Why Michelle Obama once told her daughters she was ‘no longer a parent’

Michelle Obama There was once an old mother who fell while raising her daughter alone. Mary and sasha obama.

“They were about 7 and 3 at the time, and Barack was traveling, so I was at home trying to get them to bed,” Michelle, 61, told the show on Wednesday, December 24. Her “IMO” Podcast. “They were great kids, but one night they got rowdy.”

Michelle asked the girls to “get ready for bed” but soon realized “no one was listening” to her.

“I was in my depressed mom phase. I said, ‘Well, that’s it. No one listens to me. I’m done being a parent. You guys seem to have it all figured out and you can do this on your own. So just do it,'” she recalled.

Maria, now 27, offered an apology of sorts. “Mom, no, I don’t know what I could do without you,” Michelle said, according to her recollection of the incident.

“I’m thinking, ‘Yeah, this is what I want. I want her to realize she needs me,'” Michelle continued. “Sasha, my 3-year-old was sitting on the stairs watching this. She took the blanket and turned back upstairs to watch TV. As if to say, ‘Thank God. Finally. This is what I want from you, lady. I’m 3. I can handle this. I’m going back upstairs.'”

The former first lady continued, “She went up five steps and I was like, ‘If you don’t turn around and come back here.'” Well, that worked for one. Not working for anyone else. “

Michelle said these differences between Malia and Sasha, now 24, persisted into their adulthood.

“My little girl, she wants to learn her own way. She doesn’t want to be told this is what you do,” Michelle said of Sasha. “We tell her, but she has to learn on her own.”

After their father’s two-term presidential term ended in 2017, both Malia and Sasha began to carve their own paths in the public eye.

Malia graduated from Harvard University in 2021 and subsequently began her career in filmmaking. Malia is a 2024 Sundance Film Festival finalist with: Hearta film she wrote and directed under the name Malia Ann – dropping her famous last name.

“It’s really important for my kids to feel like what they get in this world is what they deserve, and they don’t want people to think they don’t work hard and they’re just something that was born into them,” Michelle said on the “Brother Rave” podcast in June. “Maria started in the movie, this was her first project, she dropped her last name, and we were like, ‘They’re still going to know it’s you, Maria.’ But we respect the fact that she’s trying to make her own path.”

Meanwhile, Sasha Graduated from University of Southern California degree in Sociology in 2023. She lives in Los Angeles but may still be continuing her studies, as Michelle in the jennifer hudson show last year.

“Sasha was in school and Malia was just starting out in her film career,” Michelle said at the time. “They’re smart, they’re funny, they’re smart in their own way, and I love being around them.”