Michelle Obama gets real on parenting: ‘I’m so glad I didn’t have a boy’
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Michelle Obama gets real on parenting: ‘I’m so glad I didn’t have a boy’
Michelle Obama said she’s “so glad” she didn’t have a son with her husband. The couple have two daughters, Malia and Sasha, who recently changed their last name to Obama. “They’re very sensitive to that – they want to be their own people,” Obama said. “I’m glad they didn’t get a son,” she added. “It would have been hard” to have a boy, she said of her husband, who has three sons of his own. ‘I’m so glad I didn’t,’ she said.
On a Wednesday, June 18 episode of her “IMO” podcast, she told Craig Robinson, her brother and co-host, and radio icon Angie Martinez that “I’m so glad I didn’t have a boy” while discussing the difficulties of raising boys. The Obamas share two daughters: 26-year-old filmmaker Malia Ann and University of Southern California alum Sasha Obama, who recently turned 24.
Martinez suggested that Obama and her “A Promised Land” author husband “should’ve thrown a boy in the mix.” But Obama said she’s “glad” because “he would’ve been a Barack Obama!” jokingly shading the former president’s strong personality and suggesting that a son would have been challenging.
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When Martinez said that a “baby Barack” would have been “amazing,” the forthcoming “Look” book author explained to the “IRL” podcast host that she “would’ve felt for him.”
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Robinson — a father of one daughter Leslie and three sons Avery, Austin and Aaron — added to the conversation by quipping that his sister “borrowed our boys.”
Michelle Obama previously broke silence on daughter’s name change
Earlier this month, Obama made headlines when she broke her silence on eldest daughter Malia Ann’s decision to drop her last name.
Malia Ann, who is pursuing a film career in Hollywood, used her middle name as her artistic name for the credits of 2023 short film “The Heart” which she wrote and directed, that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2024.
“Our daughters (Malia and Sasha) are 25 and 23. They are young adult women, but they definitely went through a period in their teen years where it was the push away. … They’re still doing that,” Obama told famous siblings Oliver and Kate Hudson on their “Sibling Revelry” podcast.
The “Becoming” author added that “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, just handed things. They’re very sensitive to that – they want to be their own people.”