Michelle Obama learned a valuable parenting lesson from her own mom and dad: Be straightforward about what you know and what you don’t.
The former U.S. first lady’s own parents did a “beautiful job of making themselves plain to us,” even if that meant admitting they didn’t always know what they were doing, she said on a June 18 episode of the “IMO” podcast, which she hosts with brother Craig Robinson.
“I think [our] mom and dad modeled that for us in a really powerful way,” Obama said, adding that the siblings’ late mother Marian Robinson was particularly “very up front with us about her strengths, but also her weaknesses. She talked to us about everything and tried to put her parenting lessons in some context for us.”
Robinson agreed, recalling their mother saying “on more than one occasion: ‘Hey, look, this is my first time being a parent. So, I’m not sure if I’m doing this right.’”
That “always resonated with me,” Robinson continued, noting that their parents’ transparency helped him see his parents as “just regular folks [who were] trying to figure it out.”
