding that occurs in many mother daughter relationships is even more devastating because daughters are considered ungrateful for voicing their feelings, and punished accordingly. Especially in the black community, when so many mothers have had to work so hard for so long (and are perceived as uncomprehending of the suffering of past generations), and the Jewish community when the idea of a mother being resentful of her daughter cuts so against the grain of the kvelling, over-enthusiastic mother.

In both cultures, daughters are expected to be obedient and enduring of any kind of psychological burden; the idea of expressing upset is  unthinkable. And yet, as Audre Lorde wrote, "Our silence will not protect us."

What about you? Have you experienced any of these kinds of maternal conflicts? Either as a mother yourself or as a daughter?

I'd like to talk about this, to open the doors. We all have something to gain.

There is a lot to talk about, like:

What a great job Obama is doing (and how saddened I am by how many are so critical so soon), the auto industry bailout and why it's not "cost-effective" for the big 3 to go green, the staggering number of people losing jobs, and the theme I've hit several times since the Olympics: China's devastating invasion of parts of Africa.

But right now I want to have a moment about ADHD, Ritalin, and prevailing attitudes about mental health.

Today at the health food store I overheard a conversation between a Dad, the person ringing up his groceries, and a woman on line.

The dad said his daughter was diagnosed with ADHD, and Ritalin was working well. He said she's been experiencing a lot of success in school and at home and "her turn-around" was "like a miracle." The checker gave an enthusiastic high-five. "Hey man, that's so great."

Then the woman chimed in with anecdotal information about an Omega-3 supplement that "helped the son of a friend." She tried to remember the name of the supplement, and while reaching for the name, suggested Dad try it.

Dad suddenly looked ashamed and embarrassed. He said he had "read some studies" about the supplement and was hoping to "get some soon." He really wanted to get his daughter off the Ritalin, he said. Because although she was doing better, he "hated being duped by the drug companies," who probably "invented ADHD in the first place."

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To continue our discussion of different kinds of power, I am thrilled Obama has brought Samantha Power, who was forced to resign from Team Obama during the campaign for calling Hillary Clinton "a monster," back on board as part of the transition team--for the office of the Secretary of State.

If you don't know about Samantha Power, here is an excerpt from Esquire:

Power, a journalist and now a professor at Harvard, who won a Pulitzer prize for her 2003 book on America's response to genocide, A Problem from Hell, and who helped kick-start the Save Darfur movement, has a vision that will help shape 21st-century American foreign policy. What Norman Podhoretz is to the neocon movement Power is to this as-yet-unnamed force. (Neo-internationalism? Moral interventionism? Machiavellian idealism?) She espouses talks--firm talks--with rogue states, a respect for international law, and a moral and pragmatic duty to intervene--with troops if necessary--in cases of genocide.

I'm happy she's back for a number of reasons: she's passionate about human dignity and has a complex and pragmatic view of how to secure it. In other words, she's tough and smart. Heart and head. Has a plan. A view. And her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, is endlessly relevant, and gives her unique insight into seemingly intractable hostilities, like the one between Israel and Palestine.

Though she's been lambasted by Zionist groups who say she wants to do everything from fund Islamic terrorists to invade Israel, her official position is that the US should engage in an immediate and intensified involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. In her view, the situation "has to be resolved first of all for the benefit of the parties involved, but also to prevent 'cynical Arab leaders' from exploiting the conflict as a tool for justifying their policies."

This seems to be a rational approach.

But mostly I feel good about Power's return because Obama's ability to bring her back in a leadership role in HRC's realm says he feels free as POTUS to make controversial decisions and continue to mix up ideological perspectives in the hopes of reaching different conclusions. He appears to be using the power vested in him to follow his agenda of change, rather than kowtow to personal gripes, party lines, or general consensus.

Obama appears to believe the two women, though different in their approach, are stronger together than apart.

Do you agree?

Yesterday afternoon, in tandem with my original essay on Michelle Obama below, I joined a group of exceptional women including Anna Perez, the former Press Secretary for Barbara Bush, Leslie Morgan Steiner, the editor of the best-selling anthology Mommy Wars, and Jolene Ivey, co-founder of Mocha Moms, on Michel Martin's NPR show Tell Me More to talk about:

What Michelle Obama is Giving Up.

It was a fascinating conversation, but five intense women talking about Michelle Obama for thirty-five minutes? We could have been there for hours. I left the studio thinking about all the things I wished there had been more time to say.

I wish the show had been called "What Michelle Obama is Gaining."

There was certainly more to say about the question of "power" vs "influence." It's my view that Michelle has the opportunity to have a tremendous amount of power--political, personal, ideological, symbolic, financial, social, maternal, emotional, psychological-- but Anna Perez opined Michelle will have influence, but because she can't write legislation and doesn't have a vote on key issues, she won't have power. 

But there are different kinds of power. Laws change administration to administration, but transforming the consciousness of a generation is forever. Did Martin Luther King, Jr. have power or influence? Did Jackie Kennedy want more power and less influence? How about Eleanor Roosevelt? And what about our former First Lady, Hillary Clinton? She almost because POTUS in large part as a result of her "influence." What about the Nobel committee? Do they have power or influence? Freud and Jung? Moses?

I was taken aback by Anna Perez's view, her privileging one realm, the political, over what could be called the personal or communal, a view that has disempowered women for centuries. And I was struck by how difficult it seemed for many of the women in the conversation to see Michelle as anything but a victim. Incredibly, they seemed to think she was more powerful as a hospital administrator than First Lady.

We denigrate Michelle by denigrating her choices. Projecting an idea of her as a deer in the headlights rather than a lioness on the plain reflects a crisis of the imagination, and speaks volumes about what we think is possible for a woman, or any human being, to negotiate.

People working to create a better world dismiss their accomplishment at their own peril. They resign themselves to a lifetime of disappointment.

There were several unforgettable moments in the Obama campaign—Barack's impassioned speech about race, the DNC finale at Invesco, Madelyn Dunham's death just before her grandson became president-elect—but none meant more to me than a two-minute bit of tape, a simple but monumental exchange between Michelle Obama and CNN's Soledad O'Brien.

In her interview with Michelle, Soledad circled around the issues placed at the center of every discussion about female identity by second-wave feminism. O'Brien wondered how Michelle felt about following a dream that wasn't hers. She asked about leaving a "high-powered and highly compensated" career.

Michelle acknowledged the challenges. She graciously offered that she missed her colleagues and her work. But, she continued, she could always find another career. With only the slightest hint of irony, she said if she had more time, she might bemoan the loss, but she "had a lot on her plate" and what she was doing was "pretty significant."

I thought, "You go, girl!" As if working with the love of her life and the father of her children to become the first family of the United States while radically transforming the world as we know it isn't the most empowering choice a brilliant and self-determining woman could make.

But the real moment came in the next beat, 30 seconds that remain forever etched in my mind as the final blow to an ideology in which women's empowerment is narrowly defined by financial independence, emotional autonomy and professional advancement.

O'Brien went in for the kill, the coup de grâce of second-wave feminism. "But sometimes your career helps to define who you are," she said, probing.

"It doesn't for me," Michelle said immediately. "What I do in my life defines me. A career is one of the many things I do in my life. I am a mother first. Where do I get my joy and my energy first and foremost? From my kids."

As a mother, I understood the second half of what Michelle said. But as a woman, as a human being, it was the first part of her answer that I realized I—and the rest of the world—needed and still need to hear. What I do in my life defines me. Not my career, not money, not awards or accolades, but the whole thing, the sum of all of the parts. My life.

You know, life? The one that includes showing up and embracing all of it: financial pressure and anniversary dinners, security details and ballet recitals, demeaning attacks and uplifting stump speeches, grueling late-night conversations and awesome feats of self-sacrifice, tidal waves of overwhelming satisfaction and grim truths of mistakes made and opportunities lost.

The hungry kids and the empty gas tank, the deadline, the Pilates class, the Apple store, the "Shit, I have got to go get my hair handled, today!" The showing up for the people you love no matter what. The growing confidence in the decisions you made. The wonder at the way your life is unfolding.

In that life, the one that isn't defined by ideology or obligation, openness is the guiding principle. You keep your eye on cherishing your partnership and protecting your family. You keep your mind sharp and your soul deep. And, if you are Michelle Obama, you do it all in a fabulous red dress with your good-looking husband and well-educated children by your side.

Michelle Obama embodies feminist goals, and in her determination to live in sync with a vision larger than her gender and individual ego, she surpasses them. This is no time or place to be paralyzed by dogma. She cannot lie in bed and wonder if her choices are feminist enough or whether they send the correct message to women around the world. She can accept her role at the center of history and rely on her aspiration to be her best self to transcend narrow categories of feminist identity and, in doing so, inspire others to the same.

In other words, Michelle Obama doesn't need a message. She is the message.

But there is even more to this story. For the last 30 years, feminist discourse has struggled to be inclusive of the perspectives of women of color, to honor "the way we do things." At the heart of feminism's slippery promise of diversity lay its white centrism, its monopoly by women over 50, its de facto placement of the rest of us in the margins.

The rise of Michelle Obama challenges that centrism by following in the footsteps of female intellectuals and women of conscience like Anna Julia Cooper, who fought on behalf of women and all those who were oppressed. "The cause of freedom," Cooper wrote, "is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class—it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity."

Unlike the leaders for suffrage who abandoned the cause of women of color in order to get the vote, women of color have historically refused to abandon any part of themselves or their community in the name of political expediency. All must be saved or none.

My sense is that Michelle Obama's scope and influence will be equally broad. When she voices her concerns, she mentions "working folks," "a balance of work and family for women" and military families left out in the cold.

Michelle offers a possibility for change, a new kind of female leadership. And this, my friends, is a major turn of events. The wild card, of course, will be the response of those currently at the center of the women's movement, who will no doubt find themselves displaced, pushed more into the margin than ever before. How will second-wave feminism find relevance when a devoted partner, full-time mother and credentialed black powerhouse becomes first lady, and doesn't feel victimized by the job?

That will be for them to wrestle with. Not Michelle.

Cross posted at my blog at The Root.