Malia Obama and Sasha Obama were just 10 and 7 years old, respectively, when their father, Barack Obama, was elected president for the first time in 2008. According to their mom, Michelle Obama, Malia’s reaction to her father’s historic win was especially memorable. They were headed to Grant Park in Chicago for Barack’s victory speech when Malia said something funny. “So we’re in the car on the way to Grant Park, and it’s this deep silence,” the former first lady recalled on the “Las Culturistas” podcast in 2025. Apparently, Malia thought no one had shown up to watch him speak, as the streets they were driving through were particularly empty.

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Michelle remembered Malia dissing her father without knowing it. “Malia says, ‘Dad, I don’t think anybody’s coming to your party,'” she recalled. “Because no one was on the street, and this was Lake Shore Drive that was always busy.” She took that opportunity to explain to the girls how their lives were about to change. “We were like, ‘Oh, sweetie, no. This is what happens now that your dad is president,'” Michelle said. “‘No one will ever be on this street when he’s on the street, again.'”  

On the campaign trail, Barack and Michelle made a conscious effort to keep Malia and Sasha away from the election frenzy. On days they couldn’t be home, they would invite the girls’ cousins over to keep them company while they were out at campaign events. “They were 7 and 10, or 6 and 9 at the time. So most of the time … they’re playing,” Michelle told hosts Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. “Election nights were all about, ‘We get chicken fingers and we get to stay up, right?'” But that’s not to say they didn’t understand what was going on.

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Having won the election, Barack Obama sat down with host Katie Couric for an interview on CBS News ahead of his swearing-in as the nation’s first-ever African American president. Asked how Malia Obama and Sasha Obama were taking it all in, Barack said, “They’re not overwhelmed by it. They’re not awed by it. [But] I think they understand it.” He credited his wife for raising their kids with poise and quiet confidence. “Partly it’s their mother. They have so much love and I think such stability,” gushed the proud dad. “But also Michelle’s so good at providing them structure and discipline that we haven’t seen problems yet.”

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That said, both Barack and Michelle Obama have expressed their fears for Malia and Sasha’s unwanted fame while growing up in the White House. In 2024, Michelle revealed that she was harsher on the kids than everyone knew in order to raise them to be capable and well-adjusted young women. As she explained to Melinda Gates on her “Moments That Make Us” series, she didn’t want Sasha and Malia to get too comfortable with all the riches and privileges around them.

“Those girls had to be smart and confident and independent straight away, even when they were living in a house with butlers and maids and florists,” Michelle stated. She was worried that Barack’s presidency would end up spoiling them rotten and distorting their sense of reality. But Malia and Sasha proved her wrong. “They did way better than I thought. I mean, they transitioned better than I was transitioning,” Michelle said on her “IMO” podcast with her brother Craig Robinson.

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