Michelle Obama Would Rather Teach Her Daughters Lessons Than Be Friends

Michelle Obama isn’t focused on forming a friendship with her daughters if anything, she thinks they benefit from a traditional relationship.

The former First Lady appeared on Revolt TV’s “The Cross-Generational Conversation, which was hosted by herself and featured a panel of women including Angie Martinez, Beyonce’s mom Tina Knowles, singers Kelly Rowland and Her, and model Winnie Harlow.

The conversation swayed every way from struggles in the industry to confidence and courage to parenting as some of the women on the panel are mothers. However, the biggest takeaway from the conversation was Obama’s relationship with her daughters Sasha and Malia who are now in their twenties.

When prompted by Rowland about her relationship with her adult daughters and if she wants to be friends with them Obama drew a strict line for a smart reason: “Once you decide you want your child to be your friend, now you’re worried about them liking you, and there’s so much of parenting that has nothing to do with them liking you.”

She goes on to share that she would rather not be their friend and encourage them to thrive on their own happy or unhappy. “What you’re gonna have to teach them is counter to what they want. With a friend, you want them happy all the time,” notes Obama.

“Your kids have to learn how to live in their unhappiness, they have to learn how to live with unfairness, and they have to learn it in their house. Their first bout of unfairness can’t be school or when they’re 30.”

Obama was backed by Knowles the other mother on the panel who shared the same idea about friendships with children. She famously adopted Rowland as her own daughter while she was in the group Destiny’s Child with her daughter Beyonce.

She eventually realized that she couldn’t baby any of the girls and had to push them to push themselves. In order to do that, she had to stop being their friend. “[Kelly] kept turning around looking at me and I’m like ‘I feel like such a creep’, I wanted to run up and walk her up to the door.”

Knowles says reflecting on the time she made Rowland go to a real school even though she begged to stay home, making Knowles question and doubt her decision, Obama felt what Knowles did.

She quoted her newly released book “The Light We Carry” in which she speaks of fear and how it can easily trick people into holding themselves back. “When we stop our kids from feeling fear, we stop them from feeling competent to.”

Obama insists that “competence is critical in your child. Teaching them that they are independent,” it’s something she did for her girls and something she encourages those parents to consider.

Singer Her gave her take admitting that is “hard to vulnerable” especially when you are on “a platform” like she is. In her twenties now is where she is beginning to understand and accept those vulnerabilities and take the fear out of it.