Saturday, Jun. 20, 2009; By Ben Feller – Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Growing up without a father left a hole in his heart, President Barack Obama told boys at the White House Friday in a remarkably personal Father’s Day weekend message.
As a candidate and now president, Obama has been telling men what sort of father they should be. It’s become his Father’s Day ritual.
Father’s Day 2007: “Let’s admit to ourselves that there are a lot of men out there that need to stop acting like boys; who need to realize that responsibility does not end at conception; who need to know that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise a child.”
Father’s Day 2008: “Any fool can have a child. That doesn’t make you a father. It’s the courage to raise a child that makes you a father.”
Father’s Day 2009: “We need to step out of our own heads and tune in. We need to turn off the television and start talking with our kids, and listening to them, and understanding what’s going on in their lives.”
An estimated 24 million American children are growing up with absent fathers, and a disproportionate number of them are African-American. Those children are at higher risk of falling into lives of poverty and crime and becoming parents themselves in their teenage years.
The White House is trying to tackle that problem by sponsoring forums around the country this summer and fall to promote programs for mentors and fathers and to see how the federal government can support them.
