Barack Obama at Lew’s Dairy Freeze in Oregon.

Something caught my eye this morning with the Obama schedule for today:

This morning, President-elect Barack Obama will attend parent teacher conferences at his daughters’ school with his wife Michelle. 

After a meeting with Vice President-elect Joe Biden, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and the Transition Economic Advisory Board, President-elect Obama will hold a 1:30 p.m. (central) press conference at the Hilton Chicago. He will also attend additional transition meetings, receive his daily intelligence briefing, record the Democratic Radio Address, and return additional post-election political and protocol calls. There will be no personnel announcements today.

So, between receiving his first PDB intel briefing this morning, transition/staffing meetings, recording the Democratic radio address and an economic summit, president-elect Barack Obama went with his wife, Michelle, to parent-teacher conferences.

It’s one thing to throw out pitchy slogans about "family values" while you spend your political capital undercutting policies and programs which actually support America’s families as the GOP has done the last few years.  It’s another thing entirely to simply go out there and quietly support your own family, while simultaneously valuing support for the education and well-being of other people’s children by making programs like Head Start and CHIP and others a real priority.  

You know, really putting family first.  

Not just your own family, but other families that need a hand…because valuing them and their needs brings value to all of us.  No idea why, but the idea that the president-elect of the United States values his kids parent-teacher conferences to make them a priority in the midst of so much ambitious hustle and bustle around him just makes me smile.  What a nice change.