WASHINGTON — SpongeBob or cable-TV news? It’s apparently not a hard choice for Malia and Sasha Obama. President Barack Obama says his 12- and 9-year-old daughters would pick the talking yellow sponge over a talking head any day.
“They are not watching cable TV,” he told ABC News in an interview set to air Friday night. “If they have got an option of watching the news or watching SpongeBob, I think it’s pretty clear the choice that they are going to make.”
The girls can’t completely avoid all talk about their father, however. For Malia, he has come up in discussions of current events at school.
“There are issues of the day that come across the conversation. But I have to say that the school is very good about handling it,” Michelle Obama said in the joint interview. “People are very considerate.”
She said Malia has managed to draw a line between her father’s activities and her own.
In the interview, the Obamas offered a glimpse into their personal life in the most famous house in America.
Their daughters prefer just to be kids, they said, and avoid the news or headlines. Sasha still writes letters to Santa Claus and eagerly waits for the Tooth Fairy’s arrival after she loses a tooth, Michelle Obama said.
The family prays every night before dinner, and Obama said it is interesting to hear what his daughters pray for.
“They’ll talk about family and thanking God for blessing us, but they’ll always add a little twist: ‘I hope we have a great Thanksgiving, I can’t wait to see the cousins.’ They used to pray for a dog, until we got a dog,” Obama said.
“But in the end we always say, ‘We hope we live long and strong,’ ” Michelle Obama added.
