When Michelle Obama was the First Lady, she often seemed like the fun class mom we all wished we could be and have: Self-assured, warm, and fully into whatever activity she’d been tasked with, whether by choice or by official duty. Now, after spending so much time reading her books, watching her documentary, and enjoying her interviews and speeches, we know that there’s so much more to the attorney-turned-politician’s-wife-turned-media mogul — and we’re taking the time to honor all the wisdom she’s shared about motherhood.
As Michelle raised daughters Sasha, 23, and Malia, 26, in the public eye, we were able to get a glimpse of her mothering style, even with her and former President Barack Obama guarding their daughters’ privacy pretty vehemently. But she’s spent the past few years revealing more about the parenting that went on before they moved to the White House, as well as some behind-the-scenes moments once they were there.
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Like any mother, she doesn’t feel like she did a perfect job. But when she looks at the young women Sasha and Malia have become, she should be satisfied with the people she raised — we know we admire her for it!
While promoting her memoir Becoming, Michelle opened up about the difficult journey she and Barack took to become America’s mom and dad. She discussed the hard work her own parents put in to give her and her brother Craig a happy childhood and a good education, and she revealed the steps she took to make sure her much more privileged girls wouldn’t grow up spoiled. Now that both she and Barack are looking to keep inspiring future generations, Michelle continues to drop wisdom about making sure our kids know love, freedom, and the drive to do good for others.
We’ve already gathered inspirational words of parenting wisdom from both Obamas, but we could continue to fill up dozens more pages with Michelle Obama’s best mom quotes — which is what we’re doing with some of our favorites here.
A version of this article was originally published in January 2021.
Finding Happiness
Image Credit: ©Netflix/Courtesy Everett Collection “I want my daughters to have a broad view of what happiness can look like. I just tell my kids there’s so many ways to be happy, there’s so many ways to find joy in life, and you’re just starting the journey.” — During a 2023 episode of her The Light Podcast
Extending the Leash
Image Credit: Michael Buckner/Variety/Penske Media via Getty Images “I think a lot of parents are afraid of watching that failure. It is the hardest thing to do to watch your kids walk into a wall that you knew was there. And you told them not to walk into it. Until they hit it and get a lump on their head, they just won’t learn it. That’s a painful thing for us. If you keep your kids from that experience, a bump on the head, you’re robbing them of their own competency. They need to know that you can bump your head, and you can figure it out. Go to the doctor. Put some ice on it. Don’t do it again. Let’s talk about it after the fact. But as you get older, I shouldn’t have to walk you through everything. I think it’s a constant exercise of extending the leash; always err on the side of making it longer.” — During a 2025 episode of her IMO podcast.
Mediating Fights
Image Credit: HCDARNA EC362 via Everett Collection “I didn’t mediate in between [my daughters]. I was like, ’I love you both, and if I don’t know who was wrong, don’t ask me to get in it. But what I would say is that, ‘If I have to get in it, everybody’s in trouble. That’s all I can do because I don’t want to play favorites. I’m not sure who’s telling the truth. So, if I’m involved … play is shut down, doors closed, computers off, it’s over.” — During a 2025 episode of her IMO podcast
On Setting Boundaries
Image Credit: Andy Wenstrand/SXSW Conference & Festivals “I want to be a proponent for reinstating some of the stuff that we had. When kids say, ‘I hate my mom’, it’s like, you better say that in your head, in your room. You don’t say that out loud. You know, parents are too afraid to set those kinds of boundaries. And I think that’s also part of the challenge that we’re facing in this generation.” — During an episode of her IMO podcast
Not Being Their Friend
Image Credit: Erika Goldring/Getty Images for Netflix. “I never felt my job was to create mini-mes, or create people who were going to live out some brokenness in me or fill some hole or to be my friend,” she explained. “As my girls joke, I always said — my favorite line was, ‘I’m not one of your little friends.’… I don’t care if you like me. I just want you to respect yourself and know what works. We don’t have to be friends, and through those boundaries, we are such good friends, but there were some lines drawn.” — During a 2024 conversation on Melinda French Gates’ The Moments That Make Us podcast
Letting Your Kids Fail
Image Credit: Derek Storm/Everett Collection “You start thinking, you know, do I send them off in the world and follow them and fix every problem for them because I don’t want them to hurt? Well, not seeing your kids hurt, that’s for me. You know, but letting your kids hurt and fail and recover on their own and own their victories, well that’s for them.” — During a 2024 conversation on Melinda French Gates’ The Moments That Make Us podcast
Not Repeating the Past
Image Credit: Jason Mendez/Everett Collection “So many of us don’t like the way we were parented. We can now look back at our mothers and fathers and the people in our lives and thinking of things that we think you would do differently. You know, but that’s an opportunity to learn too. You don’t have to repeat what you you’ve seen, but it takes a level of conscientiousness to do [that].” — During a 2023 conversation with Tyler Perry on her The Light Podcast
The Hardest Part of Parenting
Image Credit: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for Live Nation. “As a parent, that’s a hard thing to come to grips with as your child grows up and is out there in that big, bad world, is that you can prepare and love them all that you can, and you still don’t have control. There are no guarantees that their life is going to work out, and something bad may happen. That is the hardest thing about parenting, is living with that truth.” — During a 2022 conversation with NPR
Evolving With Your Kids
Image Credit: Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images. “You have to be ready for your kids to evolve. Who they are at 4 and 7 is not — and what they need from you — is very different from what they need from you as teenagers and then again as young women.” — During a 2022 conversation with NPR
Enjoying Every Stage to the Fullest
Image Credit: Getty Images. “If you’ve laid a foundation of trust and honesty, every stage, I’ve found, is wonderful. It’s full. It’s exciting. I don’t miss any stage — I loved every stage of parenting my girls, but I wouldn’t go back to any of the stages… Now that they’re young women, and now I’m less of a day-to-day manager and more of an advisor, there’s a freedom to enjoy them as individuals, to watch them grow.” — During a 2022 conversation with NPR
How Parents Made America Great
Image Credit: Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection. “That’s the story of America: All those folks who sacrificed and overcame so much in their own times because they wanted something more, something better for their kids.” — At the 2020 Democratic National Convention
Taking Inspiration From Her Own Mom
Image Credit: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images. “When we were growing up, [my mom] always gave us the space to ask questions and share our ideas. And she always took us seriously, carefully considering what we had to say and responding with thoughtful questions, and plenty of encouragement. All along, she was empowering us to be ourselves, kindling the unique flame burning inside each of us. She laid out the blueprint for how I have raised my own girls.” — In a 2020 Mother’s Day tribute to her mom on Instagram
Instilling Responsibility Through Chores
Image Credit: NHAC NGUYEN/AFP via Getty Images. “We made sure they had responsibilities, and so, we had to do things like, institute rules that the housekeepers couldn’t clean the girls’ rooms, and that they had to make up their own beds, and have a set of chores. [When] we grew up … each of us had our own set of responsibilities. … I know I had to clean the bathroom, we each had to do the dishes.” — During a conversation with her brother, Craig, in an episode of the Michelle Obama Podcast
Slowing Down & Appreciating Life
Image Credit: Jean Catuffe/GC Images. “This is like no other time in history, especially for our kids who are so used to being occupied and stimulated all the time. It’s forced us to continue to sit down with each other, have real conversations, really ask questions and figure out how to keep ourselves occupied without just TV or computers.
“It’s a good exercise in reminding us that we just don’t need a lot of the stuff that we have. We can do with a lot less, and I think that’s an important lesson I want my kids to understand. Be grateful for what you have and be ready to share it when the time comes.” — During a virtual conversation with Ellen Degeneres in 2020
What She Learned From Her Mother
Image Credit: Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection. “It’s up to us, as mothers and mother-figures, to give the girls in our lives the kind of support that keeps their flame lit and lifts up their voices — not necessarily with our own words, but by letting them find the words themselves.” — In her 2019 Mother’s Day essay in People
Parenting Means Letting Go
Image Credit: Everett Collection. “Being a mother has been a master class in letting go. Try as we might, there’s only so much we can control. And, boy, have I tried — especially at first. As mothers, we just don’t want anything or anyone to hurt our babies. But life has other plans. Bruised knees, bumpy roads and broken hearts are part of the deal. What’s both humbled and heartened me is seeing the resiliency of my daughters.” — In 2019 to Meghan Markle in British Vogue
Motherhood’s True Lessons
Image Credit: Everett Collection. “Motherhood has taught me that, most of the time, my job is to give them the space to explore and develop into the people they want to be. Not who I want them to be or who I wish I was at that age, but who they are, deep inside.
“Motherhood has also taught me that my job is not to bulldoze a path for them in an effort to eliminate all possible adversity. But instead, I need to be a safe and consistent place for them to land when they inevitably fail; and to show them, again and again, how to get up on their own.” — In 2019 to Meghan Markle in British Vogue
Miscarriages Are So Common & Still Painful
Image Credit: Courtesy of Ida Mae Astute/ABC. “I felt like I failed because I didn’t know how common miscarriages were, because we don’t talk about them. We sit in our own pain, thinking that somehow we’re broken. So that’s one of the reasons why I think it’s important to talk to young mothers about the fact that miscarriages happen.” — In 2018 on Good Morning America
Why Careers So Often Take a Back Seat for Moms
Image Credit: Joe Russo / MEGA. “When you get married and have kids, your whole plan, once again, gets upended. Especially if you get married to somebody who has a career that swallows up everything, which is what politics is.” — In 2018 to Oprah in Elle
Rejecting the Patriarchy at Dinner
Image Credit: Kaspar Wenstrup/Aller/MEGA. “When it came to the home-for-dinner dilemma, I installed new boundaries, ones that worked better for me and the girls. We made our schedule and stuck to it. … It went back to my wishes for them to grow up strong and centered and also unaccommodating to any form of old-school patriarchy: I didn’t want them ever to believe that life began when the man of the house arrived home. We didn’t wait for Dad. It was his job now to catch up with us.” — In her 2018 memoir, Becoming
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Protecting the Optimism of Children
Image Credit: John Aquino for WWD. “Kids wake up each day believing in the goodness of things, in the magic of what might be. They’re uncynical, believers at their core. We owe it to them to stay strong and keep working to create a more fair and humane world. For them, we need to remain both tough and hopeful, to acknowledge that there’s more growing to be done.” — In her 2018 memoir, Becoming
Put Yourself First — Yes, Yourself
Image Credit: Paras Griffin/Getty Images. “When you have children, you have to be fiercely organized to get anything done. I learned that if I don’t put myself up on the priority list, somehow my kids will eventually get knocked down on that list.” — At the 2017 Obama Foundation Summit
Fathers vs. Mothers
Image Credit: Everett Collection. “When a father puts in long hours at work, he’s praised for being dedicated and ambitious. But when a mother stays late at the office, she’s sometimes accused of being selfish, neglecting her kids.” — At the 2016 Let Girls Learn event in Madrid
Our Kids Are Watching
Image Credit: JONAH KOCH/WWD ARCHIVE. “With every word we utter, with every action we take, we know our kids are watching us. We as parents are their most important role models. And let me tell you, Barack and I take that same approach to our jobs as President and First Lady because we know that our words and actions matter, not just to our girls, but the children across this country, kids who tell us ‘I saw you on TV, I wrote a report on you for school.’” — At the 2016 Democratic National Convention
Fighting For Her Kids
Image Credit: Brooks Kraft LLC/Corbis via Getty Images. “I come here as a mom whose girls are the heart of my heart and the center of my world — they’re the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning, and the last thing I think about when I go to bed at night. Their future — and all our children’s future — is my stake in this election.” — In her 2008 Democratic National Convention speech
Michelle Obama’s Best Motherhood Quotes: Pin It!
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