Why Michelle Obama Once Told Her Daughters She’s ‘Done Parenting’

Michelle Obama once had a major mom crash out while solo parenting daughters Malia and Sasha Obama.

“They were probably 7 and 3 at the time, and Barack was traveling, so I was at home trying to get the girls to bed,” Michelle, 61, said during the Wednesday, December 24, episode of her “IMO” podcast. “They were great kids, but this was one night that they were just being rambunctious.”

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

“I was in my frustrated mommy time. And I said, ‘Well, that’s it. No one listens to me. I’m done parenting. You seem like you guys have this all figured out, and you can do this on your own. So have at it,’” she recalled.

Malia, now 27, offered some version of an apology. “Mommy, no, I don’t know what I could do without you,” she said, per Michelle’s recollection of events.

“I’m thinking, ‘Yeah, this is what I wanted. I wanted her to realize that she needed me,’” Michelle continued. “Sasha, my 3-year-old was sitting on the stairs watching all this. She took her blankie, and she turned around and went back upstairs to watch TV. As if to say, like, ‘Thank God. At last. This is what I wanted from you, lady. I am 3. I can handle this. I’m going back upstairs.’”

The former first lady continued, “She got five steps up, and I was like, ‘If you don’t turn around and get back down here.’ Well, it worked for one. Didn’t work for the other.”

Michelle said that those same differences between Malia and Sasha, now 24, are still present in their adulthood.

“My younger daughter, she wants to learn her way. She doesn’t want to be told that this is how you do it,” Michelle said of Sasha. “We tell her, but she’s got to learn on her own.”

Following their father’s two-term presidency, which ended in 2017, both Malia and Sasha started paving their own paths in the public eye.

Malia graduated from Harvard University in 2021 before kicking off her career in filmmaking. Malia entered the Sundance Film Festival in 2024 with The Heart, a movie she had written and directed under the name Malia Ann — dropping her famous surname.

“It is very important for my kids to feel like they’ve earned what they are getting in the world, and they don’t want people to assume that they don’t work hard, that they’re just naturally handed things,” Michelle said during an appearance on the “Sibling Revelry” podcast in June. “Malia, who started in film, and it being her first project, she took off her last name, and we were like, ‘They’re still going to know it’s you, Malia.’ But we respected the fact that she’s trying to make her way.”

Sasha, meanwhile, graduated from the University of Southern California in 2023 with a sociology degree. She lives in Los Angeles but may still be pursuing her education as noted by Michelle on The Jennifer Hudson Show last year.

“Sasha is in school, Malia has a budding career in film,” Michelle said at the time. “They are smart, they’re funny, they’re wise in their own ways and I love spending time with them.”