A letter to Malia Obama: Happy graduation day. We hear your dad is really going to miss you

Dear Malia,

Do you remember that night, THE night?

We do.

It was November 2008 - OK, you remember now - when you and your mom and dad and little sis, Sasha, stood on that stage in Chicago’s Grant Park looking out at an ocean of people screaming and cheering for your dad, and you.

You and Sasha were about to become the youngest kids to live in the White House since Caroline and John Jr., the Kennedy kids.

Happy early birthday, by the way. You turn 18 on the Fourth of July which means you get to vote for the very first time and help decide who gets to live next in the White House.

People couldn’t wait to see you and Sasha grow up.

But we kind of didn’t, did we? It’s not like you’re on Instagram or anything. (Or are you?)

From the beginning your parents made it clear that they wanted the media to leave you and Sasha alone. What we know about the last eight years of your life has largely come from them.

So our apologies that your mom made you do your own laundry and make your own bed. Is she still doing that? You’d think that living in the White House would come with some perks.

(Well, having the Jonas Brothers - remember them? - surprise-visit you at the White House on Inauguration Day was a perk.)

Kudos on making your dad keep his promise to get you a puppy when he won the White House. Nice of him to choose Bo, a Portuguese water dog that doesn’t aggravate your allergies.

From your parents we know that you played soccer and tennis and flute and piano. And remember your “tiger phase” when you kept asking your world-leader dad what he was doing to save the tigers?

We saw you wearing braces, but pretended not to.

Your dad talked about it, though. Guess you heard.

“Even though she’s 5’9’ now, she’s still my baby,” he told an audience at a political fundraiser in 2010.

“And she just got braces, which is good, because she looks like a kid and she was getting ... she's starting to look too old for me.”

Your dad kinda likes to overshare, doesn’t he?

Remember that one time he was talking at a Wisconsin middle school and told people how disappointed he was that you got a 73 percent on a science test? We hear he apologized to you for that. His press secretary said so.

Your parents really tried to keep you from getting a big head, didn’t they?

Remember when Time magazine put you and Sasha on its list of “The 25 Most Influential Teens of 2014” and your mom said: “They are not influential. They just live here. They have done nothing to gain any influence.”

Awww mom.

Other than photos of you on family vacations, the occasional public event, traveling the world with your parents, meeting important people - and making your state dinner debut just this year in that incredible Naeem Khan gown - we can only think of one time we ever heard you speak in public.

Unfortunately, sometimes photos speak louder than words.

Whatever happened to that girl who took a selfie with you and your mom and Sasha a few years ago at a Beyonce concert and then sent it out on Instagram? Did the Secret Service have a word with her? Did they?

Remember getting caught rolling your eyes at your dad’s jokes that one Thanksgiving during the Presidential Turkey Pardon?

And we know you’ll never forget that photo of you allegedly playing beer pong while visiting Brown University last year. We saw the photo of your dad looking royally ticked off at you when you came home.

We felt your pain. Boy, did we feel your pain.

So is that why you didn’t choose Brown? Your mom told the world that you want to be a filmmaker, which explains the summer internships in New York on the set of “Girls” and in L.A. on Halle Berry’s show. Cool.

And we know you’re going to take a year off before you head to Harvard in the fall of 2017.

But first, you graduate high school today.

Sidwell Friends asked your dad to deliver the commencement speech but he decided to be just a regular dad in the audience, afraid his emotions would get the best of him.

You’ve been on his mind a lot recently.

“I’m not going to talk about the fact that my daughter leaving me is just breaking my heart,” the leader of the free world said just last week.

Be kind and spare him the eye roll.

This story was originally published June 10, 2016 at 11:23 AM with the headline "A letter to Malia Obama: Happy graduation day. We hear your dad is really going to miss you."