Former United States First Lady, Michelle Obama has opened up about how her daughters’ smoking and drinking habits as they entered their teenage years were a major challenge and test to her as a mother.
Speaking to Kelly Ripa on her podcast, Michelle Obama said that it was such a big test that at one point she questioned her parenting methodology with her daughters.
She revealed that keeping her and husband Barack Obama’s daughters, Malia Obama, 26, and Sasha Obama, 23, out of the tabloids’ headlines during his presidency became especially challenging when they entered their teenage years.
“That was a lot of work,” Michelle told Kelly Ripa on SiriusXM’s Let’s Talk Off Camera with Kelly Ripa, “and it got harder as they got older.”
According to the 61-yesr old, bringing up her daughter Malia and Sasha was easier and quite normal when they were age 10 and 7, respectively.
Life was easy during Obama’s first term in office, but in his second term, it became quite challenging as the daughters approached teenage years, which introduced them to some high school stuff for kids.
“They had to drive and they had to 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,” Michelle recalled, “and 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 (American’s famous celebrity tabloid).”
Michelle said that these behaviors, when they were in the company of fellow teenagers, were more highlighted by the paparazzi to get celebrity juice, and it was a big challenge to hide them from the spotlight to prevent such stories from leaking to blogs.
“When your kids are under the security of the Secret Service, you almost have to work twice as hard to make their life normal,” Michelle continued.
“Imagine setting up the first play date or 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.”
But now that they’re independent adults, Michelle has a new mission when it comes to raising her daughters: making sure they can handle the pressure that comes with their dad being a former president.
“We call that the Obama tax for them,” she quipped. “You’ll have it the rest of your life, but you also have a lot of benefits.”
Michelle continued, “I’m trying to make this feel normal to them, because you don’t want them to start thinking, number one, they’re full of themselves, that any of this is about them, and that their job is to go about their lives.”
by moses sagwe
