Politixia
Being the President of the United States is incredibly stressful, but being a First Child comes with its own unique set of challenges. Luckily, former First Lady Michelle Obama did everything she could to ensure her daughters, Malia and Sasha, remained “grounded” while in the White House.
During the September 9 episode of her IMO podcast, Michelle revealed that she and President Barack Obama’s daughters “needed to know what [being told no] felt like.”
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Her comments came in response to a fan question about handling job rejections. Michelle urged the listener to embrace it, saying, “Life is like a big muscle. You’ve got to build it up. Every failure is like a push-up or a rep. The more reps you do, the stronger you get at life. You don’t get the strength without the reps.”
She added that everyone needs to “learn what their own process is for getting through failure,” which she believes is something people “figure out the older you get.”
Michelle’s brother and co-host, Craig Robinson, then encouraged parents to let their kids experience failure when they’re young. Although it might be difficult in the moment, he explained that it helps them in the long run and ensures that their first major crushing blow in their 20s doesn’t feel like a total “catastrophe.”
That was the moment when Michelle shared her own parenting approach. She later mentioned that Malia and Sasha often questioned why she would tell them no.
“The girls tell me, ‘Mom, you used to tell us no.’ They’d be like, ‘Why?’ Because you need to know what no feels like,” Michelle said. “Especially for kids like ours… there’s no natural ‘nos.'”
She then spoke about her own upbringing, stating, “We grew up with a lot of ‘nos.’ It was, ‘No, we can’t afford that. No, you can’t have that.'”
Michelle’s rare update about her daughters comes a little over a year after Malia dropped “Obama” from her name. During a June 2025 appearance on Kate and Oliver Hudson’s Sibling Revelry podcast, Michelle disclosed that Malia removed “Obama” from her professional stage name and now goes by “Malia Ann.”
The reason for the name change? Malia wanted to “make her way” and establish herself as a serious filmmaker without being associated with her parents.
“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,” Michelle said. “They’re very sensitive to that — they want to be their own people.”
She continued, “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.”
Malia debuted her new name at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, where she premiered her short film, The Heart. She was listed as “Malia Ann” in the credits.
“We were like, they’re still going to know it’s you, Malia,” Michelle told the hosts. “But we respected the fact that she’s trying to make her way.”
Barack shared his response to Malia’s name change in an October 2024 episode of The Pivot Podcast, saying, “I was all like, ‘You do know they’ll know who you are. And she’s all like, ‘You know what? I want them to watch it that first time and not in any way have that association.’ So I think our daughters go out of their way to not try to leverage that.”
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