When you ask former First Lady Michelle Obama about parenting, she goes back to the way she was raised by her own parents,

Frazier and Marion Robinson.

I was raised to be handed my competence early.

So by the time she was five years old, Obama says her mom had given her an alarm clock.

Because she knew that we were capable of getting ourselves up. She wanted us to feel the power of our competence.

Shortly after that, Obama was walking to school by herself.

My mother says her job is to put herself out of a job early.

So she started at a very early age requiring us to be independent.

And what that does for a kid when your parent trusts you, it encourages you.

It tells you that if my mom thinks I can do this, then I must be capable.

And that's exactly how Obama set out to parent her own daughter, Sasha and Malia.

They were seven and ten years old when their dad, former president Barack Obama, was elected.

They spent most of their adolescence at the White House.

Sasha and Malia are now in their 20s, navigating early adulthood.

They live in Los Angeles, they date. They invite their parents over for week martinis as Obama describes them.

Parenting has changed a bit.

Barack and I kind of do this kind of crazy parent text check-in, you know, like writing things that are keeping us up at night.

Some days it's checking in just to see how they're doing, what they're up to, you know, like most parents.

And other days it's like this.

Barack one day sent them a text on earthquake preparedness because they now live in LA.

That's the kind of thing you do as a parent, you think, uh oh, they're earthquakes.

Have I warned them? Are they prepared?

...