Presidential aide Michael Strautmanis posed with his family in front of the White House. They are from left, his wife, Damona, holding their daughter, Nia;
Michael Damani Strautmanis, 17; and J. Jori Strautmanis,14.
On Father's Day, Obama Aide Reflects on Raising a Black Daughter in America
By Hazel Trice Edney
(TriceEdneyWire.com) – Michael Strautmanis’ job as a top aide at the White House involves the lofty tasks of helping to coordinate communications strategies, advising the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, and generally assisting as a deputy to President Obama’s senior advisor Valerie Jarrett.
But, as Father’s Day approaches, the attorney, native Chicagoan, and long-time associate and protégé of the President and First Lady, reflects on the strategies involved in his greatest calling. That is being a father to three children – including a 5-year-old daughter, Nia – who will grow up in a nation where the denigration of Black women is enculturated. Although he realizes the importance of a father’s love and affirmation, Strautmanis strongly believes in the “village” approach.
“I think that as long as I make sure that the people who are in my daughter’s life, they share my values and they care for her, I can’t do everything anyway,” Strautmanis says in an interview with the Trice Edney News Wire. “I like to make sure that we are surrounded by a village who can help raise our children.”
Strautmanis spends time with Nia when she’s playing soccer, doing gymnastics or just painting at home. But, it’s also important to just be together in down time, he says.
“I try to, every time I can, take her to school and pick her up from school so we can ride in the car together. I just want her to be with me and I think when she’s with me I can pass on my values to her. And two, I can be a model; not only the way she is supposed to treat others but the way she should expect to be treated herself.”
Black women are constantly bombarded with negative media images of themselves. This includes standards of beauty that glorifies typical European physical features. These images, coupled with negative stereotypes of Black women, can be a blow to a Black girl’s self-esteem – unless she has voices that counteract the negative and re-affirm her self-esteem.
Strautmanis and his Wife, Damona, a project manager for a commercial real estate company, makes sure that Nia is nourished psychologically and spiritually by the love of her father, but also by positive role models.
“I have a lot of strong women in my life - my mom, my wife, my boss, Valerie Jarrett, and one of my first mentors, the First Lady,” says Strautmanis. “Looking at them, one of the things I’ve learned is that I try to bring my daughter with me into every setting that I’m in. She comes to work with me whenever we can; she’s with me when I’m with my friends, she is with me when I’m at home relaxing watching basketball, and I try to be with her doing the things that she enjoys doing.”
In the midst of all this, Strautmanis also has a role model that he observes very closely. That model is President Obama as he spends time with his daughters, Malia, 12, and Sasha, 10.
“I’ve learned a lot from the President. I’ve learned a lot professionally, but I’ve also learned a lot personally. He’s a mentor to me and I think I’m a better Dad to my daughter because of him as a guide and a role model,” he says. “What I’ve learned from him is that children … His daughters, they need his time. He does spend time with them…But it’s not just in the time that he spends with them; it’s what he does with that time. In the few times that I’ve been around him when he’s with his daughters, he listens to them, he pays attention to them; he asks them questions which show me that he understands and participates in their daily lives.”
Strautmanis observes how President Obama instills values into his daughters about self-discipline and responsibility. “He asks them about their homework; they talk about their chores. When I see the dog, I see the girls taking care of the dog…Those are the values that he’s passing on to them.”
He segways, “The other thing that I know - and you can see when he’s with them and when he talks about them - is just how unconditionally and how deeply he loves them. And I think it’s important for our girls to know that. I know it’s something that I want my daughter to know. I want my daughter to know that I love her unconditionally. I have standards and values and I have expectations for her to meet and they are high, but that doesn’t impact my deep and continuing and abiding love for her.”
Psychologists say that the father-daughter relationship is invaluable.
"A healthy relationship with their father gives young women the opportunity to base their relationships with men on a foundation of care and nurturing to where they are valued unconditionally," says Dr. R. Dandridge Collins, a Pennsylvania-based psychologist who specializes in family therapy. "When women don't have that crucial frame of reference, when they don't have that positive bond with their dads, they spend the rest of their lives trying to create that."
Inevitably, there will come a time when Nia’s eyes will turn toward another that she wants to spend time with, have fun with and enjoy the company of. When it comes to dating, Strautmanis is clear about his policy: “I will feel comfortable with my daughter dating when she’s about 35,” he says; then breaks into a chuckle.
Realistically, “For my daughter, luckily for her, this is not my decision alone. This will be – as most important decisions are – a decision that I will make with my wife and I,” he says. “I will make that decision in conjunction with advice from both higher powers in my life – my wife and my God.”
That’s another thing. Ultimately, he says, with all that he and his wife might do in raising Nia and their two sons, they are relieved to know that it’s not about perfection because they also have help through their faith: “I’m very spiritual and I think that there are limits to what we can do. I think that God has an important place in our lives and that He has a presence that makes up for our human frailties.”