Michelle Obama was once so “frustrated” with her daughters that she even told them she was done raising them.
The former first lady told “IMO” podcast listeners on Wednesday about the difficult moments with Malia, 27, and Sasha, 24, while her husband Barack Obama was “travelling.”
The 61-year-old man recalled, “I was at home trying to put my girls to bed…They were probably 7 and 3 years old at the time.”
Michelle admitted that her children were “normally great kids” but that they were “naughty” that night.
When “no one was listening” to the lawyer, she announced, “That’s it…I’m done raising kids. You guys seem to have this all figured out, and you can do this on your own. So good luck.”
Michelle and Barack’s eldest son immediately apologized, not knowing what he would do without his mother, but their youngest son had a different reaction.
“She grabbed a blanket and turned around and went back upstairs to watch TV,” Michelle said of her then-toddler. “It’s as if to say, ‘Thank you, God. Finally. This is what I wanted for you, little girl. I’m three years old. This is okay. I’m going back upstairs.’
“She went up five steps and I thought, ‘If I don’t turn around, I have to get off here,'” she continued. “Well, it worked for one, but not for the other.”
Michelle pointed out that this anecdote accurately depicts Malia and Sasha’s current personalities.
“My younger daughter wants to learn in her own way,” the author of “Becoming” explained. “She doesn’t want to be told that’s your way. We tell her, but she has to learn on her own.”
This dynamic made it even more “difficult” for Barack to raise Sasha, Michelle told “IMO” over the summer.
Maria is a people-pleaser, but her sister is not.
“Sasha is like a cat,” Michelle explained in August. “She was like, ‘Don’t touch me, don’t pet me. I’m not pleasing you. You’re coming to me.'”
Michelle and Barack, 64, have learned to “be chameleons” as parents.
The couple married in October 1992 and welcomed Malia in 1998 and Sasha in 2001.
Maria is a Harvard graduate and film director, and her brother earned a degree in sociology from the University of Southern California.
The girls have yet to appear on Michelle and her brother Craig Robinson’s podcast, but Barack appeared as a guest in July.
During the episode, he teased the rampant breakup rumors surrounding his and Michelle’s marriage, quipping that their relationship was “on the rocks for a while.”
