Michelle Obama: The Smoking Habits of My Adolescent Daughters Made Parenting Difficult

“That was a lot of work,” Michelle said to Kelly Ripa on Let’s Talk Off Camera with Kelly Ripa on SiriusXM. “And it got harder as they got older.”

Michelle Obama, the former First Lady of the United States, has talked candidly about how her daughters’ drinking and smoking habits as they approached adolescence presented her as a mother with a number of difficulties.

Michelle Obama stated in an interview with Kelly Ripa on her podcast that it was such a significant test that she at one time questioned her approach to raising her girls.

She disclosed that it became particularly difficult to keep her and her husband Barack Obama’s kids, Malia Obama, 26, and Sasha Obama, 23, out of the tabloids’ headlines during his administration as they approached adolescence.

“That was a lot of work,” Michelle said to Kelly Ripa on Let’s Talk Off Camera with Kelly Ripa on SiriusXM. “And it got harder as they got older.”

The 61-year-old claims that raising her daughters Malia and Sasha at the ages of 10 and 7, respectively, was simpler and more typical.

During Obama’s first term in office, life was easy, but as the daughters grew older and saw some high school-appropriate material, his second term got increasingly difficult.

“They had to drive and they had to go to prom and they were on teams and they traveled to other schools and they had to do college searches, and they went to parties and they had drinks, and they tried out smoking and they did all the things,” Michelle said. “and every weekend was a nightmare, because we had to work to make sure that them being regular teenagers didn’t wind up on Page Six (American’s famous celebrity tabloid).”

Michelle stated that it was difficult to keep them out of the spotlight so that such stories wouldn’t leak to blogs, and that the paparazzi would more often highlight similar activities when they were with other teenagers in order to gain celebrity juice.

“When your kids are under the security of the Secret Service, you almost have to work twice as hard to make their life normal,” Michelle said.

“Consider organizing the kids’ first playdate or inviting them to one for the first time. An advanced team had to come and question you, inspect your home, and inquire about any guns or narcotics because I was bringing my kids to your house.”

Michelle has a new goal for her girls now that they are self-sufficient adults: ensuring that they can manage the stress that comes with having a former president for a father.

“We call that the Obama tax for them,” she humorously said. “You’ll have it the rest of your life, but you also have a lot of benefits.”

Michelle went on to say, “I’m trying to make this feel normal to them, because you don’t want them to start thinking, number one, they’re full of themselves, that any of this is about them, and that their job is to go about their lives.”