'Dad, come on': Michelle Obama says Malia was mortified when the president came to parent-teacher conferences
Former FLOTUS Michelle Obama says Barack was not welcome at parent-teacher conferences after he once rolled up to his daughter’s school with a fleet of Secret Service agents.
Michelle shared the memory Friday while speaking at the opening of the American Library Association conference in New Orleans, Louisiana with moderator and Librarian of Congress Dr. Carla Hayden.
On striking a work-life balance while her daughters Malia, 19, and Sasha, 17, were growing up, Michelle said, “My balance is crazy — because you’re the first lady, but you’re also trying to go to the potluck and then the soccer game. I tell this story of how Barack went to a parent-teacher conference, and you know, he’s got a big motorcade. It’s big. And men with guns — machine guns — and black sniper gear, they follow him everywhere in trucks and they’re leaning out, looking at you like, ‘I will kill you’ because that’s their job.”
Michelle Obama speaks at conference
Former first lady Michelle Obama is attending the opening of the American Library Association conference
Posted by CNN on Friday, June 22, 2018
Michelle continued, “But when they’re… on the roof of the elementary school, even Malia was like, ‘Dad come on.’ So everybody was sort of, OK when dad didn’t go. Sort of politely going, ‘Dad you don’t have to come to the Fall-Winter concert. It’s OK. You can take a pass.’”
Living in the White House also affected the Obama daughter’s social lives. “You’re trying to be a normal parent in the midst of it when your kid is invited over for a sleepover, and you have to explain to them, ‘We’ll need your social security number, and there will be dogs sweeping your house and they’re going to ask you if you have guns and drugs and you’ll have to tell them,'” said Michelle, adding, “Sorry, Julia’s mom but this is what it means to have Sasha over. But it’s going to be fine.”
She added, “Our daughters had their own detail all the time, so imagine trying to go to prom with eight men with guns and doing anything else you’re trying to do as a teenager. Barack and I were very happy about it. But we had to learn how to discipline them without letting them think their agents told on them.”
“I had to lie a little bit about where I got my information from,” admitted Michelle. “How did I know that [there was] no parent at that party? Uh, Julia’s mom called me and told me.”
Michelle was in town to promote her November memoir Becoming, which delves into her childhood in Chicago, her family life, and her eight-year job as the first lady.
Earlier this week, Michelle’s stylist Meredith Koop shaded Melania Trump for wearing a $39 Zara jacket emblazoned with the words, “I really don’t care, do u?” while traveling to Texas to visit a detention center holding thousands of undocumented children separated from their parents at the U.S. border, part of President Trump‘s “zero-tolerance” policy.
Michelle also weighed in on the immigration crisis by retweeting a Washington Post opinion piece written by former first lady Laura Bush, calling the policy “cruel” and “immoral.”
Sometimes truth transcends party. https://t.co/TeFM7NmNzU
— Michelle Obama (@MichelleObama) June 18, 2018
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