Obama daughters forbidden from using Facebook

First lady Michelle Obama on Monday revealed that even though she and the president are pretty savvy with digital culture — both of them are on Twitter, Facebook and even Pinterest — as parents, they are strict about technology use by daughters Malia, 13, and Sasha, 11.

Obama said last year that her daughters are not allowed to use Facebook, and not just because it creates security concerns for the Secret Service. Malia is old enough to use the popular social networking service now that she is 13, but the first lady revealed on ABC's Live! with Kelly that she will not allow either girl to use Facebook until they are 17, which will be long after they have moved out of the White House.

The girls are not allowed to watch TV or use their computers, except to do homework, during the week, Obama added. And giving Malia a cellphone once she turned 12 required “days of lectures” on using it responsibly, she said. 

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

Granted, the Obama girls face the added dangers and responsibilities of being part of the first family, but Michelle Obama sounded just a little old-fashioned when she described her resistance to the idea of not being the gatekeeper to her daughters’ relationships.

“As I told Malia, your friends can now contact you without me knowing,” she explained. “I don’t even know who your friends are, if they can connect to you without picking up a phone and saying: ‘Hello, Mrs Obama, this is X calling for Malia’. That doesn’t happen, there’s no screening for you.”

Of course, the Secret Service has screened each contact in Malia’s phone, but the Obamas have clamped down on how much she uses it as well.

The first lady taped the appearance on "Live! with Kelly "last month during a media blitz for her new book American Grown, but it did not air until Monday morning.

During the show, Obama also taught host Kelly Ripa the proper moves for a round of Double Dutch with the Cary YMCA SuperSkippers jump-rope team. Obama's rhythm was off on her first try, but her second attempt to jump between the ropes went smoothly.

Obama’s jump-rope demonstration could explain her strictness about sitting inside in front of a computer or television screen — the first lady has strongly supported efforts to get children moving and eating more healthy through her national Let’s Move! anti-childhood obesity initiative.

---