Michelle Obama was born January 17, 1964, in Chicago, Illinois. Michelle was raised on Chicago's South Side in a one-bedroom apartment. Her father, Frasier Robinson, was a city pump operator. Her mother, Marian, was a secretary who later stayed home to raise Michelle and her older brother, Craig. The family has been described as a close-knit one that shared family meals, read, and played games together.
Both children were raised with an emphasis on education. The brother and sister learned to read at home by the age of four, and both skipped second grade.
By sixth grade, Michelle was attending gifted classes, where she learned French and took accelerated courses. She then went on to attend the city's first magnet high school for gifted children where, among other activities, she served as the student government treasurer.
She attended Princeton University, graduating cum laude in 1985 with a B.A. in Sociology. "I remember being shocked," she says, "by college students who drove BMWs. I didn't even know parents who drove BMWs." She went on to earn a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1988.Following law school, she worked at a Chicago law firm, where she met Barack Obama, a summer intern. "I went to Harvard and he went to Harvard, and the firm thought, 'Oh, we'll hook these two people up,'" Michelle says. "So, you know, there was a little intrigue, but I must say after about a month, Barack… asked me out, and I thought no way. This is completely tacky." She refused to date Obama, believing that their work relationship would make the romance improper. But eventually she relented, and their first date was to the Spike Lee movie Do the Right Thing. The couple soon fell in love and married in 1992.
Her early career includes being an Executive Director for the Chicago office of Public Allies, a non-profit leadership-training program that helped young adults develop skills for future careers; associate dean of student services at
the University of Chicago, where she developed the University’s first community service program; executive director of community relations and external affairs at the University of Chicago Hospitals; and vice president of community relations and external affairs at the University of Chicago Medical Center, where she continues to work part-time.
In 2007, she scaled back her own professional work to attend to family and campaign obligations during Barack's run for presidential nomination. Michelle says she's made a "commitment to be away overnight only once a week — to campaign only two days a week and be home by the end of the second day" for their two daughters, Malia (born 1999) and Natasha (2001). It has been reported that the Obama family has no nanny, and that the children are left with Michelle's mother while their parents campaign.
As the 44th First Lady of the United States, Michelle has focused her attention on issues such as the support of military families, helping working women balance career and family, and encouraging national service.
Michelle has supported the organic food movement, instructing the White House kitchens to prepare organic food for guests and her family. In March 2009, Michelle worked with 23 fifth graders from a local school in Washington, D.C., to plant a 1,100 square foot garden of fresh vegetables (the first White House vegetable garden since Eleanor Roosevelt served as First Lady) and install bee hives on the South Lawn of the White House. In 2010, Michelle put efforts to fight childhood obesity near the top of her agenda.
Sources: http://www.biography.com/people/michelle-obama-307592
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Obama
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