In his book, Dreams from My Father, Barack pays tribute to his mother:“Her initial efforts centered on education… [She] had arranged to supplement my Indonesian schooling with lessons from a U.S. correspondence course.”
“Her efforts now redoubled. Five days a week, she came into my room at four in the morning, force-fed me breakfast and proceeded to teach me my English lessons for three hours before I left for school and she went to work…”
“It was those sorts of issues, I realize now, less tangible than school transcripts or medical services, that became the focus of her lessons with me. ‘If you want to grow into a human being,’ she would say to me, ‘you’re going to need some values.’”
Source: Barack Obama, Dreams from my Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (Edinburgh: Canongate, 1995, 2007), 47-49.
A review of this book is posted at Reviewing Books and Movies.
Dr Geoff Pound
Image: Barack Obama and his mother.