White men do not have to worry about impostor syndrome, according to Michelle Obama, who said she had sat “at every powerful table there is” and not found one.
The former US first lady told SXSW London that she wanted to “demystify” what it was like to sit in elite meetings, which she said were often populated by people from diverse backgrounds who felt like outsiders.
“There’s so many people like me, like you: women, minorities, folks who aren’t supposed to be at these tables … they are sitting around thinking that they’re impostors,” she said.
“I’ve never heard a white man talk about impostor syndrome. I haven’t met one.”
The former first lady was participating in a live recording of the IMO podcast she hosts with her brother, Craig Robinson, which has been a key part of her reinvention after her family’s time in political office.
In a wide-ranging discussion, Obama gave her views on “helicopter parenting” where carers are overcontrolling and domineering, which she said was affecting children negatively because it showed they did not have the confidence of their parents.
Obama said her parents made her and Robinson take “responsibility for their lives” from the age of five, insisting that they used an alarm clock to wake themselves up for school.
She said many parents today were too controlling over the experiences their children had and refused to be there as “counsel but not intervention”, as her parents were.
Obama said: “If we helicopter [parent] a bit too much; if we’re trying too hard to prevent our kids from failing or fear, you’re kind of signalling to them that ‘you can’t do this without me’. Our parents were like, ‘no, you can do this’. This is just life, and everybody does it, and you’re pretty smart kids. So you’ll figure it out.”
“Everyone is trying to curate their kids’ experiences,” she added. “Our parents did not feel like our lives were theirs to manage or make better. We had food on the table, but they weren’t riding on our highs and lows.”
Since leaving the Oval Office a decade ago, Obama has developed a loyal following for her podcast and become an in-demand public speaker around the globe. The former first lady had just returned from a speaking tour of Australia, where some eyebrows were raised over the £476 premium ticket prices to see her.
The Obamas also have a production company, Higher Ground, which recently parted ways with Netflix after eight years of collaboration. The company has created Oscar- and Bafta-nominated work, such as Rustin, a film about the civil rights and gay rights activist Bayard Rustin, and the disability rights documentary Crip Camp.
Obama also revealed that Elton John recorded a special version of Candle in the Wind for her mother’s funeral. Marian Robinson, whom Obama described as a “rock, always there for whatever I needed”, died aged 86 in 2024 and was a huge Elton John fan.
