Michelle Obama shares honest reason why raising daughters Malia and Sasha is the ‘hardest thing in the world’

Michelle Obama is thinking of her next chapter, both personally and professionally.

It has been ten years since she and husband Barack Obama left the White House, though it has been only in recent years that she has defined what her post-first lady career looks like, returning to the spotlight with ventures such as her podcast, IMO, which she hosts with her brother Craig Robinson, and her books, most recently her fashion book The Look.

And though her podcast only just rang in its first year since release, the former attorney is already aware it might be her last professional chapter, and is thinking what that means for her and her family.

Speaking with her brother at a live taping of their podcast for SXSW London, Michelle, who shares daughters Malia, 27, and Sasha, 24, with Barack, confessed: “This is probably my last chapter from a career standpoint.”

“I am 62 years old. We could be grandparents! But we are not,” she then added. Later Michelle also shared gratitude for her parents, noting: “I have to take a moment, just [to] give tribute to our parents. They were uniquely gifted in pushing us to do things that they wouldn’t themselves, and we’re parents now,” and adding: “You know the hardest thing in the world to do is to let your kids try more things.”

Reflecting on how quickly the last ten years out of the White House went by, she shared: “My daughters will be 28 and 25 this year. So this next chapter I want to be mindful about it, so that it doesn’t just slip away.”

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“The choices that I make now are going to be for me, not for my husband, not for my kids, not for the country, not for the world, because this is it,” she continued, emphasizing: “And at some point, it’s important for our generation to step out of the way and be prepared to step out of the way so that the next generation can really sit in these seats.”

Michelle also shared her best advice for the younger generations, telling the audience: “Learn to enjoy the process, whatever your process is, because that’s where you develop the skills.”

Getting to the White House, she said, took time. “It took a level of persistence. There was a whole lot of backlash. Was I prepared for it? Was Barack prepared for it? Heck yeah — all the other things we had done, it leads up to being ready for the thing you don’t even know that you’re going to do.”

Michelle’s eldest Malia is a budding filmmaker, having previously worked as a writer on Donald Glover’s TV series Swarm, and she made her directorial debut with the 2023 short The Heart. Her sister meanwhile graduated from USC after transferring from the University of Michigan, and also recently obtained a Master’s, though it’s unclear what she currently does for work.

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In a recent IMO podcast episode, Michelle had Steven Spielberg as a guest, who joked he “scooped” Malia when he invited Barack to the set of his film Disclosure Day, making it his first visit to a film set, according to the legendary director.

Michelle however confessed: “She doesn’t care. She will never invite us to anything that she does. You know, she doesn’t want us around her stuff.”