The Audacity of Hope - Barack Obama [165]
For working men, no less than for working women, the terms of employment have changed. Whether a high-paid professional or a worker on the assembly line, fathers are expected to put in longer hours on the job than they did in the past. And these more demanding work schedules are occurring precisely at the time when fathers are expected—and in many cases want—to be more actively involved in the lives of their children than their own fathers may have been in theirs.
But if the gap between the idea of parenthood in my head and the compromised reality that I live isn’t unique, that doesn’t relieve my sense that I’m not always giving my family all that I could. Last Father’s Day, I was invited to speak to the members of Salem Baptist Church on the South Side of Chicago. I didn’t have a prepared text, but I took as my theme “what it takes to be a full-grown man.” I suggested that it was time that men in general and black men in particular put away their excuses for not being there for their families. I reminded the men in the audience that being a father meant more than bearing a child; that even those of us who were physically present in the home are often emotionally absent; that precisely because many of us didn’t have fathers in the house we have to redouble our efforts to break the cycle; and that if we want to pass on high expectations to our children, we have to have higher expectations for ourselves.
Thinking back on what I said, I ask myself sometimes how well I’m living up to my own exhortations. After all, unlike many of the men to whom I was speaking that day, I don’t have to take on two jobs or the night shift in a valiant attempt to put food on the table. I could find a job that allowed me to be home every night. Or I could find a job that paid more money, a job in which long hours might at least be justified by some measurable benefit to my family—the ability of Michelle to cut back her hours, say, or a fat trust fund for the kids.
Instead, I have chosen a life with a ridiculous schedule, a life that requires me to be gone from Michelle and the girls for long stretches of time and that exposes Michelle to all sorts of stress. I may tell myself that in some larger sense I am in politics for Malia and Sasha, that the work I do will make the world a better place for them. But such rationalizations seem feeble and painfully abstract when I’m missing one of the girls’ school potlucks because of a vote, or calling Michelle to tell her that session’s been extended and we need to postpone our vacation. Indeed, my recent success in politics does little to assuage the guilt; as Michelle told me once, only half joking, seeing your dad’s picture in the paper may be kind of neat the first time it happens, but when it happens all the time it’s probably kind of embarrassing.
And so I do my best to answer the accusation that floats around in my mind—that I am selfish, that I do what I do to feed my own ego or fill a void in my heart. When I’m not out of town, I try to be home for dinner, to hear from Malia and Sasha about their day, to read to them and tuck them into bed. I try not to schedule appearances on Sundays, and in the summers I’ll use the day to take the girls to the zoo or the pool; in the winters we might visit a museum or the aquarium. I scold my daughters gently when they misbehave, and try to limit their intake of both television and junk food. In all this I am encouraged by Michelle, although there are times when I get the sense that I’m encroaching on her space—that by my absences I may have forfeited certain rights to interfere in the world she has built.
As for the girls, they seem to be thriving despite my frequent disappearances. Mostly this is a testimony to Michelle’s parenting skills; she seems to have a perfect touch when it comes to Malia and Sasha, an ability to set firm boundaries without being stifling. She’s also made sure that