The Obama Diary

President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama meet with students and parents from the Conference on Bullying Prevention in the Oval Office of the White House, March 10

President Obama opened a White House conference on bullying Thursday morning by telling students and parents that picking on kids isn’t a “rite of passage” — and he said that when he was younger, he was a victim of it as well. “With big ears and the name that I have, I wasn’t immune,” Obama said. “I didn’t emerge unscathed.”

In listing reasons that kids may be bullied, Obama mentioned skin color, disabilities and sexual orientation. “Bullying can have destructive consequences for our young people,” he said. “Sometimes we overlook the real damage that bullying can do.”

….with Maryland’s First Lady Katie O’Malley

First lady Michelle Obama sits with Emily and Sarah Buder. The Buder sisters started a letter-writing campaign to raise a bullied girl’s spirits and turned the project into a book.