Michelle Obama Won't Ask Malia, Sasha One Question

Michelle Obama says she's trying to retire one of the most common small-talk questions moms ask their daughters: "Are you dating anyone?" In a surprise showing on Alex Cooper's Call Her Daddy podcast on Wednesday, the former first lady, who just turned 62, said she's aware of how easily she finds herself "slipping up" and asking Malia, 27, and Sasha, 24, about their dating lives—and why she's working to stop the habit, per InStyle.

Obama called the relationship question something parents toss out when you "run out of stuff to say to a young girl," suggesting that can reveal "our own insecurities as mothers" more than anything about the daughters themselves. She described the "Do you have a boyfriend?" line as a kind of baked-in "social pressure," especially when "you see everybody getting married."

Obama said she and her friends talk about what those questions communicate about success, urging parents to reconsider how they frame the topic with both daughters and sons. "We have to be mindful of the way we craft questions," she noted. "How we talk about what happiness is, and we have to work hard to separate our fears and insecurities as parents." The former first lady's comments fit into a broader theme she's addressed previously, about parenting in the spotlight. Obama has said she and husband Barack pushed for as normal a life as possible for their daughters in the White House, ensuring the girls made their beds and got summer jobs.

She has also insisted she has no interest in running for president herself, partly so her children don't again have to live under that level of scrutiny—and in Wednesday's podcast, she said she would "actively work against" her spouse running again if he were somehow legally able to go for a third term, per the Independent. As she told Hoda Kotb in 2023, she's shifted from "mom-in-chief to advisor-in-chief" and watched her daughters "fly," experiencing relief at knowing, as she put it, that "I think I didn't mess them up." Watch the recent podcast in full here.