LIFE | RELATIONSHIPS | POLITICS
I Want a First Lady Who Hugs
She Doesn’t Need a PhD — She Just Needs to Be Real
If I were running for president, I would want my wife to come up to the stage after the debates and put her arms around me. I wouldn’t mind if folks all across the country saw how much love there was in that hug. I would just be grateful for it.
In fact, I would want a hug like that every day of the week. And I’d want it from a woman who gave them out even when we weren't being watched by 70 million people on TV. I would want a real hug from a real woman. Instead of a statuesque model standing next to me, arms at her side like a paid soldier, whose hand had to be grabbed as an afterthought. An awareness of the optics. A response to all that warmth coming from the other side of the stage.
If I were running for president, I would want a woman who was more than an ornamental extension of my ego. I would want a woman who continued to grow during the course of our marriage. She wouldn’t have to earn a PhD like Dr. Jill Biden. But I wouldn’t want her to be a well-dressed cutout on standby for a photo op. I would want to know that she’d felt free enough during our time together to pursue her own interests and become a fully mature woman in her own right, making her own unique contributions to the world.
If I were running for president, I wouldn’t want a wife who gets recorded in a phone call saying, “Who gives a f*ck about Christmas?” Or one who destroys the beautiful Rose Garden at the White House in order to make room for more chairs. And I certainly wouldn’t want one who wears a jacket that says, “I really don’t care, do you?” while visiting migrant children at the US/Mexico border. It wouldn’t matter that she might later explain that the message was really meant to troll the media. Because even if it were true, it would hardly be the thing to convey during a migration crisis. When the thing most people care about are the children who’ve been separated from their parents.
Whether I was running for president or not, I would want a wife who’d been willing to take me on after I’d lost my first wife and infant child in an automobile accident. The kind of wife who would help me raise my two remaining boys and stick with me even when I made a fool of myself, telling self-aggrandizing lies and backing policies I would later regret.
Fortunately for me, I am not running for president. And I am not looking for a wife. But if I could vote for the next First Lady of the United States, the next FLOTUS, I would vote for a woman who doesn’t have to ask, “Who gives a f*ck about Christmas?” Because she’d already know the answer.
I would vote for a woman who hugs.
Originally published at https://www.jazprose.com on October 29, 2020.
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