By CNN Political Unit
(CNN) — President Barack Obama says he and the first lady have a good strategy to prevent their daughters from getting tattoos.
“What we’ve said to the girls is, if you guys ever decide to get a tattoo, then mommy and me will get the exact same tattoo in the same place. And we’ll go on YouTube and show it off as a family tattoo,” he said in an interview that aired Wednesday on NBC’s “Today.”
He said his daughters, Sasha and Malia, have kept him “posted on what’s cool and what’s not,” but argued he and Michelle know how to make things look not so cool.
Their tattoo threat, for example, is a good tactic to “dissuade them from thinking that that’s somehow a good way to rebel,” he said.
The president also answered a question about the first lady’s recent slip-up in which she described herself a “single mother” during a television interview earlier this month.
“As somebody who has stumbled over my lines many times, I tend to cut my wife or anybody some slack when it comes to just some slips of the tongue,” he said. “But there’s no doubt there were times where Michelle probably felt like a single mom.”
When he campaigned for the Senate and White House, he said he would often be gone for a week at one time.
“She was still working and having to look after the girls. She definitely, I think, understands the burdens that women in part tend to feel if they’re both responsible for child-rearing and if they’re responsible for working at the same time.”
CNN’s Ashley Killough contributed to this report.
