When I was little, I wanted to be a mother, because that's who I saw. I saw my mom caring for me. I didn't play doctor. I didn't play lawyer. I didn't have those visions until I was in college, meeting people who were doing those things. That's why we're trying to encourage moms, teachers, fathers, to be that presence in their children's lives, in their communities, because it really makes a difference.
I want to feel like the things I did made a difference. That's one of the reasons I spend time greeting people on rope lines, because I'm always thinking, 'Maybe this interaction, particularly if I'm meeting kids, will change someone's life.' That's how I think about the work I do as First Lady. It's a rare spotlight. I want to make sure I don't waste it.
I was out there meeting with a lot of working moms and whenever I would gather a group of women, there was always a voice that was unfamiliar to me, and it was the voice of a military spouse, oftentimes a woman, oftentimes working, many times in a position where they've had to move every two or three years, where their kids have had to change school multiple times, people dealing - families dealing with multiple deployments, dealing with the stresses of reconnection.
I had the honor of meeting a young Pakistani woman named Malala Yousafzai, who was shot and nearly killed just for trying to go to school. I also heard about how nearly 300 girls in Nigeria were kidnapped from their school dorms in the middle of the night. There are girls like this in every corner of the globe. In fact, there are more than 62 million girls worldwide not attending school, and that's an outrage.
Follow AzQuotes on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Every day we present the best quotes! Improve yourself, find your inspiration, share with friends
or simply: