Michelle Obama is embracing the simple pleasures of life now that she’s no longer in the White House, prompting some surprising self-discoveries.
The former first lady appeared on the “Good Hang with Amy Poehler” podcast on May 13, where she talked about the freedom she feels since being relinquished from the rules of the White House.
The 61-year-old opened up about the bittersweet thought that she is only just now getting to enjoy some of those most precious moments with her and Barack Obama‘s two daughters Malia and Sasha Obama.
Sharing an example of one fun memory with her eldest daughter, she said, “I was driving with Malia, we were in Martha’s Vineyard, I’m driving, she turns on the radio and starts playing some of our favorite songs and we’re singing at the top of our lungs. I realized I’d never had that experience with her.”
Michelle, whose husband was president of the United States from 2009 to 2017, went on to explain that she wasn’t able to teach her daughters how to drive due to security reasons. When Barack became the president, Malia and Sasha were, respectively, 10 and 7 years old at the time.
“Just the basic bonding moments,” their mother explained. “We didn’t have time alone in a car just with me and my daughter playing the music that we wanted, at the volume that we wanted.”
One commenter placed blame on Michelle for missing out on these “firsts” with her daughters. “Wasn’t able to spend quality time with children? No one’s fault but her own,” they wrote under Parade’s article.
While Barack was in office, Michelle Obama often struggled with how to give their daughters a sense of normalcy as they grew up in the spotlight.
On the May 7 episode of the “Let’s Talk Off Camera with Kelly Ripa” show, she said her daughters got to drive, go to prom and participated in school teams.
She added, “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.”
With them doing all the normal activities that teens do, Michelle found it difficult to protect them from the public. “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,” she said.
Though their parents remain frequently in the spotlight, Malia and Sasha have opted for a much quieter path into adulthood. Neither maintains public social media profiles, and they are rarely seen in public. Malia, 26, is now a filmmaker, while Sasha, 23, graduated with a sociology degree from the University of Southern California in 2023.
