Barack Obama offers Al Roker advice as he sends his son off to college

Former US president previously compared dropping daughter Malia off at college to ‘open-heart surgery’

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Former president and father-of-two Barack Obama shared some words of wisdom with Al Roker as the journalist prepares to send his youngest son off to college.

In an interview with TODAY on 13 April, Obama told Roker — whose 19-year-old son Nick was accepted into college last December — not to let his child see him cry.

“Well, first tip is you are going to weep copiously when you drop Nick off at college,” Obama said. “But you can’t let him see you cry, so you drop him off and then you quickly leave, and then you cry in the car.”

Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama have experience as empty nesters after dropping off their youngest daughter, Sasha, at the University of Michigan in 2019. Malia, 23, was the first to head off to college when she attended Harvard in 2017.

“Tip number two is you try to bribe them with nice trips,” Obama said. “‘Hey, we’re going to Hawaii, you guys want to come?’ so that they show up.”

The proud father has often paid tribute to his two daughters, calling Malia and Sasha his greatest achievement, above being elected president, during his emotional farewell speech in January 2017.

“My daughters are so much wiser and more sophisticated and gifted than I was at their age,” Obama told CNN after witnessing his daughters’ participation in the Black Lives Matter protests after the murder of George Floyd in 2020.

For the former US president, dropping Malia off at university was like “open-heart surgery.”

“I was proud that I did not cry in front of her,” Obama said in 2017. “But on the way back, the Secret Service was off, looking straight ahead, pretending they weren’t hearing me as I sniffled and blew my nose. It was rough.”