Michelle Obama had to fight to keep some normalcy for her daughters while living in the White House, including pushing back against “crazy” schedules.
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Michelle Obama is opening up about figuring out life and motherhood in the White House.
In an interview on Keke Palmer’s podcast, Obama spoke about helping her and former President Barack Obama’s daughters navigate the White House at a young age. Malia Obama was 10 when Barack Obama became president, while Sasha Obama was 7, marking two of the youngest residents in the White House in decades.
“With them, it was really just trying to keep them focused on their lives. They could never miss school or something that they had to do for school because something cool was happening right at the White House,” Obama said on “Baby, This is Keke Palmer” Tuesday, May 19. “They only traveled with us on their breaks – so summers, and there’s spring break when they weren’t at camp – so the goal was to make their lives as normal as possible.”
To maintain normalcy, Obama said they encouraged their daughters to do typical things with their friends, including going to sleepovers and bar mitzvahs. She added that inviting friends over to the White House took getting used to for the girls.
Michelle Obama recalls why she told White House team ‘don’t ever do that’
One thing Obama learned early on was that administrative changes needed to be made in order for the girls to fulfill their roles as “little diplomats,” recalling their first trip as the first family to Russia.
“They maybe slept for three hours on the plane with jet lag. And I had to go in and wake them up knowing that they hadn’t had sleep,” Obama said. “I was like, this is crazy. I told [Barack], ‘This is ridiculous.'”
After stepping off the plane, greeting the Russian people and getting in a limousine headed for the Kremlin, the girls were having a tough time. That’s when “mama bear” came out, Obama said.
“Malia says, ‘I’ve never felt this bad in my whole life.’ And I said, ‘Honey, that’s jet lag,'” she said. “After that trip, we told our team, ‘Don’t ever do that. Don’t plan a trip that if we land, the kids have to work right away.’ So from then on it was like, if they haven’t had their sleep, they’d get in a separate car and go to the hotel.”
Obama said she had to factor in that the staff at the time were young and didn’t have kids of their own, leading to “long, messy conversations” about scheduling children versus adults. That included preparing the Secret Service to handle their daughters’ Saturday night schedule when they got older.
“It’s a teenage schedule, and it’s kind of chaotic, but you’re making them drive in your car. So now you have to adapt to how they live,” she said. “They have to be polite, but they can’t be held back because somebody has to make a shift change.”
She added, “I don’t need freedom every second. I can operate with a clear schedule. My kids are not going to be forced to do that in their developmental years. They need to learn to live life.”
Advocating for her children came after years of “practice” and finding her voice, she said.
“You have to teach people what your rules are,” she added. “And so that takes a minute, but we did it at a high level.”
