News that Al and Tipper Gore were splitting up after 40 years of marriage blew up the Internet yesterday. In a carefully worded email sent to friends, and forwarded to the press, the couple announced that “after a great deal of thought we have decided to separate. This is very much a mutual and mutually supportive decision that we have made together, following a process of long and careful consideration.”

Mutual for whom? Al and Tipper didn’t consult us. We should have been consulted! And what is a “mutually supportive” break-up, anyway? She’ll kick in for his bachelor pad if he’ll keep her on his health insurance?

Do you feel the sadness, the confusion, the anger? Along with the rest of the Web, we’re in something of a Kubler-Ross freefall — somewhere between Stage 2 (Anger) and Stage 3 (Bargaining). How could they?

We expected Al and Tipper to stay together forever, making out like teenagers on the world’s stage and proving to the rest of us that when the kids are grown, and the soul-sucking jobs are in the past, romance can — and will — endure. Al and Tipper made it past the hard stuff. Why, then, why are they giving up now? Continue reading »

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‘The girls don’t watch TV during the week.  Period.”  So goes an executive order from our Commander in Chief that he is not likely to rescind any time soon.

The Obamas have a nightly ritual like any other family.  Sasha (8) and Malia (11) dive into their schoolwork after school until dinner–any remaining studying is attended to afterward.   But if the work is done?  No American Idol,  ditto iCarly, and you can forget Drake & Josh.  The TV stays dark.  It’s time to pick up a book…a practice that began when their parents read to them nightly when they were tots.  Bedtime is a strict 8:30 for Sasha and 9 for big sis Malia.

Education and personal responsibility are clearly priorities in the White House.   The girls are awakened by alarm clocks, make their beds and get themselves dressed every morning.  In the Obamas’ no-nonsense style of parenting, their daughters are responsible for getting themselves to school on time.

These are rules that the Obamas feel all parents can easily enforce, regardless of their economic situation.

“There’s no doubt that Michelle and I have more resources and privileges compared with a lot of parents. We understand that,” the President said in an interview appearing in  Esquire’s March issue. “But I don’t care how poor you are — you can turn off the television set during the week.”

Methinks that the Obamas are onto something.  What say you?  Are the First Parents on target or have they gone too far?

Image:  Dailyradar

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Sasha and Malia paid a visit to their mom and dad. But not the Obamas made of flesh and blood, nope this parental unit was made of pure wax. This duo doesn’t live at the White House but rather at Madame Tussaud’s Washington D.C. outpost.

According to an AP report, the two girls giggled at the site of the replicas of their parents and thought is would be “hilarious” if they took photos with the pair. There’s no word if they opted to do so or not. But they didn’t just go there to visit mom and dad.  During their visit they also checked out – and took photos of – Continue reading »

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Michelle and Barack Obama have to be one of the few — if not the only — White House partnership a majority of Americans in my generation can actually relate to.

They’re not super wealthy (at least they weren’t until recently), they graduated college with student loan debt, Michelle tackled work/life issues after having children — controversially giving up a great gig to support her husband’s ambitions. The two get what it’s like to be middle-class, post-Baby Boom, equals. Also, they have young kids.

Add this revelation to the pile: Continue reading »

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