Obama's Comments On His Kids Will Make You Cry

In just two weeks, the United States will say goodbye to President Barack Obama and welcome President-elect Donald Trump into the Oval Office. The goodbye will be tough — in the past eight years since Obama's first election, people have watched him grow into the role and become the leader that he is today. In addition, people have watched his daughters transform from little girls to teenagers to the young women they are today, one of them headed off to join the real world and then college. This week, Obama reflected on daughters Sasha and Malia growing up in the White House — proving the first daughters have grown and changed as much as their father, and in ways that are just as important.

In 2008, according to ABC News, Obama was worried about moving his young daughters — then ages 10 and 7 years old — into the White House. During an interview with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, the president said that, at the time, he was concerned "mostly about whether they'd develop an attitude." But luckily for Obama, that was not the case. As he told Stephanopoulos, "All I can say is that they have turned out to be terrific young women." (Although, I'll bet it is pretty hard not to turn out to be a terrific young woman when you have the inspirational and hard working Michelle Obama for a mom and Obama as your dad.)

Obama continued:

They are sweet, kind, funny, smart, respectful people, and they treat everybody with respect. You know, we feel pretty good when they go to other folks' houses and when the parents say "Oh you know, Malia, she's just so sweet," or "Sasha helped me with the dishes. What is that you're doing?"

The Obama daughters were young when their dad was elected president, forcing them to leave behind their home in Chicago, Illinois as well as their friends and school — and they traded all of that in for the White House in Washington, D.C. Yet, according to Obama, they handled life in the White House with ease:

When you open a door and they're in their pajamas and they're, you know, wrestling with you, and asking you, you know, to read to them and stuff, you know it starts to feel like home pretty quick. It feels even more like home now because you have all these memories that were formed watching your kids grow up.

They complained about Secret Service as they became teenagers. But as you might imagine, if you're a teenager having a couple of people with microphones and guns always following you around, that could grate on them. But they've handled it with grace and I give Michelle most of the credit for how well they've done.

For as public as the Obamas are, there is surprisingly very little that people know about Malia and Sasha — aside from maybe Malia's college acceptance to Harvard or her penchant for attending music festivals, like Lollapalooza. For example, according to Today, most people still have no idea what both girls sound like. This is because, according to Today, journalists have "adhered to the wishes" of the Obamas to keep "a respectful distance from their daughters."

Obama's interview with Stephanopoulos gives a rare glimpse into the lives and personalities of the Obama daughters, who have transformed from children to young women right in front of everyone's eyes. Even if you disagree with his politics, you can't deny that the president raised some pretty amazing kids.