Michelle Obama is revealing details about the inner workings of raising two daughters with the former president Barack Obama Obama and it hasn’t been easy to say the least.
On the Aug. 20 episode of her “IMO” podcast, the former first lady and her brother, Craig Robinson, were joined by married couple Dwyane Wade and Gabrielle Union to discuss raising children with different temperaments.
The former first lady gave an example using her own children and explained how Barack found it more “difficult” raising one dauhghter than the other
“When it comes to our oldest, Malia, she is going to figure out who you are, what are you like and let’s discuss. Right?” Michelle said about their oldest daughter, Malia Obama.
She said it’s “unusual” for a young lady growing up but claimed the 27-year-old has “always been that way.”
To further explain her daughter’s personality, she thought back to a moment that took place in the White House during Barack’s presidency.
“When Malia was a teenager,” she said, “it wasn’t that she was going out any less or doing anything differently. She would tell me, ‘I’m going out this weekend, but I’m going to go in and give dad like 15 minutes.’”
“She’d go into the Treaty Room and be like, ‘Tell me about Syria,’” Michelle said and briskly mimicked how Malia would be engaged in the conversation. “And then she’d be like ‘Ok, well I’m gone.”
Michelle said Barack would have a proud reaction and re-enacted him walking out of the room with his chest puffed out before saying, “I just had an amazing conversation with Malia.”
It’s a polar opposite to their youngest daughter, Sasha Obama.
“Sasha is like a cat,” Michelle shared. “She’s like don’t touch me, don’t pet me. I’m not pleasing you. You come to me.”
She said Barack considered Sasha to be more “difficult” than her sister, but she offered a different perspective to her husband of nearly 33 years.
“The first one is a pleaser. It’s just temperamentally they are still like that,” Michelle added.
She explained that one has “to be a chameleon” to understand different temperaments.
“But some people parent to one child or one personality child, but then you have three,” she added.
One person in The Daily Mail comments responded, “So Sasha was a normal teenager and Malia was unusually perceptive and mature. Nothing wrong with that revelation and her honesty is refreshing.”
On Page Six another said, “I love both President and Mrs. Obama and I admire them and their relationship and they are right about children. They are two individuals and you can’t treat them the same, because they are two separate individuals with different personalities.”
The foursome seem to be a tight-knit family now, even though Michelle has described the sisters as going through a phase of sibling tension.
While speaking to Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush on “Today” in 2022, Michelle revealed that her two girls didn’t always get along with each other.
She said she told them, “There was a period of time when they couldn’t stand each other, and I said, ‘You wait, you are going to wake up one day and you’re going to look over at that other person, and you’re going to know that you two share something very unique,’ especially given what they’ve been through.”
The mama bear confirmed that they finally reached that place and are now “each other’s best friends.”
As for raising them period, that was no walk in the park for Michelle and Barack, especially in the years of 2009 and 2017, when Barack was president. They found it difficult because they wanted to maintain some sense of normalcy for their daughters.
“When your kids are under the security of the Secret Service, you almost have to work twice as hard to make their life normal. Imagine setting up the first play date with the first time the kids get invited to a play date. The process of having my children at your house meant that an advanced team had to come and question and search your house and ask if you had drugs and guns.” she said in April on “Let’s Talk Off Camera with Kelly Ripa.”
She said it was even harder when Sasha, 24, and Malia got to be young adults. At that age, they wanted to do what many other people their age might do which is party, drink and smoke.
Michelle said, “We had to work to make sure that them being regular teenagers didn’t wind up on Page Six. So it was a lot of work.”
Great Job J. Jones & the Team @ Atlanta Black Star Source link for sharing this story.
