Michelle Obama lays bare her parenting struggles as she admits Malia and Sasha 'pushed away' from her

Daily Mail​

04-06-2025

Former First Lady Michelle Obama has laid bare her parenting struggles - as she admitted that her kids have distanced themselves from her and her husband, former President Barack Obama.
During a recent appearance on the podcast Sibling Revelry with hosts Kate and Olivia Hudson, Michelle, 61, admitted that daughters Malia Obama and Sasha Obama started 'pushing away' from her and her husband as teens.
The mother-of-two explained that she believes her daughters distanced themselves because they wanted to 'distinguish themselves' from their famous parents as they became adults.
'Where do we begin?' she said when asked about the difficulties she faced while raising two young women in the public eye.
'Our daughters are 26 and 23, they are young adult women. But they definitely went through a period in their teen years… it was the "push away."'
Michelle noted that she has found that this is something that often happens to celebrity kids.
'They're still doing that, and you guys know this of children with parents who are known,' she continued.
'You're trying to distinguish yourself. It's very important for my kids to feel like they've earned what they are getting in the world.'
In an act to make her own path, Malia dropped her last name when she premiered her short film at Sundance in 2024, per OK Magazine.
'We were like, "They're still going to know it's you, Malia,"' Michelle said of her decision.
'But we respected the fact that she's trying to make her way.'
On another podcast with Kelly Ripa, Michelle talked about what it was like to protect her daughters' privacy while Barack was in office.
'That was a lot of work,' she told Kelly on Let's Talk Off Camera with Kelly Ripa. 'And it got harder as they got older.'
As they grew up, she said they 'had to drive and go to prom and they were on teams and they traveled to other schools and they had to do college searches and they went to parties and they had drinks, and they tried out smoking and they did all the things.'
'Every weekend was a nightmare because we had to work to make sure that them being regular teenagers didn't wind up on Page Six,' Michelle added.
She said that her daughters just going to a friend's house required extra measures.
'When your kids are under the security of the Secret Service, you almost have to work twice as hard to make their life normal,' she told Kelly.
'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.'
However, Michelle said her focus has changed now that her daughters are adults.
'We call that the Obama tax for them. You'll have it the rest of your life, but you also have a lot of benefits,' she explained.
'I'm trying to make this feel normal to them because you don't want them to [become] full of themselves, [or think] that any of this is about them and that their job is to go about their lives. This world is not about you. This is just your dad's job.'
In April, on Michelle's podcast called IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson, the mom revealed that she had previously resorted to spanking her daughters - but ultimately changed her approach after realizing how it made her feel.
'I felt silly,' she said. 'It took a couple of spankings for me to be like, yeah, you know what? I don't want to do this anymore.'
She described a moment of reflection that made her reconsider how she was showing up as a parent.
'I felt like, you know, this is a little kid,' she explained. 'And the fact that I can't think of any better way to get my point across than to smack somebody on the butt - I felt embarrassed.'