Life of an American Teenager (who happens to be the daughter of the President)

The stress and concerns of raising a teenager escape no parent, not even if you are the President and First Lady of the United States.  Michelle Obama recently appeared on “Live With Kelly” and revealed that first daughter, Malia, 13, is now the proud owner of her own cell phone.  But it comes with plenty of restrictions, according to her mother.

“A cellphone is a lot of responsibility.  As I told Malia, your friends can now contact you without me knowing,” Obama informed host Kelly Ripa.

However, if Malia thinks she can pick up the phone and call whomever she wants whenever she wants, then the First Lady said she is sadly mistaken.  The cell phone has been restricted to certain approved friends by the Secret Service so they can be assured they are not a threat to the first family.  And she can also forget about texting into the wee hours on a school night as the cell phone is banned during the week.

As she told her daughter, “I don’t know if you have fools for friends or whether they’re nutty. That means you have to have a heightened level of responsibility when it comes to this stuff.”

But the rules don’t stop there.  Both Malia and her younger sister Sasha, 11, are forbidden from using Facebook until they are 17.  Not only that, watching TV and using their computer for anything other than homework is allowed only on weekends.  And will Sasha be texting anytime soon?  No way, according to her mother.  She has at least another year before that thought will even be considered, says Obama.

The first lady also told Ripa that the girls have adjusted well to living in the White House despite being in the public eye. When Malia told her mother that she enjoyed living in Washington, D.C., the first lady said she breathed a “sigh of relief.”