Michelle Obama Recalls One Frequent Fight She Had With Daughters Malia & Sasha During Their Time in the White House

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Everyone fights with their teens, and that doesn’t stop because you are in the public eye. In fact, it may even escalate it. In the case for Barack and Michelle Obama, their daughters Malia and Sasha, now 27 and 24, often disagreed with their parents over this one major issue — and we can’t imagine how difficult that must have been.

In an interview with PEOPLE, the former First Lady said that she and her daughters often disagreed over fashion. It’s something many teen girls fight with their parents over, but most don’t have to meet important political figures at the same time. In the interview, Michelle said her friend and stylist Meredith Koop “worked” with her daughters to make sure they always dressed presidential in public.

“She would sit down with them and have conversations about what they liked. And she had those fights with them about, ‘No, no, pull that down. That hem is going to be a little bit longer,’” Michelle, who co-wrote a new book called The Look with Koop, told the outlet.

“Kids, growing up, they have their own style,” Michelle continued. “And what’s in for a 13-year-old is not acceptable walking down the staircase of Air Force One to a formal greet with President Medvedev, right? There’s [a] protocol that is different. And so they knew that. We had a deal. When they did things with us, the deal was, you work with Meredith when you were dressing for public events because there’s so much…What I didn’t want them to be is part of the negative cycle of ‘what were they wearing’, and ‘how dare they wear that.’ There’d be smoke coming for my little girls, and it’s like, ‘You don’t want the smoke, just put the sweater on.'”

This isn’t the first time Michelle has opened up about keeping her daughters, who were just 10 and 8 when Barack first became President, out of the tabloids. In a March interview on the Not Gonna Lie with Kylie Kelce podcast, Michelle shared, “They lived in the White House longer than they lived anywhere. There’s prom, you’ve got to learn how to drive, you have to be normal. You’re going to a party. Was there alcohol? You have agents and now you have a boyfriend.”

She added, “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 Six because they were doing what normal kids would do without that many eyes on them.”

Michelle also tried to keep them out of the spotlight as much as possible. In her interview with PEOPLE, Michelle shared that she was “so opposed” to her daughters doing public events on school nights. “It’s like ‘your job is to go to school and be a kid.’ And plus, I didn’t want them taking up seats for really important people! These seats were limited, right?” Not to mention, the girls didn’t even want to go. Why do boring political meetings when you could have a sleepover with friends instead?

In their private lives, Michelle encouraged them to make their own choices with their style and looks as a stark contrast to the way a stylist would dress them in public. “When they were in their own world, going to school, picking their prom dresses, it was all them,” she told the outlet. “And so like any mother of teenagers, or parents, a lot of times you’re like, ‘Oh, you’re going to wear that out?’ Barack would be like, ‘Those shorts seem really short.’ And I was like, ‘Don’t say anything. Let them cook. Let them learn.'”

“Because they had these restrictions, they needed some autonomy to play, to try on different versions of themselves,” she added. “That’s all we do, especially young girls. They’re just playing around with makeup. But Barack was like, ‘Sasha’s wearing makeup?’ And it’s like, ‘It’s just makeup, dude. And in fact, it looks good!’ Sasha could beat her face from a young age.”

And it all worked out. “Now my kids are grown. They are launched. They are healthy and happy.” That’s all we can hope for as parents!

Before you go, check out Barack & Michelle Obama’s best parenting quotes.