Deborah Orr: A sure sign of change: a young family is in the White House

One of the charming sub-plots of the Obama ascendancy has been the all the high-profile fretting about the children that the president-elect and his dads' army have indulged in. David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, has indicated that he wishes to step back now, because he has a baby coming. Rahm Emanuel may have decided that he would accept the position of Chief of Staff, but not before declaring: "I got a lot to weigh: my commitment to my country, as well as what I want to do as a parent. I have a decision to make about my family."

Obama himself has been no slouch on all this stuff either, having talked in his book, The Audacity of Hope, about "clipped phone conversations with my wife who had stuck by me so far but was pretty fed up with raising our children alone and was beginning to question my priorities". These strains were apparent before Obama had even run for the Senate, a decision he says his wife agreed to "perhaps more out of pity than conviction ... though she also suggested that given the orderly life she preferred for our family, I shouldn't necessarily count on her vote."

Michelle Obama certainly appeared to have swung behind her husband now, and has been quick to emphasise: "Even as First Lady, my No 1 job is still to be Mom. At seven and 10, our daughters are young. My first priority will be to ensure they stay grounded and healthy, with normal childhoods – including homework, chores, dance and soccer."

Much has been made of the fact that children younger than the Obama daughters, Malia and Sasha, have not taken up residence in the White House since John F Kennedy became president in 1961. But even that comparison underplays the singularity of the Obama family's situation. Apart from the Kennedy children, Caroline and John, no child under 10 has lived in the White House since Theodore Roosevelt became president in 1901 and moved in with his brood of six, including Quentin, four, and Archie, seven. Since he remains, at 42, the youngest ever president of the US (beating Kennedy by one year), the infancy of his children was hardly surprising.

For a younger presidential child than Quentin, you have to look to Warren G Harding, who had a two-year-old illegitimate daughter, Elizabeth, when he became president in 1921. But he didn't acknowledge her, although he made a financial contribution to her support, and she never set foot in the White House.

Kennedy's record as a family man is little less tainted than Harding's. It is not contested that Kennedy was a doting father. But he could hardly be accused of being a committed family man. There may have been a tree-house on the White House lawn. But Jackie Kennedy and her children spent most of their time in Virginia, in part because, as a secret service agent on presidential detail told the investigative reporter Seymour Hersh: "When she (Jackie) was there, it was no fun. He just had headaches. You really saw him droop because he wasn't getting laid. He was like a rooster getting hit with a water hose."

Whatever surprises this fascinating new presidency may throw up, there has never been the smallest suggestion that the Obamas are anything more or less than the close-knit and committed family they appear to be. And while much has rightly been made of the fact that they are the first black family to have moved into the White House in US history, it is fairly astonishing too that they are the first couple with young children to have got there since American women – and black people – got the vote. Many Democrats, as the presidential race began, may have hoped that it would end in the inauguration of the first female president of the US. But anyone interested in the advancement of gender equality can surely console themselves with the prospect of observing this thoroughly modern family as it wrestles with the parental authority figure of all work-life balance challenges.

The fact that Obama and his close colleagues are so aware of the needs of their children, and sensitive to the demands that their duties place on the rest of their families, is important. One of the regrettable aspects of 20th-century feminism – which was shaped so much by the contributions of American women – was that the attempts of moderate feminists to promote active fatherhood and equal parenting achieved perverse results. It is easy for us in Britain to be cynical. We've become used to prime ministers who rely on their accomplished wives to accommodate the demands of high office with the demands of young children, and any admiration they have received for doing this has been grudging, to say the least. One further aspect of this presidency will be seeing whether the US manages a different and more useful response.

From queen of spend, spend, spend to thrift guru

Six months ago, my friend the writer India Knight swore me to secrecy and announced that she was working flat out on a book about thrift. Since Knight is one of the most dazzlingly extravagant women I have ever known, it was hard to keep the secret. Every sinew in my body strained to rush about sharing this grand absurdity with anyone who knew her well enough to roar with laughter along with me for half an hour or so.

Now, the book is about to be published, and I'm free to talk. I'm also laughing on the other side of my face. It's not just Knight's timing that is impeccable. It's her delivery as well. Her opus, called The Thrift Book, is a triumphant treat, and also a useful and sensible manual.

From the off, Knight makes no secret of the fact that she's has never faced huge problems with getting money. Her problem has always been managing it. Knight has spent magnificently throughout her adult life, whether she was spending wages, overdrafts, loans, or money that should have been set aside for tax. Her friends knew that bailiffs featured regularly in her life only because sometimes one of us would be at her place when a pair of them called. She never talked about money, or complained about it. She only got rid of it, with bewildering, even mystifying, efficiency.

The credit crash came early for Knight, when she found herself earning more than she'd earned in her life, but under almost inescapable threat of bankruptcy. Finally, she admits, she grew up, and started to work out what was going on. She approached this problem like she does every problem in her life, and concentrated on making living more modestly into wit and fun.

The result is packed with money-saving ideas that you want to do yourself because they sound not just like a laugh, but also like things that healthy, decent, moral people ought to be doing anyway, because they are positive all round. One can still raise a wry smile, though, at the final paradox of The Thrift Book. Knight squandered any the money she's likely to make from it years ago. She spent, so that we could save.

Lateral thinking

If the grim recession of the 1980s taught us one crucial thing, it was that unemployment and heroin made toxic partners. Back then, many failed to listen to the Government advertising campaign warning: "Heroin really screws you up." Yet, successive governments have neither solved the problems nor changed their general strategies. So the news that the chaos in Afghanistan is leading to huge increases in the supply of heroin in Britain should concentrate the minds of all those who see Afghanistan's troubles as remote. They are not remote, and their impact is set to become even greater.

Has the time not yet come for a radical change of policy over drugs in Afghanistan? Can't the international community at least consider purchasing Afghan opium directly from farmers, and processing it into pharmaceutical products? Better still, why can't some effort be made to establish a legitimate pharmaceutical industry in the country that grows this important commodity?

Will the breathless anticipation never end? Now the world awaits an introduction to the new White House puppy, uncertain about anything at all, except that all those pinning their hopes on a pit bull called Sarah are likely to experience bitter disappointment.

More from Deborah Orr