“Imagine that you go to a parents ' evenings with a convoy of twenty cars, with police officers who are against the teachers, calling them out of the way and people on the roofs," says Michelle in the podcast of Conan O'brien. “We had to raise them by a cocoon of normalcy in a world that is terribly abnormal.”
Malia and Sasha were 10 and 7 years old when Barack Obama to be president of the United States elected. The couple was very aware of the impact the election might have on their children, and so they tried to live their lives as normally as possible. “For eight years we told them: ‘Everything is okay. It is all good. This is normal. Just go to school. There are ... men with guns. You're safe. Do not complain. There is food ...’ We were very busy with them with both feet on the ground. We made sure we got to the oudercontacten went, and to their competitions and that they sleepovers did and that there children came to our home to sleep. And that requires work.”