Maryland’s first lady Dawn Moore on being a mom trying to ‘raise amazing human beings’ in the limelight

When Dawn Moore was growing up, her parents took her into the voting booth. She still remembers the polling place, a school across the street from where they lived in Queens, New York.

“I learned the importance of advocacy and the importance of community and involvement, and your voice — what your voice can do to not just help yourself, but to help others,” Moore said.

Sitting in Government House earlier this month, she recounted her late father’s career as a crane operator who helped clear the wreckage after 9/11 and her mother’s recent retirement from teaching. She also spoke about her role in Annapolis, both as a mom and as a political partner.

Moore became the state’s first Black first lady last year, during her husband Gov. Wes Moore’s historic swearing-in as Maryland’s first Black governor.

“There is an expectation of modern first ladies,” she said of her duty to fulfill campaign promises by the governor’s side. No stranger to politics, she sees herself today as a “connector and a convener.”

Moore is also mothering the couple’s own young children, Mia and James, in the limelight — where carving out family time and maintaining privacy is an intentional effort.

“Sometimes we’re going to be able to have fun and hang out and do things that even friends can do,” she said of her outlook on parenting. “But I truly believe my first and foremost responsibility is to raise amazing human beings, and that sometimes I’m going to have to make the hard decision as a parent that may not be so popular with my kids.”

‘The best blind date we ever had’

Moore had childhood dreams of becoming a pediatrician and then a lawyer, after realizing her dislike of blood and needles made the former “not the best fit.”

She ultimately studied government and politics at the University of Maryland, graduating in 1997 and assembling a resume that boasts stints working for powerful Democrats, including former Gov. Parris Glendening, former Secretary of State John Willis, then-Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, former Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown and former Gov. Martin O’Malley.

She’s served on the boards of nonprofits like iMentor, a student mentoring program with multiple hubs across the country, including in Baltimore, and is an active member of Baltimore Center Stage’s board of trustees, where she co-chaired last year’s gala.

“I grew up in a very musical family,” Moore said, explaining her connection to the arts. Her father was a drummer and her mother, who taught music for a time, is a singer. For holidays like Mother’s Day or Christmas, the family would sometimes see a Broadway show or go to a museum. 

It was family members of the Moore couple who set her up with the Rhodes scholar and military man, back when she was working on Townsend’s 2002 campaign for governor. The pair met over coffee at The Diner in D.C., for what became an hours-long date.

“We sort of joke and we say it was like the best blind date we ever had,” Dawn Moore, 48, said after a boisterous laugh.

In 2005, the couple were wed in Las Vegas by an Elvis Presley impersonator while her now-husband was on leave from deployment in Afghanistan. Two years later, the Moores had a destination-themed wedding in D.C.

“We are 100% in a partnership … as husband and wife, as mother and father,” she said. “You sort of do feel different when you get married. And I remember we had that different feeling.”

Tackling the role with ‘grace, humility’

Now with her husband solidly in his second year as governor, Dawn Moore has also been busy.

Last year, she spoke publicly about being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in her late 20s. She had developed issues with her vision, sense of taste and even her gait — but remembers being told by a doctor that she was likely suffering a “nervous breakdown.”

“I was nowhere near that,” she said. “As a woman, maybe even as a Black woman, I felt like I wasn’t really listened to when I was sharing what I was going through.”

She’s credited her mother with pushing for an understanding of what was actually going on. Initially, Moore managed her condition with medication. In October, she announced that she’d been off of it for nine years, her MS in remission.

It’s a story she said conveys “the importance of understanding how to advocate for yourself.” It’s only one way the first lady is using her platform to connect with others.

Earlier this year, she joined Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller before the House Economic Matters Committee to speak in support of the Families Serve Act of 2024, which her husband sponsored and recently signed into law — a rare moment in recent decades in which a first lady testified in support of Maryland legislation, according to Miller’s office.

“She’s empowering. She’s insightful. And she’s stunning,” the lieutenant governor said in a written statement. “She’s tackled the role of [the first lady] of Maryland with grace, humility.”

As first lady, Moore chairs the nonprofit Foundation for the Preservation of Government House of Maryland, which she said oversees the history and conservation of the official Annapolis residence that dates to 1870  — in partnership with the Government House Trust — and also involves organizing gatherings like a networking event for military spouses that she co-hosted in February.

Moore breaks her interests as first lady into four “pillars,” which she said she chose to align with her husband’s priorities and her own life experiences: military families, children’s mental health, women’s economic empowerment, and arts and culture.

“I am a military spouse, so that is a natural fit for me. I am a parent, and so children’s mental health and the future of our children, that is a natural fit for me,” she said.

Her family’s ‘fiercest protector’

For Mia, 12, and Jamie, 10, Moore has strict social media rules: no TikTok, Instagram or Facebook.

“I really try to follow the science,” the first lady said. “I actually send Mia in particular articles about what it’s doing to young girls at her age. … I would be doing my kids a disservice if I gave them everything they thought they wanted.”

Privacy is important to Moore, who said that’s why there aren’t endless photos of her kids online. “We would never trot our children out as a dog and pony show,” she said.

The governor called his wife their family’s “fiercest protector.”

But the kids are naturally social, their mother said, and are included in conversations about what they want to participate in publicly — sometimes front and center — and what they don’t.

“The kids are invited to everything, and they’re required to do nothing. There’s not a single meeting I have that the kids cannot attend if they want to,” the governor said, recalling a time when his son sat in on a meeting with former Raven Ed Reed.

Miller, who has three adult daughters of her own, said being part of the first family carries with it a “deep profoundness,” but also challenges.

“One of the biggest challenges of parenting in the public eye is that your children have to share you with the public,” she said. “This is hard because children grow up so fast and you want to relish every opportunity with them.”

Miller called the first lady an “excellent mother” who is “gentle, patient and loving.”

“She’s not just a role model for other mothers,” the lieutenant governor said, but also for her two children.

‘If it’s not scheduled, it’s not happening’

The Moores’ front lawn at Government House is like many other families’ yards, dotted with sports equipment and dog toys.

The family spends time together going to Orioles games (the governor said his son wants to play first base for the team) and taking their dog, Tucker Balti Moore, on walks to get ice cream on Main Street in Annapolis.

Most mornings, the first lady commutes with her children to Baltimore, where they attend school. The Moores took advice from New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and his wife, Tammy, who have four children and suggested the couple keep their kids enrolled where they were prior to moving to Annapolis.

“From our earliest conversations with Dawn and Wes, it was clear that they were fully committed to their family, ready to take on the challenges of balancing public service while being the best parents possible to Mia and James,” first lady Tammy Murphy told The Baltimore Sun in a statement.

The Moores are intentional about planning family time — “you come to realize that if it’s not scheduled, it’s not happening,” the governor said, emphasizing that the kids’ schedules are on the calendar.

But some parts of the job can’t be planned — like when the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed March 26, prompting a multi-agency response and long days for the governor in Baltimore.

The Moore kids weren’t kept in the dark.

“We definitely felt it was very important to explain to them what had happened. To understand what was taking so much of daddy’s time,” the first lady said.

Other times, the unforeseen happens within the family.

While attending the White House Correspondents’ Dinner at the end of April, the first lady got a phone call that Mia had fallen while with a friend, and she needed to go to the hospital. She left the event first, but the governor joined soon after, she said.

“We definitely quickly knew what the order of operation should be in that moment,” she said, prefacing the story by noting she’d gotten her daughter’s permission to tell it and adding that Mia’s now “doing really well.”

“But we both knew we were going to be there.”