Former First Lady Michelle Obama is giving a candid look into family life inside the Obama household, revealing that former President Barack Obama found it easier to parent their oldest daughter, Malia, than their youngest, Sasha.
On Wednesday’s episode of her Michelle Obama: The Light Podcast—formerly known as The Michelle Obama Podcast—the former first lady sat down with her brother, Craig Robinson, and celebrity couple Gabrielle Union and Dwyane Wade. In the conversation, she opened up about the very different ways her two daughters interacted with their father.
“Malia is going to figure out who you are, what do you like, and let’s discuss it,” Michelle explained. “She would come in and give Barack 15 minutes, maybe talk politics, ask about Syria, and he’d walk away saying, ‘I just had an amazing conversation with Malia.’”
Sasha, on the other hand, wasn’t interested in playing to her father’s expectations. “Sasha is like a cat,” Michelle said. “She’s like, ‘Don’t touch me, don’t pet me. I’m not pleasing you. You come to me.’”
That difference left Barack occasionally frustrated, with Michelle recalling that he sometimes described Sasha as “difficult.” But she defended her youngest, saying her personality simply required a different parenting approach. “You have to be a chameleon as a parent,” Michelle said. “Each child has their own personality, and you have to adjust.”
Despite the challenges, Barack has previously reflected on how grateful he was to have daughters rather than sons. Appearing on Michelle’s podcast last month, he admitted he might have struggled more raising a boy. “I think I might’ve been more judgmental, harder,” he said, adding that without a father of his own as a role model, navigating a father-son relationship might have been more difficult.
Both Obamas agreed that their daughters—Malia, now 27, and Sasha, 24—have grown into confident young women. And while Barack may have found Sasha harder to figure out as a teenager, Michelle suggested that their differences were simply a reflection of two unique personalities growing up under extraordinary circumstances.
