Jill Biden, first lady, working teacher and doctor despite whoever weighs her
Jill Biden, the new first lady of the United States, will make history by keeping her teaching job despite the demands of her new role, in which she will surely mark a stark contrast to her predecessor, Melania Trump.
Jill Biden, 69, has dedicated her life to education. She began as a high school teacher for children with special needs and during her husband's vice presidency in 2009 she balanced a busy institutional schedule with her job teaching English at a college in Virginia, where as first lady she will continue to serve as her work.
That decision, that of continuing to maintain her professional independence, in addition to remaining in charge of the first lady's office, is historic.
"It's hard for me to view my decision in historical terms, because I already taught for eight years as second lady," she explained last month in an interview with comedian Stephen Colbert.
Despite the intense political career of Joe Biden, who tried to run for the Presidency on several occasions and was Barack Obama's vice president for eight years, Jill has developed her career as a teacher and during this difficult year has been a defender of the importance of educators during the pandemic.
The first lady herself earned a doctorate in education in 2007, a degree she worked toward for six years but recently came under misogynistic criticism from a Wall Street Journal opinion columnist.
The column, full of sexist comments, criticized Jill Biden - who has publicly said that her doctorate is one of her proudest achievements - for publicly using that honorary title she possesses, despite not being "a doctor or having helped bring someone into the world.
Former first lady Michelle Obama responded to those criticisms by recalling that "there is no better example" of a hard-working person than Jill.
"For eight years I watched Dr. Jill Biden do what many professional women do on a daily basis. Successfully manage more than one responsibility, from her duties as a teacher to her official duties in the White House to her role as a mother, wife and friend. Michelle Obama noted.
That attack is an appetizer of what awaits Jill Biden in the White House, shaping a sometimes thankless role, which has been treated within the corsets traditionally reserved for women and that other first ladies have wanted to reform.
Jill and Joe met in 1975 on a date set up by Jill's brother. Jill was still finishing her English degree at the University of Delaware and was separating from her first husband. Joe Biden had just spent three hard years after the death of his first wife, Neilia Hunter Biden, in a traffic accident, in which his daughter Naomi also died, still a baby.
The two were married in 1977 in a low-key Catholic ceremony at the United Nations chapel in New York.
Jill came to replace the emptiness of the Biden family to become, not only the wife of the then senator, but also a mother for his children, Beau and Hunter. "She put the pieces back together. She gave me my life and a family back," Joe Biden said in an interview.
After four years of marriage, their only daughter was born: Ashley Biden, an activist and social worker very close to the newly inaugurated president.
Jill, who grew up in a middle-class family in Philadelphia, has tried to maintain a low-key, independent role from the politics she has lived through on a daily basis for decades, first in her husband's years as a senator and later as vice president.
Her students call her "Doctor B" and soon they will face the dilemma of dealing with the first lady of the United States, who will combine a work schedule that could prioritize issues such as the fight against cancer, the coronavirus pandemic or childhood. .
