As a mother herself, Obama had to raise her girls in the public eye . We can only imagine how difficult that must have been, but today, Malia and Sasha are stunning, proud women in their mother’s photograph. This also marks the first time we have officially seen the Obama daughters publicly since they left the White House (read: not photos leaked by snitching friends ). Obama says that Shields Robinson “listened more than she lectured; observed more than she demonstrated,” and thanks her mother for the lessons that she taught her about raising children — and it shows in Malia and Sasha.<doc-sep>Former President Obama on Sunday marked Mother’s Day by sharing a tribute to the “perfect role model,” former First Lady Michelle Obama Michelle LeVaughn Robinson ObamaPelosi: George Floyd daughter's prediction that he would 'change the world' is coming true Jill Biden recognizes Fauci as an 'American hero' Michelle Obama shows support for foundation created to honor Kobe, Gigi Bryant's memory MORE. "Happy Mother's Day to the most caring, brilliant, funny, and grounded woman I know—a perfect role model not just for our daughters, but so many others," Obama said in a Facebook post accompanied by a picture of Michelle with their daughters Malia and Sasha. Michelle Obama also marked the holiday by paying homage to her mother, Marian Robinson, with a post on Twitter. ADVERTISEMENT "From an early age, my mom saw that I had a flame inside me and she never tempered it," Michelle Obama said of her mom. " Mom, thank you for kindling that fire within me, and for your example as a mother and a grandmother to our girls. "We would never be who we are today without you." From an early age, my mom saw that I had a flame inside me and she never tempered it. Mom, thank you for kindling that fire within me, and for your example as a mother and a grandmother to our girls. We would never be who we are today without you. #HappyMothersDay, Mom. Love you. pic.twitter.com/2LYOS7jzPD — Michelle Obama (@MichelleObama) May 12, 2019 President Trump Donald TrumpTrump lashes out after grand jury seated for New York criminal probe Schumer tees up vote on Jan. 6 commission bill Senators struggle to save Jan. 6 commission MORE wished Americans "Happy Mother's Day" in a Facebook post. First Lady Melania Trump Melania TrumpBidens meet with Kennedy Center honorees, a tradition ignored by Trump Jill Biden recognizes Fauci as an 'American hero' Here's why Joe Biden polls well, but Kamala Harris does not MORE voiced the same message to her followers on Twitter. UPDATED 1:23 p.m.<doc-sep>In honor of Mother’s Day this year, Michelle Obama shares memories of her mom, Marian Robinson, and women who shaped the extraordinary life of the girl from Chicago’s South Side who would grow up to be America’s first lady. In a special personal essay, excerpted here, for the new issue of PEOPLE, Obama reflects on what she learned about parenting from her own mother: My mother is a woman who chooses her words carefully. She’ll sometimes speak in clipped sentences, her wisdom packed into short bursts and punctuated with an infectious smile or a wry laugh. It’s a style that makes her a favorite of everyone she meets — a sweet, witty companion who doesn’t need the limelight. As I’ve grown older, I’ve seen how her manner in conversation also reflects her approach to parenting. Because when it came to raising her kids, my mom knew that her voice was less important than allowing me to use my own. That meant she listened a lot more than she lectured. Growing up, she was willing to endure endless questioning from me — Why did we have to eat eggs for breakfast? Why do people need jobs? Why are the houses bigger in other neighborhoods? She didn’t chide me if I scrapped with some of the neighbor kids or challenged my ornery grandfather when I thought he was being a little too ornery. She listened intently to the lunchtime conversations I had with my schoolmates over bologna sandwiches, and nodded patiently along to tales of my contentious piano lessons with my great aunt Robbie. Lawrence Jackson In today’s world, it’s easy to hear all that and think that Marian Robinson was bordering on negligent, that she was letting the kids rule the roost. But the reality was far from that. She and my father, Fraser, were wholly invested in their children, pouring a deep and durable foundation of goodness and honesty, of right and wrong, into my brother and me. After that, they simply let us be ourselves. Olivier Douliery- Pool/Getty … I see now how important that kind of freedom is for all children, particularly for girls with flames of their own — flames the world might try to dim. … It’s up to us, as mothers and mother-figures, to give the girls in our lives the kind of support that keeps their flame lit and lifts up their voices — not necessarily with our own words, but by letting them find the words themselves. Story continues For Mrs. Obama’s complete personal essay on motherhood, pick up the new issue of PEOPLE on newsstands Friday. SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Below is an excerpt from Michelle Obama’s bestselling memoir, Becoming, in which she recalls how her great-aunt Robbie’s tough love and piano lessons helped shape who the woman she is today: At home, I continued to work on my own progress as a musician. Sitting at Robbie’s upright piano, I was quick to pick up the scales — that osmosis thing was real — and I threw myself into filling out the sight, reading worksheets she gave me. Because we didn’t have a piano of our own, I had to do my practicing downstairs on hers, waiting until nobody else was having a lesson, often dragging my mom with me to sit in the upholstered chair and listen to me play. I learned one song in the piano book and then another. I was probably no better than her other students, no less fumbling, but I was driven. To me, there was magic in the learning. I got a buzzy sort of satisfaction from it. For one thing, I’d picked up on the simple, encouraging correlation between how long I practiced and how much I achieved. And I sensed something in Robbie as well — too deeply buried to be an outright pleasure, but still, a pulse of something lighter and happier coming from her when I made it through a song without messing up, when my right hand picked out a melody while my left touched down on a chord. I’d notice it out of the corner of my eye: Robbie’s lips would unpurse themselves just slightly; her tapping finger would pick up a little bounce. This, it turns out, was our honeymoon phase. It’s possible that we might have continued this way, Robbie and I, had I been less curious and more reverent when it came to her piano method. But the lesson book was thick enough and my progress on the opening few songs slow enough that I got impatient and started peeking ahead—and not just a few pages ahead but deep into the book, checking out the titles of the more advanced songs and beginning, during my practice sessions, to fiddle around with playing them. When I proudly debuted one of my late-in-the-book songs for Robbie, she exploded, slapping down my achievement with a vicious “Good night!” I got chewed out the way I’d heard her chewing out plenty of students before me. All I’d done was try to learn more and faster, but Robbie viewed it as a crime approaching treason. She wasn’t impressed, not even a little bit. RELATED: Michelle Obama‘s Becoming, with 10 Million Copies Sold, Could Be the Most Popular Memoir Ever, Publisher Says Miller Mobley Nor was I chastened. I was the kind of kid who liked concrete answers to my questions, who liked to reason things out to some logical if exhausting end. I was lawyerly and also veered toward dictatorial, as my brother, who often got ordered out of our shared play area, would attest. When I thought I had a good idea about something, I didn’t like being told no. Which is how my great-aunt and I ended up in each other’s faces, both of us hot and unyielding. “How could you be mad at me for wanting to learn a new song?” “You’re not ready for it. That’s not how you learn piano.” “But I am ready. I just played it.” “That’s not how it’s done.” “But why?” RELATED VIDEO: Michelle Obama Shares the Advice She’d Give Meghan Markle: ‘Don’t Be in a Hurry to Do Anything’ Piano lessons became epic and trying, largely due to my refusal to follow the prescribed method and Robbie’s refusal to see anything good in my freewheeling approach to her songbook. We went back and forth, week after week, as I remember it. I was stubborn and so was she. I had a point of view and she did, too. In between disputes, I continued to play the piano and she continued to listen, offering a stream of corrections. I gave her little credit for my improvement as a player. She gave me little credit for improving. But still, the lessons went on. Upstairs, my parents and Craig found it all so very funny. They cracked up at the dinner table as I recounted my battles with Robbie, still seething as I ate my spaghetti and meatballs. Craig, for his part, had no issues with Robbie, being a cheerful kid and a by-the-book, marginally invested piano student. My parents expressed no sympathy for my woes and none for Robbie’s, either. In general, they weren’t ones to intervene in matters outside schooling, expecting early on that my brother and I should handle our own business. They seemed to view their job as mostly to listen and bolster us as needed inside the four walls of our home. And where another parent might have scolded a kid for being sassy with an elder as I had been, they also let that be. My mother had lived with Robbie on-and-off since she was about sixteen, following every arcane rule the woman laid down, and it’s possible she was secretly happy to see Robbie’s authority challenged. Looking back on it now, I think my parents appreciated my feistiness and I’m glad for it. It was a flame inside me they wanted to keep lit.<doc-sep>
Michelle Obama paid tribute to the mother that raised her and the daughters she is raising in a touching social media post on Sunday. 'Verified Growing up, every time I'd come home from school with a story to share, my mother was there with a snack and a listening ear to hear about what was on my mind,' wrote the former first lady. 'When I came home with a tale about my disastrous second-grade classroom, she marched into the school to figure out what was going on.' She added: 'And as I grew older, including up through my years as First Lady, she was always there for me as a guiding light through whatever fog was clouding my path.' Scroll down for video Praised: Michelle Obama praised her mother for helping her become the woman she is today on Sunday (L to R: Malia, Michelle Maryan Robinson and Sasha Obama) Fan: She later received some words of love of from her own biggest fan, Barack Obama (Obma's post of his girls in China above) Obama then thanked her mother for keeping the fire burning inside her, and allowing her to discover who she was and what she thought on her own. 'She's always listened more than she lectured; observed more than she demonstrated. In doing so, she allowed me to think for myself and develop my own voice.' Those same attributes that served her so well are no befitting another generation as well said Obama. 'Mom, thank you for kindling that fire within me, and for your example as a mother and a grandmother to our girls,' wrote Obama. Obama's message to her mother on Sunday 'We would never be who we are today without you.' Her husband also paid tribute to his remarkable wife in a post on Thursday. 'Happy Mother's Day to the most caring, brilliant, funny, and grounded woman I know - a perfect role model not just for our daughters, but so many others. Love you,' wrote former president Barack Obama. He could not be with his wife on her big day as she was in Atlanta promoting her memoir Becoming at a talk moderated by Gayle King. Earlier in the weekend she surprised a group of students from Spelman and Morehouse colleges who've been studying her memoir. Obama went to Spelman to talk with the students Saturday about the best-selling book ahead of her sold-out appearance Saturday night at State Farm Arena in downtown Atlanta. Girls: On Saturday, Obama appeared with Gayle King at a town hall in Atlanta Obama encouraged the 18 students to have faith in themselves, saying she learned through her eight years in the White House and elsewhere that she is as smart and capable as the well-educated and famous leaders she encountered, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Obama used a phrase made famous by Atlanta civil rights icon the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to emphasize her point. 'I've been to the mountaintop and I've seen it. You're deserving and worthy,' she said. She later added, 'The biggest challenge to overcome now is believing in yourself.' The students spent this past semester studying 'Becoming' as a foundational text for their political science class 'Black Women: Developing Public Leadership Skills.' The students occasionally take courses on each other's campus. Spelman and Morehouse, located near downtown Atlanta, are two of Georgia's nine accredited historically black colleges and universities. The former first lady asked jokingly when she arrived if the students fell asleep reading her book.