‘The Famous Girl Dad Wanted a Son’: Barack Obama Tried to Convince Michelle to Have a Third Baby But Her Response Changed Everything
Michelle Obama recently revealed that her husband, former President Barack Obama, was eager to expand their family beyond daughters Malia, 26, and Sasha, 23, but she was not.
During a candid conversation on Kylie Kelce’s “Not Gonna Lie” podcast on March 20, the former first lady shared her reasoning for ultimately putting a stop to the idea, fearing they might not be as lucky a third time around.
“You’re doing it a fourth time! I just had to stop,” Michelle, 61, told the host, who is currently expecting her fourth child with former NFL star husband Jason Kelce.
“I was like, ‘I think I’ve been lucky with these two,” she added, referring to her and Barack’s two daughters.
When Kylie noted that Sasha and Malia were “two good sleepers,” their mom agreed it was partly her decision to keep them a family of four.
“Barack was like, ‘We should have a third,’ and I was like, ‘Dude,’” Michelle quipped. “I’m thinking, ‘We’re gonna get a crazy one.’ It’s just the roll of the dice. So, I admire your courage.”
The conversation took a humorous turn when the “Later Daters” executive producer suggested there was karmic justice in their husbands being surrounded by daughters.
“That’s what I told Barack. The karma was like, ‘Dude, you need a bunch of women in your life to smack you around,’” she stated, drawing laughter from the NFL wife.
Kylie then mentioned a report claiming girl dads live longer than other fathers, to which Obama quickly replied, “Are you going out like that?”
The two agreed their husbands, Jason Kelce and Barack Obama, “need to talk” about the experience of being outnumbered by women in their households.
In response to news about a third baby, one person said, The famous girl dad wanted a son.”
Michelle also opened up about the challenges of raising teenagers in the White House, a place her daughters called home longer than anywhere else. Unlike previous first children who grew up before the social media era, Malia and Sasha faced unprecedented scrutiny during their formative years.
“My kids were teenagers in the White House,” Michelle explained. “Those years were just like, ‘OK, you wanna go where and do what?’ And there’s prom, and you gotta learn how to drive, and you have to be normal, and you’re going to a party, and was there alcohol, and you have agents, and now you have a boyfriend.”
Allowing her daughters normal teenage experiences while living under constant public attention proved challenging.
“I wanted to give my girls enough rope to live and be normal teenagers, but I was also worrying about them turning up on page pics because they were doing what normal kids would do,” she shared.
Michelle reflected on how different it was from previous first daughters like Chelsea Clinton and Amy Carter, who grew up in the White House before “there weren’t cameras everywhere.”
For the Obama girls, every party they attended required “a real community of trust” to ensure they could have authentic experiences before college.
When it comes to her daughters’ dating lives now that they’re adults, Michelle revealed in a separate “Good Morning America” interview that Barack has learned to take a measured approach.
“He’s learned how to be a concerned Black father, but not crazy,” she said of the first African-American president, adding that they both want their daughters “to know what they want and who they are in a relationship.”
As Malia and Sasha navigate adulthood away from the White House spotlight, Michelle takes pride in how they’ve adjusted.
“They’re grown women in the world,” she noted, having successfully transitioned from the “little girls that people saw on the stage at the first inauguration” to independent adults making their own way.
The podcast appearance comes amid swirling rumors about the Obamas’ marriage, sparked by Michelle’s absence from former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral and Donald Trump’s inauguration in January.
Speculation intensified when Barack was spotted alone at an NBA game between the Los Angeles Clippers and Detroit Pistons in early March.
Social media users quickly noted the pattern of separate appearances, with one commenting, “They’re definitely having problems. She wasn’t with him at the inauguration nor at the funeral…something is up.”
However, the couple, who have been married for 32 years, appeared to counter the rumors when they were captured kayaking together in Hawaii in late February. Barack also made a sweet birthday post to Michelle in January, calling her “the love of [his] life,” and the pair exchanged Valentine’s Day messages last month.