Friday is a big day at the White House, with Malia Obama, the elder daughter of President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama, scheduled to graduate from the exclusive Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C., as part of the class of 2016.
President Obama, in the last year of his presidency, has been known to grow sensitive about the fact that Malia, “one of [his] best friends,” is growing up and will soon leave the nest, USA Today notes.
“I’m not going to talk about the fact that my daughter leaving me is just breaking my heart,” he said last week, the site notes.
Obama declined to speak at the school’s commencement, blaming his emotions for the decision.
Malia will be attending Harvard in fall 2017 after taking a gap year. Neither President Obama nor Michelle Obama has mentioned what Malia has planned for her year off. However, the family has said that they will remain in Washington, D.C., in order for younger daughter Sasha to complete her own high school education at Sidwell.
As USA Today points out, the first lady has said that Malia wants to be a filmmaker, and Malia has had summer internships on the New York set of the HBO show Girls and in Los Angeles for Extant, a since-canceled CBS sci-fi drama that starred Halle Berry.
And on July 4, Malia will be prepping for another milestone, her 18th birthday, marking her ability to cast her first vote for president, just in time to have a say in who will be her father’s successor.
Read more at USA Today.