First Grandma on Her First Mag Cover

Marian Robinson posed with her daughter Michelle Obama for Essence this month in the first grandma’s first magazine cover shoot. In an interview with the pair, who are all smiles in the White House shots, Robinson says she’s loving life in DC. “You want to know why? Because my children are good parents.” Robinson says seeing her daughter as first lady is “overwhelming,” but “I never doubted that she could do this. She is doing it with such grace and dignity.”

Michelle, meanwhile, talked warmly of her parents. “I always felt that my father and my mother were unconditionally rooting for me,” she said. “The security of your parents' love really gives you the foundation to think that you can fly. And then you do.” She also touted her mom's sense of humor: "She taught my brother and me to work hard, but to learn to laugh at situations and laugh at yourself and then to move through it." (More Michelle Obama stories.)