Michelle Obama Discusses ‘Parental Pain’ After Malia Changes Her Last Name to ‘Push Away’ From Her Parents
Michelle Obama is getting candid about parenting. The former First Lady went deep into the issue on an episode of her podcast, “IMO with Michelle Obama & Craig Robinson,” talking about how parents need to get “tougher” on their kids’ social media use. The first lady discussed these issues with social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt, whose 2024 book, “The Anxious Generation,” argues that extensive social media and smartphone use have harmful effects on children’s brains and well-being.
Haidt discussed how social media stimulates the release of dopamine, which fuels an addiction to social media, which prompted Michelle Obama to talk about how parents need to make tough parenting decisions on things like social media.
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“Parents suffer from this dopamine thing too when it comes to parenting. Because we want instant reward response from our children. We don’t want to wait. We don’t want to do the longer-haul thing. You know, a lot of times we have to ask ourselves, ‘Are we doing this for our kids, or are we doing this for us?’ Because we have the screen too,” she said.
She also warned there would likely be “parental pain” due to this tough-love approach. “We have to become a little more resilient as parents. We have to become tougher for the sake of our kids… It’s not fun. All of it is going to be really, really hard, physically, emotionally, one of the toughest things you do,” she said.
The former first lady’s discussion on parenting comes after she recently revealed on the podcast “Sibling Revelry” with Kate and Oliver Hudson that her daughter Malia had changed her name professionally because she’s “trying to make her way” as a director without people associating her with her famous parents.
“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 … [where] you’re trying to distinguish yourself,” she said. “I mean, 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,” she added. “They’re very sensitive to that — they want to be their own people.”
The former First Lady recently made waves when she skipped Donald Trump’s inauguration, which prompted rumors about a possible divorce from her husband, former President Barack Obama. She addressed this head on during her podcast a few months ago, saying, “My decision to skip the inauguration, what people don’t realize, or my decision to make choices at the beginning of this year that suited me were met with such ridicule and criticism,” she explained. “People couldn’t believe that I was saying no for any other reason, that they had to assume that my marriage was falling apart, you know.”
Apparently, all is right with her marriage and her kids, too. And that’s why Michelle Obama is now giving others advice.
