Jill Biden - America's next FLOTUS - intends to break this 231-year old tradition

America’s next first lady is going to make history in her own way.

President-elect Joe Biden’s wife Professor Jill Biden intends to be the first FLOTUS in the role's 231-year history to pursue her career and keep a paying job while living in the White House and serving as the first lady.

"She will really be bringing the role of the first lady into the 21st century,"first-lady historian Katherine Jellison, a professor at Ohio University, said in an interview to USA Today, noting no previous FLOTUS has been "allowed" to be like most modern American women, with both work life and family life.

Because of her professional life, education is expected to be the top of Biden's first-lady agenda, along with advocating for military families and cancer awareness (son Beau Biden died of brain cancer in 2015), all of which she pursued as the second lady. 

In an interview given to Vogue in 2019, Jill had said, “The beauty of (being FLOTUS) is that you can define it however you want. And that’s what I did as the second lady – I defined that role the way I wanted it to be. I would still work on all the same issues. Education would be right up there, and military families. I’d travel all over this country trying to get a free community college.” 

"I would love to. If we get to the White House, I'm going to continue to teach," she said in an interview with CBS Sunday Morning in August 2019. "I want people to value teachers and know their contributions and to lift up the profession."

Jill held the title of the second lady while her husband served as Vice-President from 2009 To 2017. She was the first Vice-President's wife to continue with her paid job after her husband was elected alongside Barack Obama. The 69-year-old has been a strong force behind her husband of more than 40 years.

 

Before marrying Biden, she was married to former college football player Bill Stevenson. Stevenson and Jill divorced In 1975 - two years later, she married Biden. It was a second marriage for Biden too – his first wife and young daughter were killed in a car accident. Jill became stepmother to Joe’s two young sons from his first marriage, Beau and Hunter, and went on to have a daughter named Ashley, born In 1981.

But her identity was never just about being the spouse of Biden. She steadily built a career as a teacher and has always described herself as a "lifelong educator".

"Teaching is not what I do. It's who I am,"
 

She has a bachelor's degree and two master's degrees, and a doctorate of education from the University of Delaware, which she earned in 2007 under her original name, Jill Jacobs.

 

When she moved into the vice-presidential residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington in 2009, Biden continued to teach while playing a low-key and supportive role to the Obamas.

She and Michelle Obama launched Joining Forces to help military families with educational, health and job resources, and made frequent joint appearances to promote their initiative. In 2010, Biden hosted the first-ever White House Summit on Community Colleges with President Obama.

Michelle Obama has long been a big fan of Jill Biden. 

“I’m lucky enough to call Dr. Jill Biden a dear friend, and I’ve seen up close the kindness, empathy, and humour she brings to even the most difficult of situations," Obama said in an emailed statement to USA TODAY. "Through our work together in the White House, I’ve seen Jill’s passion, hard work and dedication. As a military mom and an educator, Jill has always led by example, treating everybody she meets with the sort of genuine warmth and care that sticks with you. She is going to be a terrific First Lady.”

In their joint exit interview with People magazine in 2016, Obama commented admiringly that Biden often pulled out student papers to peruse on the plane as they travelled together. 

“Jill is always grading papers,” Obama said. “Which is funny because I’d forget, ‘Oh yeah, you have a day job!’ And then she pulls out her papers and she’s so diligent and I’m like, ‘Look at you! You have a job! Tell me! Tell me what it’s like!’"