Michelle Obama and Tyler Perry discuss parenting in an exclusive excerpt from her new Audible podcast. Perry recalls an eye-opening fatherhood moment.
In an exclusive clip from Audible’s Michelle Obama: The Light Podcast, Perry discusses a therapeutic moment he had while parenting his 8-year-old son Aman.
Perry, who shares Aman with ex Gelila Bekele, remembers disciplining his son with kindness when he didn’t want to clean his teeth at home with their nanny.
“I walk in and see a nanny helping us and [Aman] giving them business, not wanting to wash his teeth. He didn’t want to wash his teeth at 5 or 6 “starts. “He didn’t know I was in the door, I watched him for a minute, then I had the nanny leave and sat down eye-to-eye and chatted to him.”
“Listen to me—you won’t be this way. Love you. Parents. You’ll act differently. We taught better. You’re better. You’ll improve.” Perry, 53, recalls telling Aman. “Talking to him. I got emotional and left the room.”
Perry says he cried and realised his upbringing while his son apologised and brushed his teeth.
“I stepped out on the balcony I was in tears because I realised that nobody had ever talked, gone down and talked to me eye-to-eye and had a dialogue that I could understand,” he tells Obama. “Yelling and cussing and what you’re not and what you’ll never be.”
“So to have a moment where I had a chance to have a dialogue with a youngster, who is my spitting image, I was not just correcting and teaching him the right way but helping my own little guy inside of me heal, it was lovely.”
Michelle Obama: The Light Podcast episodes debut weekly on Audible and remain exclusive for two weeks before appearing on other streaming platforms.