Michelle Obama Slams Ungrateful Kids While Pushing Radical Parenting

Michelle Obama just gave us another glimpse into the left’s twisted priorities. In the latest episode of her podcast, IMO with Michelle Obama & Craig Robinson, the former first lady lamented that today’s children are “less grateful” than she was growing up. But in the same breath, she celebrated radical parenting trends that have helped create the very problem she’s criticizing.

“We grew up grateful,” Obama said, referencing her own childhood. “We knew our parents were working as hard as they could. We knew they were giving us as much as they could.”

She’s not wrong about the decline in gratitude. But let’s be honest what Michelle Obama fails to acknowledge is how her own political party and cultural allies have fueled the exact entitlement and confusion now plaguing young Americans. Today’s kids aren’t less thankful because of smartphones or TikTok. They’re ungrateful because the traditional family, discipline, and moral clarity have been systematically eroded by the very ideology Obama promotes.

Obama’s view in a nutshell:

• Kids today “have too much,” and parents aren’t giving them “guidance.”

• “My parents never asked me once whether I was happy,” she noted an accidental endorsement of tough love and structure.

• She contrasted that with today’s soft, feelings-first parenting approach, which has turned the word “discipline” into a taboo.

And yet, just moments later, she applauded Marlon Wayans for raising a transgender child, calling him a “role model” for embracing radical identity politics under the banner of “unconditional love.”

You can’t have it both ways.

If kids today are entitled, confused, and lacking purpose, it’s not because they’re overfed it’s because they’re under-parented. And parents have been pressured by progressive elites like Obama to replace rules with affirmation, guidance with validation, and boundaries with blind acceptance.

Wayans himself admitted he went through “the five stages of grief” before “accepting” his child’s gender transition. That alone speaks volumes. What used to be a red flag is now hailed as a parental virtue. And instead of discussing the long-term consequences or mental health toll of such choices, Michelle Obama celebrates it as a cultural milestone.

Here's the reality:

• Over 70% of Americans say the country’s moral values are declining, according to Gallup.

• A recent Pew survey found that only 35% of teens say they feel very close to their parents down dramatically over the past two decades.

• More kids today are medicated, anxious, and aimless than ever before and the left wants to tell us that’s progress.

Michelle Obama might miss the “gratitude” of her childhood, but it’s the values behind that gratitude respect, responsibility, and family unity that her side of the aisle has tried to dismantle at every turn.

If she’s serious about fixing the problem, she might want to look inward at the culture her own party has spent decades creating.

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