As the Obama family mourns the death of their matriarch Marian Robinson, the rest of the country might benefit in following her example by remembering that even those who accomplish extraordinary things in their life are ultimately still ordinary. It’s high praise, indeed, if they remain, forever, regular.
Like so many other men and women of her generation, Robinson, the former first lady’s mother, seemed to hold this truth close about herself and about others as well. Robinson, 86, displayed a deeply embedded resistance to being awed by the superficialities that distinguish people — namely fame, money and power. Those are all examples of things that people might possess, but they offer little indication of exactly who people are.
When her daughter and son-in-law reflected on Robinson’s life, they noted that aside from a request to meet the pope, she was rarely enamored with greeting the many celebrities who cycled through the White House during the eight years of the Obama administration. Most every giant of popular culture, sports and politics was within handshaking distance. But she preferred to spend her time with her family as well as the friends she’d accumulated over the years and the new ones she’d made in Washington who were not particularly well-known or influential.
Robinson was unique in her combination of interests and life experiences, but she shared a great deal with others who built their family in a time when the prevailing mantras from parent to child all seemed to be a variation of “Keep your head on straight.” The phrase encompassed a multitude of generational wisdom and warnings, from the importance of education to the dangers of losing one’s moral footing on ambition’s path.
As the world marveled at how Robinson, and her husband Fraser, had parented a future first lady, as well as a future Division I college head coach, she rebuffed their awe in a CBS interview, saying there was no “magic dust” in their household. “I believe there were lots of families who did exactly the same thing. But that was just the norm,” Robinson said. “You raised your children to stress education.”
She was not surprised by her children’s success, she continued — although the specifics of their achievements were not something that she had ever imagined.
There’s something grounding and reassuring — and a little bit startling — in these times about someone who doesn’t become bound up in fame, who eschews the hoopla and camera flashes of celebrity because they value what goes on in the quiet and in nature’s gentle light more deeply. For older Americans who lived the majority of their life before the era of reality television and social media, fame was a byproduct of some other accomplishment. It was the batting averages, the movies, the music, the sermons, the policy decisions that one admired — not the giddy glow of simply monetizing being recognized.
For generations of Black Americans who grew up in a legally segregated society, too much fame could be dangerous. Notoriety had proved itself deadly.
In any case, it was regular folks — friends, family — who one counted on to do the hard work, who knit together a community safety net to catch people when they tumbled.
Robinson exuded pride in her family. She was not awed, but she could be awe-inspiring when she stated what was both obvious and life-changing. Robinson told her children: “If it can be done, you can do it. It’s a matter of choice.” Having the choice was everything.
It’s one thing to cast an admiring eye on the accomplishments of those around us. It’s human nature to find inspiration in the way that those from a similar background have launched themselves into the stratosphere of their chosen profession. Still, so many in Robinson’s generational cohort had the ability to stand in the room with people of great stature and refuse to place them on a pedestal. After all, that would mean putting themselves in gulf. And why would they minimize themselves? Why would they create a self-inflicted wound when they’d grown up during a time when others were so eager to harm them for little more than amusement?
The dangers of seeing someone through a haze of awe means being blind to their humanity, their failings and their struggles. Perhaps it’s a relief when someone of great renown is simply greeted with warmth and good will, rather than gushing praise. Perhaps it’s therapeutic when a stranger only wants a firm handshake from a celebrity instead of perfection.
Ours is a culture in which we claim intimacy with those who have a certain measure of notoriety. We think we know them based on what they have become famous for doing rather than because of who they are. But fame isn’t an antidote to immorality, criminality or unethical behavior. It doesn’t negate active cruelty or heartless indifference. It doesn’t ensure patience and kindness.
It takes a certain kind of person to move into the White House and remain inured to the spectacle of it all, to continue to be a person who wants to do their own laundry. But some actions are less about accomplishing a task and more about recalling a time and a place. In a culture that’s quick to swoon and rhapsodize over those with even a modest degree of notability, Robinson stayed focused. She stayed grounded. She kept her head on straight.
To her family and friends, Robinson was one of a kind. To a generation of parents and their children, she was wondrously ordinary.
