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You may be asking, “Just what is an Obama Baby?” Well, on that chilly night that Barack Obama was elected our president, it can be safely assumed thousands of American couples decided to celebrate in typical American fashion – baby making. Next August, the United States may experience a politically oriented baby boom that could push Barack, Michelle, even Sasha and Malia, to the top of every baby name list.
As proud as I am of our new president and his goals, I wonder how this new age will affect those citizens who have yet to make their mark on this world. It also leads me to wonder what sort of expectations the parents of these children will have for their offspring. I can understand being expected to succeed in school or master a particular musical instrument, but is it possible that these parents will push too hard? Will they become so swept up in the camaraderie of the Obama White House that they will be unable to contain their parental neuroticism to the usual choice between Baby Mozart and Baby Einstein? Next year we may have to welcome a new contender – Baby Congress.
With our new president, we start out on a bumpy road to reinvention. As Mainers, we know you have to fill in the pot-holes before you can go more than ten miles an hour. So many things are broken in this country that as much as we hunger for change, we must be patient. The issues we think require the most change may not make it to the top of Obama’s list for a while, but we’ve got to grit our teeth and trust that the president will get to them eventually. We elected him because we trusted his judgment, so I won’t tolerate any whining from the peanut gallery because his agenda isn’t exactly what we want it to be.
It’s impossible to know what the next eight years will bring us – and I do mean eight – but consider this: In six years when these Obama babies are wobbly five-year-olds, just learning to read and starting to understand the world around them, what kind of world will we have created for them? President Obama’s goals and plans for our country are all attainable but, in the words of every sports coach in America, we have to want it. If we are going to change this country into what it deserves to be – a responsible and moral world leader instead of the controlling and lazy mess of capitalists we have become – we are all going to have to work harder than we ever thought possible.
Some point out that President Obama himself was born about nine months after the election that put John F. Kennedy into the White House. Have we really made the transition from Kennedy babies to Obama babies in less than 50 years? Some people would call that warp speed. I call it progress.
Jennifer Fortier is a fourth-year marine science and microbiology major.
