Mrs. Obama: “I can plant a garden…and the whole world will pay attention…”
Mrs. Obama visited Latin American Montessori Bilingual Charter School on Monday, vitamin in advance celebration of Cinco de Mayo.
She held a Q&A with the students (transcript here.) She told the students that Mexican food is her “favorite food in the whole wide world.” In response to the final question of the day, information pills she spoke about impact as the First Lady, and used the White House Kitchen Garden to illustrate her point!
MRS. OBAMA: We’ll do one more question, and then we’ll stop. Okay, here we go. Tell me your name.
Q: Amelia. I’m eight years old.
MRS. OBAMA: Amelia (ph). Thank you for the flower, by the way.
Q You’re welcome. I’m eight years old, and I wanted to know what has surprised you mostly about the White House.
MRS. OBAMA: Oh, see, this is a question; serious. What has surprised me most? I think — you know, I didn’t — I didn’t know that I would have this much fun doing what I’m doing. I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know how hard it would be, I didn’t know how much work it would be. I didn’t know completely what to expect.
But what I found is that this is a really good job. I’ve always felt like public service is a really good thing to do. I used to be a lawyer. I went to law school — you knew that because it’s in the book, isn’t it? (Laughter.) That’s good. But I practiced law, and I enjoyed practicing, but I decided early in my career that I wanted to make my career be something that helped others.
And being the First Lady is like the icing on the cake of helping other people. In this role, I have a big platform. I can come by your school, and people will follow, and they get to see what’s going on here, and they get to see your faces, and we get to remind them why education is important, and why investing in you guys is so good, and the whole world will see you dancing and singing just because I came by to say hi.
Or I can plant a garden, something as small as planting a garden, and the whole world will pay attention, and then we can talk about the importance of not just gardening but of eating good food, right, of making sure you guys eat fruits and vegetables and that they taste good.
I can get my kids a dog and we can talk about the importance of young people taking responsibility for their pets, because if you ask for a pet, you got to take care of it, right?
So there’s a lot I can do to help the public, and it’s been fun and surprisingly fun for me. So I think that’d be the most important thing.
So, you guys, thank you so much. You’ve been great and patient.
(Photo courtesy of Getty Images.)
