Becoming

Laura Bush kindly hosted me and the girls for an early visit to the White House. Her own daughters, Jenna ...

This image of Sasha’s little face peering through ballistic-proof glass as she headed to her first day of scho ...

It took some adjustment to get used to the constant presence of U.S. Secret Service agents in our live ...

Wilson Jerman (shown here) first came to work at the White House in 1957. Like many of the butlers ...

The White House garden was designed to be a symbol of nutrition and healthy living, a springboard from which ...

I wanted the White House to be a place where everyone would feel at home and kids could be thems ...

Barack and I developed a special fondness for Queen Elizabeth, who reminded Barack of his no- nonsense gran ...

Meeting Nelson Mandela gave me the perspective I needed a couple of years into our White House journey—that ...

A hug, for me, is a way to melt away pretenses and simply connect. Here I’m at Oxford University with ...

I’ll never forget the spirit of optimism and resilience that lived in the service members and military familie ...

Hadiya Pendleton’s mother, Cleopatra Cowley-Pendleton, did everything right but still couldn’t protect her child fro ...

I tried as often as possible to be home to greet the girls when they came back from school. ...

Barack always maintained a healthy separation between work and family time, making it upstairs for dinner nearly ...

We made good on our promise to Malia and Sasha that if Barack became president, we’d get a dog. In fa ...

Each spring I hoped to use my commencement speeches to inspire graduates and help them see the power ...

The dogs were free to roam throughout much of the White House. They especially loved hanging out in th ...

We’re deeply grateful to all of the staff who kept our lives running smoothly for eight years. We came t ...

Being the First Family came with unusual privileges and some unusual challenges. Barack and I sought to mainta ...

We made sure our girls had the opportunity to do standard teenage things, like learning to drive a car, ...

The Fourth of July always gives us a lot to celebrate, since it’s also Malia’s birthday. ...