At first the Obama family had some really amazing times together when the COVID-19 lockdown began in March. But former First Lady Michelle Obama says that by the start of summer, not only were her daughters Malia, 22, and Sasha, 19, getting a little “sick of” the 56-year-old and our 59-year-old former President Barack Obama, the feeling was mutual. From being cooped up together for months, to her daughters stuck at home doing their college courses via Zoom, Michelle says her girls are “no longer thrilled about being with us.”
The Becoming author appeared on the Sept. 23 episode of Conan, and told host Conan O’Brien, 57, that “We’ve kind of had phases of COVID. There were sort of the early stages where we were excited to be together and we were being all organized and we would spend our respective days apart doing our own work. The girls were still in classes in the spring, so we would be working then do a little exercise and coming together in the evenings and we would have these activities.”
It sounded like a blissful month or two at the Obama’s household in the Kalorama area of Washington D.C. “We would have cocktails and then we would work puzzles and play games. Barack taught the girls how to play Spades. We actually had some organized things. Like we had an art exhibit day where we all went off and did watercolor paintings and then we showed it. This was in the early stages. We were still fresh,” Michelle explained.
But then after a few months things began to change. “That went away. First our kids got a little sick of us, which was fine because we were pretty much sick of them,” Michelle admitted. A change of scenery helped, as the Obamas decamped and headed to their new $17.5 million home in Martha’s Vineyard to spend the summer (and are still there!). “And so the summer started happening and then we could be outside a little more and we came to the Vineyard, where we still are. So there’s more room to roam around. We can go on bikes. That was good, cause it helped us break it up,” the former FLOTUS noted.
Now that Malia and Sasha are back in school, they are sick of their parents again. Both girls are going their coursework remotely, with Malia working on her senior year at Harvard, while Sasha is a sophomore at the University of Michigan. “And now the kids are back in Zoomland with classes. They’re doing it remotely and they’re no longer thrilled about being with us,” Michelle lamented.
Her husband made good use of quarantine by working on his highly anticipated memoirs. “Barack is finishing his book, as it was just announced his books are going to be published after the election. So he’s actually spent most of the summer locked away writing the book, so he’s had limited time to get on my nerves. But then he’s sort of got on my nerves cause I haven’t seen him enough. He can’t win,” Michelle laughed.
While Conan told her that Barack has a tough act to follow after her Becoming was 2019’s biggest selling non-fiction book, Michelle noted, “His book is a little bigger, a little more ‘historical’ as he would say. We’ve managed. We’re still together and he’s still alive. That is the perfect sign that we’re making it through,” she said with a smile. The first 768 page volume Obama’s presidential memoirs A Promised Land, will be released on Tues. Nov. 17. A second volume is still to come.