First lady enjoys her ‘boring’ life, stay-at-home dates — and help from mom

You would think that the pressures of the presidency and the intense public scrutiny that comes with living in the White House would be tough on a marriage. Not so, says first lady Michelle Obama.

“We haven't found this to be stressful on our family,” Mrs. Obama told TODAY’s Matt Lauer in the second half of an extensive White House interview that aired Thursday.

The first lady credited a number of factors for keeping the tension level down, starting with the fact that her mother is living with the family in the White House to help out. Then there’s all the staff she has, from housekeepers to chefs, to make daily life easier... Read the full story.

Related stories:

• Michelle Obama: What you see is the real me
• Discuss: Do you think Michelle Obama's initiative to combat childhood obesity will make a difference?
  

A single mother might face criminal charges for putting her child before service. U.S. Army cook Alexis Hutchinson, 21, skipped her flight to be deployed to Afghanistan, insisting she had no family members who could care for her 10-month-old son. Her mother was originally scheduled to help take care of the baby, but later realized she couldn’t handle the responsibility.

According to the AP, Hutchinson’s civilian attorney said that one of Hutchinson's superiors told her she would have to deploy anyway and place the child in foster care. Hutchinson refused — she felt she couldn’t “abandon” her child. A spokesman for the Army, however, said the Army generally doesn’t deploy single parents and that they need a care plan for dependent children before going to a combat zone. In this situation, the plans fell through.

What do you think? Should single parents get special consideration? Would it undermine the system if moms received more leniency? Share your thoughts.

How can one make some money just by carpooling their kids to school? Some savvy stay-at-home moms have found a new way to earn extra cash – by turning their cars into mobile advertising media. Is it a smart opportunity or an intrusive form of advertising?

Find out how the business works and why some moms are earning easy money just for going through their usual routine.

‘She talked of escaping, but there’s no way she would have left her boys’

A woman who has known a missing Utah woman and her husband since the couple were married eight years ago is not surprised that Josh Powell has been named a person of interest in his wife Susan’s disappearance, saying that his increasingly controlling behavior had put the couple’s marriage on the rocks.

“His story just doesn’t add up,” Rachel Marini told TODAY’s Ann Curry Monday from her home in American Fork, Utah. “I think it was only a matter of time before it came to this.”... Read the full story.

Related stories:
Video: Friend shares story of missing Utah mom

How do you solve a problem like the economy?

Let moms handle it!

A group of women in Michigan — armed with “mom intuition” — joined forces to creatively tackle the state’s pressing money woes. Without raising taxes or cutting back on education, they helped the state save $1.09 billion, by such measures as ending the state fair, closing several prison camps and reducing revenue-sharing payments to local governments. Find out how they did it:

Some $10,000 was raised at a Waco, Texas, benefit for Trista Joy Lathern, who claimed she was having chemotherapy for breast cancer, even shaving her head. Instead, she got a boob job. When donor Diana Teichelman found out, "It felt like someone socked me in the gut." Read the full story.

TODAY’s Meredith Vieira talks to a victim of the scam and Chief Deputy Randy Plemons about the tall tale. Watch their discussion: