Michelle and Barack Obama are back to being empty nesters. On Tuesday’s episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, the former First Lady of the United States talked about saying “bye” to her now-grown daughters, Sasha, 20, and Malia, 23 — after they both moved out of the family home, again.
“It was an extra special treat to have them that little bit of time,” Obama told DeGeneres about her family’s time in quarantine together. “Because being with them as adults, it’s fun. I love them at every age.”
She added, “Sasha is in college and they’re doing well. They are just amazing young women.”
Obama said that having women is “scary” and noted that her girls are a long way from fangirling over the Jonas Brothers. It’s all about boyfriends.
“They loved the Jonas Brothers,” she quipped. “Now they are bringing grown men home. Before it was just pop bands. Now they have boyfriends and real lives.”
Obama shared her daughters are the result of the values she instilled in them from the time they took on their roles as first daughters until it was time to leave the comfort of their home.
“I listened to what my mother said when she was raising us,” the Becoming author says. “She said, ‘I’m not raising babies, I’m raising real people to be out in the world.’ And I kept that in mind with the girls.”
Obama added, “They wouldn’t always be in that bubble of the White House, so they had to learn to make their beds, they had to learn how to drive, they had to learn how to be compassionate, independent, responsible people. So that they entered the world as responsible, compassionate, capable people. And I think they are amazing young women because of that.”
Obama didn’t just give an update on the progress her daughters have made. When asked what her husband, former President Barack Obama, had been up to, she said a lot of sports and adjusting to life outside of the White House.
“He’s pretty good at golf now,” the Waffles and Mochi creator says. “Doing a lot of golf. Not so good at picking up after himself, because he had a lot of help with that. He thinks he’s good at it. He had a lot of help, but he got a little worse.”