For those who can’t get enough tidbits from the President and First Lady about life inside the bubble that is the White House, President Obama was in a giving mood during an interview with Savannah Guthrie of the Today show, talking about how Michelle sometimes has to be a single parent and the dare they are using to keep their daughters from getting tattoos.
The First Lady recently made a verbal gaffe and accidentally called herself a “busy single mother,” prompting an avalanche of how-could-she media commentary. But the president was quick to let her off the hook.
“You know, as somebody who has stumbled over my lines many times, I tend to cut my wife or anybody some slack when it comes to just a slip to the tongue,” Obama said in an interview with TODAY conducted the day before last Monday’s Boston Marathon bombing. “But there’s no doubt that there’ve been times where Michelle probably felt like a single mom.”
He said there were times when he didn’t see Michelle for a week while he was campaigning.
“And she was still working and having to look after the girls. And she definitely, I think, understands the burdens that women in particular tend to feel if they’re both responsible for child rearing and they’re responsible for working at the same time,” he said. “And that’s kept a lot of women not only single, but also married around the country.”
As for preventing Malia, 14, and Sasha, 11, from getting a tattoo, Barack and Michelle have a strategy.
“What we’ve said to the girls is, ‘If you guys ever decided you’re going to get a tattoo, then mommy and me will get the exact same tattoo in the same place. And we’ll go on YouTube and show it off as a family tattoo,’” Obama said. “And our thinking is that might dissuade them from thinking that somehow that’s a good way to rebel.”
The president also had something to say about Barack vs. Michelle on the dance floor—this after Michelle entertained the nation with her “mom dance” moves on Jimmy Fallon’s show in February.
Noting that Michelle has always insisted she’s the better dancer of the two, Obama said, “In private, you know, I can bust a move and I think I’m pretty good. But she tends to hold out when it comes to praise of my dancing.”
Obama also confirmed rumors that he did the Gangnam Style dance during the White House afterparty following his second inauguration.
“Fortunately, we destroyed all the tapes,” he said.
