Being the daughter of the most powerful person in the country, even for a fixed period of time, can be stressful. Your life is forever changed because your parent once held the highest position in the land. There are healthy ways to cope with stress, but when we have an unhealthy environment, we pick up bad habits and vices along the way from our elders. This is what happened with the daughters of former president Barack Obama, Malia Obama and Sasha Obama. They picked up some bad habits along with the good, from their dad.
Politicians constantly live their lives in high-stress situations. And more times than not, they deal with so much stress that they pick up vices along the way, no matter how bad they are. Former President Obama wasn’t immune to these bad habits at all. In fact, since his early years in politics, he was known to go through ten cigarettes in a day. As he climbed higher in the political arena, the stress was only building up so he didn’t kick his smoking habit to the curb. But when he won as president, he allegedly promised his wife, Michell Obama, that he would quit smoking. And it hasn’t been easy.
In one White House press conference given by Obama back in 2009, he said, “Have I fallen off the wagon sometimes? Yes. Am I a daily smoker–a constant smoker? No. I don’t do it in front of my kids. I don’t do it in front of my family.”
However, no matter how careful the former president was, his daughters seemed to be destined to pick up his smoking habit. It’s no surprise, really, when you have many eyes following your every move, that Malia Obama, the former president’s eldest, was caught with a cigarette in hand in her first year at Harvard. In 2017, Malia was watching a football game at school when she was spotted by paparazzi smoking. But netizens were quick to defend the eldest Obama. Ivanka Trump, another president’s daughter even said, “Malia Obama should be allowed the same privacy as her school-aged peers. She is a young adult and private citizen, and should be OFF limits.”
At this point, Malia’s dad was already done with his term in the Whitehouse, but she was still constantly watched by the press and paparazzi even at school.
Sasha Obama, the youngest of the family, was also spotted more recently with a cigarette in hand. She was photographed by the paparazzi while hanging out with friends, and smoking a cigarette. This wasn’t an isolated incident, however. In a couple more pictures and articles published, Sasha was seen at different locations like luxury spas, with a cigarette in hand.
Yes, smoking is definitely bad, and people who smoke should find more healthy ways to cope with stress. But the issue here that the netizens are fighting about is the status of the person caught smoking. Even if Malia Obama and Sasha Obama are now considered private citizens, they were once public figures and it’s not easy to erase that reputation. However, the paparazzi are also wrong in a way, to publicize these photos. That is the debate the internet is on right now about the Obama sisters.