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They say you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone, or, in the Obama’s case, until it’s replaced with one of the worst people in modern history.
As we all pine for the years when Barack Obama was President of the United States and his wife, Michelle, was First Lady, the couple is thankfully blessing us with their presence in more ways than one. In fact, just today Barack announced that he’s written a book on his presidency, The Promised Land, which is set to be released November 17th.
Plus, over lockdown, Michelle released her new podcast, The Michelle Obama Podcast, opting to pull strings and have her hubby on as her first guest. During the conversation, the couple talked about their respective upbringings and the work they did prior to getting into politics, as well as speaking about the upcoming election and how it seems we’ve all lost a sense of community.
For the just-released season finale of her show, Michelle spoke candidly with her mother, Marian Robinson, and older brother, Craig, about the parenting lessons they learned while growing up in Chicago and how she tried to give her two daughter’s, Malia and Sasha, a sense of normality the White House.
“One of the things that I had to learn how to negotiate was creating these boundaries with my kids in the White House,” Michelle told her family. “I mean, you talk about being raised in a totally different world than I ever knew? It’s like, pluckin’ these little girls out of our normal life on the South Side of Chicago with Craig, and mom, and our way of doing things, and our community, and then, putting them in a historic mansion with butlers and maids, and florists, and gardeners, and Secret service, and then trying to make sure that they understood boundaries, understood responsibility.”
Speaking about her husband’s busy role as POTUS, Michelle said she made an effort not to begrudge the busy schedule or the time Barack was away from the family. “I always tried to make sure that I wasn’t pouting in front of the kids when Barack wasn’t there,” she explained, adding, “If I had made a big deal out of it and said, ‘Oh my god, your dad’s not here again! Oh, he’s missing this’ or ‘I just wish…’ then that’s the signal to them, ‘Well this isn’t normal’.”
“Even as Barack being the president of the United States, he worked his schedule around their schedule. They weren’t waiting until 9 o’clock at night to eat because dad was running late,” she explained. “They never couldn’t not go somewhere or do something because of dad. I never wanted them to resent the presidency, or resent what their dad did.”
Michelle has previously said that despite the family having maids and servers to wait on them hand and foot, Malia and Sasha had to make their own beds while living in the White House. When they tried to argue that Michelle didn’t make hers, her reply was, “Well, I’m the First Lady.” Iconic.
