Michelle Obama on the challenge she faced raising daughters in the public eye during their dad’s presidency

Michelle Obama has revealed an unexpected challenge during her husband’s presidency that most parents with teenagers don’t have to consider.

Malia and Sasha Obama were 10 and seven years old respectively when their dad, Barack Obama, began his first term as President of the United States in 2009.

The girls grew up in the White House with the world to see for nearly a decade. They were 19 and 16 when Barack’s second term came to an end in 2017.

Now, Michelle has shared one aspect of raising her daughters in the public eye that proved to be “a nightmare”: keeping them out of the tabloids.

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Speaking to host Kelly Ripa on her SiriusXM podcast, Let’s Talk Off Camera with Kelly Ripa, Michelle admitted it “got harder as they got older”.

“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,” she said, speaking of her girls doing all the normal things a teenager would.

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However, she revealed that “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,” referring to the US celebrity site.

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She noted having Secret Service security for her daughters meant as a parent, “you almost have to work twice as hard to make their life normal.”

“Imagine setting up the first play date or the first time the kids get invited to a play date,” she started.

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Sasha and Malia Obama through the years

“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.”

This isn’t the first time Michelle has spoken about the challenges of raising her daughters in the public eye while their dad was president.

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In a 2019 interview with Gayle King, she said they would try to maintain a sense of normalcy and “pretend all the craziness around them wasn’t happening”.

“Yep, yep, your dad’s president, that doesn’t have anything to do with you. Just take your little butt to school,” she would tell the girls. 

Since moving out of the White House in 2017, Malia attended Harvard and has pursued filmmaking while her sister Sasha also lives in Los Angeles and has a degree in sociology. 

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