Michelle Obama joined Oprah Winfrey on the media mogul’s “Oprah’s 2020 Vision: Your Life In Focus” tour on Saturday, which took place at Barclays Center in downtown Brooklyn, New York.
During the discussion, the former first lady talked about a wide range of topics, including her family.
Michelle said that her husband, former President Barack Obama, gets extremely emotional over their daughters Sasha, who’s 18, and 21-year-old Malia. She also said that Barack gets “that ugly loud cry” whenever he thinks about their childhood.
The “Becoming” author revealed that Barack cried at Malia’s graduation, although he tried to hide it behind sunglasses.
The former U.S. senator also shed tears when he and Michelle dropped off Sasha at the University of Michigan last year, where she started as a freshman. Malia, meanwhile, attends Harvard University.
“We bawl like babies,” said Michelle. “When the emotions come is when we are getting in our cars and getting on a plane and leaving our babies. They’re going somewhere where they now live. That’s when it hits you. It’s like we all start choking up.”
Michelle said the emotions involved with dropping her youngest Sasha off to school crept up on her, because before that she was in parental mode and was telling her things like she can’t bring “100 pairs of shoes” to school.
“You’re not thinking about the emotional stuff,” said the woman whom many refer to as the “Forever First Lady.” “The tough part [has been] missing our girls.”
But Michelle didn’t hide the fact that it was difficult at times raising her children and said that, like with most couples, it added weight to her marriage.
“Parenting takes up a lot of emotional space,” she explained. “Raising a family together is a hard thing. It takes a toll. But if you’re with the person, if you know why you are with them, you understand that there was a friendship and a foundation there.”
“You can have chunks of hard, bad times, and if that’s how you define your marriage by just the hard times, then you’ll miss the truth of what’s really there,” Michelle explained.
