#first daughters

[During his time in the Texas Air National Guard] there were a stream a reminders that George W. Bush wasn't just another rank-and-file military pilot.

The most memorable came in early 1969 when his father [George H.W. Bush], who was throwing a party at Washington's Alibi Club for Apollo 8's commander, Frank Borman, called his son with a proposition. "How would you like to fly up to Washington for a dinner with an astronaut?" he asked in a phone call, adding that he had also invited first daughter Tricia Nixon. "I thought it might be fun if you took her to the party," he said. Taken aback and noncommittal at first, George W. accepted the blind date only after betting his doubtful flight school buddies that the invitation was real. He found himself fifty dollars richer when a military plane later arrived at Moody [Air Force Base] to whisk him off to Washington for the occasion.

In spite of his father's best matchmaking intentions, the date ended up a bust. What started less than auspiciously, with George W. entering through the gates of the White House for the first time in his life -- behind the wheel of a purple AMC Gremlin, complete with Levi's denim seats, that he had borrowed from his parents -- ended up with the President's elder daughter asking to return home just after dinner. "Being a swashbuckling pilot, I had taken to drink," George W. recalled of the date much later. "I reached for some butter, knocked over a glass and watched in horror as a stain of red wine crept across the table. Then I fired up a cigarette prompting a polite suggestion from Tricia that I not smoke." When he returned to the dinner after escorting Ms. Nixon home, a friend of his father discreetly asked, "Get any?" Not even close, Bush replied.

“#: I’m going to talk about the character Luisa Madrigal from Encanto and the first daughters thing in one. I KNOW LUISA ISN’T THE OLDEST.

She is important for two reasons: 1) Representation of muscular women and 2)The representation of the pressure on the first daughters in families.

I’m going to be talking about no.2 and kind of mixing in no.1

2: First daughters are so strong. I think that’s why they made her muscular. To represent first daughters’ strength mentally. For some of the movie, we see her try to have her mental health keep up with her physical strength. She sings a song about the pressure put on her and how she just wants to make sure everyone is happy/okay. Let me run you through some of the lyrics.

“I'm the strong one, I'm not nervous”: First daughters are often expected to neglect their emotions for their roles and tasks handed to them as the first daughters.

“I don't ask how hard the work is...I take what I'm handed”: First daughters are expected to do what their asked without question and take what is given to them with appreciation because any little show of affection shown to them is good enough for them because their strong and tough. They’re supposed to be grateful for anything they’re given, even if it isn’t much.

“Was Hercules ever like “Yo, I don't wanna fight Cerberus”?”: First daughters are expected to never complain otherwise they’re seen as ungrateful for all their family has done for them. They’re taught to neglect what they want for the family’s wants and needs. Are they allowed to feel “weak” emotions such as fear?

“I'm pretty sure I'm worthless if I can't be of service”: First daughters are taught that their sole purpose is to carry out the tasks of the family. They’re seen as and taught that they’re useless and worthless if they cannot assist the family.

“A flaw or a crack The straw in the stack That breaks the camel's back What breaks the camel's back?”: A single mistake made by first daughters is fatal. They’re put under so much pressure and expected to not make a single mistake along the way. The only thing that matters is the opinions and views of the family. But what about them(the camel)? Did anyone ever think to ask them how they feel? Just once.

“Pressure that'll tip, tip, tip 'til you just go pop“: All this pressure and all these expectations are put on them until they give up and can’t anymore or until they stand up for themselves and ‘snap’.

“Give it to your sister, your sister's older”/”Give it to your sister, your sister's stronger”: Louisa says this to Mirabel but it’s also something parents say a lot. Give it to the older sister. She can handle it. She can handle anything. She’s older and more responsible. This belittles the younger sibling and makes them believe they cannot do anything on their own/for themselves and neglects the older sister’s emotions and puts pressure on them. This line represents the expectation of first daughters’ mental health to be strong and in Louisa’s case, physically too.

“Give her all the heavy things we can't shoulder”: I immediately heard,“She can handle anything we can’t.”

“Pressure like a grip, grip, grip, and it won't let go“: The pressure is too much to shake off. It follows wherever Louisa goes.

“I hide my nerves and it worsens”: The neglect of first daughters’ emotions by their families and themselves(because they’re taught it’s what they have to do) can lead to negative effects later. Hence “it worsens”, it referring to their mental health.

“I worry something is gonna hurt us”: Forced into a love-hate relationship with their families. “I hate all the things I’m made to do but I still care about you and I want to protect you. I want us to be protected.”

“I think about my purpose, Can I somehow preserve this?”: It’s already hard as it is for first daughters to keep up, but will they be able to keep up the facade in the long-run? That it’s difficult and tiring. That they’re not okay.

“Line up the dominoes A light wind blows You try to stop it tumbling But on and on it goes“: The dominoes represent the 1) family’s view of them; one mistake(the wind) and it all crumbles and 2) Their composure. One more mistake and they wouldn’t be able to hold it all back.

“If I could shake the crushing weight Of expectations would that free some room up for joy?Or relaxation? Or simple pleasure?“: See that tie-back into the neglect of their own lives and emotions for the family?

“'Cause all we know is“: She knows that all of her siblings are dealing with their own luggage. She doesn’t belittle theirs. She knows that all her siblings struggle with their own and that it’s all they’ve ever known.

“Give it to your sister, it doesn't hurt”: It does. We know it does Luisa. I cried because during this whole song they’re running from dangerous things and Luisa always saved them both and Maribel looks like she is genuinely scared and feels sorry for her.

“See if she can handle every family burden Watch as she buckles and bends but never breaks No mistakes“: It’s hard. She struggles but always comes through because she isn’t allowed to make mistakes. These lines could refer to her mental health and her composure. She may struggle (buckles and bends) but she never loses her composure (but never breaks).

“Give it to your sister and never wonder If the same pressure would've pulled you under“: Their siblings never have to wonder and experience the torture they go through. They’ll never know what it’s like in her shoes. 

“No cracks, no breaks No mistakes No pressure“: What it looks like on the outside. This is powerful especially because it’s at the end. At the end of the day, they’re expected to be perfect. No room for mistakes.

The Washington Post

washingtonpost.com

Malia Obama Is Going to Harvard — But Taking a Year Off First

By Helena Andrews-Dyer Reliable Source May 1

Malia Obama will take a gap year off before attending Harvard University. The White House announced that eldest daughter Malia Obama will attend Harvard University after taking a gap year. The wait is finally over. On Sunday, the White House announced that eldest daughter Malia Obama will attend Harvard University

But the Sidwell Friends senior, 17, will not be heading to Cambridge, Mass. this coming fall.

“Malia will take a gap year before beginning school,” read the statement from President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama released late Sunday morning by the East Wing. This means Malia will not attend Harvard until the fall of 2017 as a member of the Class of 2021.

Don’t you feel old?

In September, President Obama shared some advice he had given college-bound Malia: Don’t worry too much about which school you choose — advice that the rest of the world has completely ignored.

The where-will-she-go fever hadn’t died down since Malia made headlines in 2014 by wearing a Stanford University T-shirt on a bike ride with her dad. The wild guessing game was immediately on, with first-family watchers piecing together clues and parsing her visits to more than a dozen colleges.

Would she attend any of her parents’ alma maters? Head to California to get a slice of West Coast living? Or stay closer to the District, where the post-White House Obamas will park until Sasha, 14, graduates from high school?

The first daughters have grown up a lot during their years in the White House. At times, Malia’s road to college felt a lot like basketball superstar Lebron James’s massively hyped 2010 NBA decision. But on Sunday morning, there was no booming announcer declaring over the loudspeaker: “And Malia has decided to take her talents to…” Instead, the White House emailed reporters a two-sentence news release on the traditional May 1 deadline to declare acceptance.

Although the president and the first lady adopted a code of silence about Malia’s specific choice, they did publicly share the advice they gave their eldest as she navigated the college-admissions process. According to the Obamas the topic was a regular part of the family’s nightly dinner conversation.

“The one thing I’ve been telling my daughters is that I don’t want them to choose a name,” Michelle Obama told the editors of Seventeen magazine in an article published in April. “I don’t want them to think, ‘Oh, I should go to these top schools.’ We live in a country where there are thousands of amazing universities. So the question is: What’s going to work for you?”

The first lady, a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, was echoing advice similar to what the president, a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law, said he had given Malia. “Just because it’s not some name-brand, famous, fancy school doesn’t mean that you’re not going to get a great education there,” Obama told a group of high-schoolers in September.

The White House, which has closely guarded the details of Malia and Sasha’s comings and goings, had no further comment on Malia’s college choice or why she has decided to take a “gap year,” a sabbatical of sorts between graduating from high school and heading off to college.

The first daughter’s standardized test scores and grade-point average have not been released. Thus far there is no official word on just what Malia, who turns 18 this summer, plans to do during her gap year, but her interest in film is widely known. (She has interned for the CBS series “Extant” and HBO’s “Girls.”) In the past, the Obamas have described their firstborn as scholarly — an “avid reader,” her mother said; the kind of student who was unhappy with average grades, her father noted.

The bar for Malia’s and her sister’s behavior has always been high. As the first children to grow up in the White House during the age of social media, Michelle Obama has warned her daughters of the danger of a “bratty” moment being caught on video, shared with millions and shaping their public images without their control.

In the rare moments that Malia’s image has spread on social media, the spontaneous snapshots have been relatively innocuous. A photo she sent a friend wearing a branded T-shirt for the rap collective Pro Era was shared widely in 2015, as was a 2014 photo of her at the Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago.

The most memorable moment, though, was a grainy image of Malia attending a college party during a visit to Brown University. She was standing next to what to be a beer-pong table covered in those tell-tale red Solo cups.

After the image surfaced, the country’s collective willingness to protect the privacy of the president’s daughters was made evident in an editorial titled “Sorry, Malia Obama” that ran in the Brown Daily Herald, the student newspaper at Brown University.

“It is a shame that Malia was unable to visit Brown and enjoy herself at a party without several news headlines coming out about it the next day,” the editorial read.

“Malia did not choose to grow up in the White House, and it is unfair that everything she does at just 17 years old is subject to such harsh scrutiny,” continued the editorial, also acknowledging that “the chances of her selecting Brown have probably decreased since the publication of those articles.”

There’s no way of telling whether the tweets and Instagram photos trailing Malia’s well-documented college tour actually affected her decision. But at a recent White House event, the first lady noted that the fishbowl of living in Washington was wearing on her daughters. Michelle Obama said, “The older they got, the less excited they were about living in a museum, and they just wanted to live in a regular home.”

Malia will get her chance — sort of — when she becomes a “regular” college freshman next year, and, yes, there’s an asterisk. When she settles on campus, Malia will most likely be accompanied by Secret Service officers, who would then continue to be responsible for protecting her (although for now it is unclear whether Obama will extend the Secret Service protection to his daughters before he leaves office).

But there is one rite of passage for every newly minted adult that the first lady is certain Malia will pass: doing her own laundry. Mrs. Obama made sure of that.

“I don’t want her to be that kid who is 15 or 16, and [she’s saying], ‘Oh, I don’t know how to do laundry.’ I would cringe if she became that kid,” said the first lady in a 2011 interview with Oprah Winfrey, emphasizing that she wanted both of her daughters to learn how to handle “their own business.”

“And you’re not living in the White House forever,” said Mrs. Obama. “You’re going to college.”

Helena Andrews-Dyer is the co-author of The Reliable Source. Send your hot tips, sightings, and gossip to [email protected]. Follow @helena_andrews