Michelle Obama is opening up about life at home with her husband, Barack Obama, and their two children, Malia, 22, and Sasha, 19.
In a new interview with ET’s Kevin Frazier and his son, Reece, the former first lady reveals how she and her family have been handling the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Michelle shares some of the ways they’ve been keeping busy, including what a typical dinner night at home looks like, outside of the White House.
“We have our health and we are together as a family. And we’re not getting on each other’s nerves, so we count our blessings,” Michelle says. “We try to eat dinner together as a family every night. That’s a pretty important ritual, so we usually have dinner at about 6:30, that’s pretty regularly, and we have different kinds of foods.”
“Pizza is on the list, it’s one of the favorites, but it’s pretty balanced,” she continues. “We usually try to have a delicious protein and a vegetable. And then depending upon what I’m trying to accomplish — for me, personally, I may not have a carb — but then there’s my husband, who needs lots of food, eats tons of carbs. So we try to make sure it’s balanced.”
Michelle says, however, that the most important thing about dinners at their house “is that we eat together.”
“That’s an important time for us to catch up. Even in quarantine, when we would be apart all day in separate rooms, it was just a good way to check in, to see each other, to ask how our days were going even though nothing was going on,” she explains. “We’ve had that ritual for our entire lives. Even in the White House, I read about how the president, no matter how busy he was, he would stop his day and make sure we could have dinner together as a family.”
Michelle that she hopes her new children’s show, Waffles + Mochi, will encourage other families to do the same. The Netflix series stars Michelle and puppet pals Waffles and Mochi, who discover, cook and eat foods from around the world.
“I knew I wanted to find a way to continue the conversation about healthy eating and movement, and Waffles + Mochi does it in a fun and creative way,” Michelle says, of how the project came to be. “We’re still working with The Partnership for a Healthier America. Not just to talk about eating well and trying new things, but we’re working to raise money to feed one million families that are going hungry right here in the United States.”
“So Waffles + Mochi isn’t just about fun and learning; it’s about doing something good in the world,” she continues. “I remember when my kids were little, there wasn’t a lot of TV that I wanted to watch with them. There was a lot of great kids TV, but to have a show that I thought was funny and that was entertaining for them, that was exciting, that took you around the world, that would teach them about experiencing different kind of foods. This is exactly the kind of show I would have wanted.”
Michelle admits that she sometimes watches the show even without her kids “because it is hilarious.” She also tells ET that she loves that each and every episode always has a meaningful message at the end.
“There’s always a lesson that Waffles and Mochi bring back to me from their adventures,” Michelle shares. “[Lessons] that hopefully spark some conversation at homes around the world.”
