Former first lady Michelle Obama said she was intentional in raising her daughters while they navigated a life under intense public scrutiny while their father, President Barack Obama, served in the White House.
President Obama meets with Melinda French Gates Her PodcastIn a video titled “Moments that Shaped Us,” she spoke about her experiences raising Malia and Sasha, saying she learned a lot from the way her mother, Marian Robinson, raised her. Robinson passed away in May at age 86.
“My mother was very intentional and started by consciously seeing us not as babies that she owned, but as human beings that she was raising as independent beings in the world,” Obama said, “and I think I share that philosophy. I’ve never felt like my job was to create a mini-me or to create people who would live out the wounds that were inside of me.”
Obama said she set boundaries with her daughters and never expected them to see her as a friend, but that those boundaries helped them become friends as they grew up.
“Let your kids be hurt, let them fail, let them pick themselves up and win, because that’s for them, because that’s what they’re doing right now and I’m not aligned with them,” she said.
Obama’s eldest daughters, Malia, are 26 and Sasha, 23.
“Especially as the daughter of a former president, I want to raise them to be independent, respectable young people,” Obama said.
“They had to learn to balance unwanted attention but do it civilly, to build a life for themselves that was in the spotlight but wasn’t consumed by it,” she said. “They quickly had to become smart, confident and independent, even though they lived in a house with butlers and maids and florists. But I was raising them with the idea that, ‘You’re not going to live here with me forever.'”
