WHO, pray tell, would WANT a government, a bureaucratic organization that maintains streets, oversees laws, arrests criminals and such, should take the role of a FATHER, exactly?
He spoke at length about how his father, Barack Obama Sr., left home early. The future president was just 2 at the time and saw his dad only once more, at age 10, a short visit that still left a lasting imprint.Don't worry, I'm with the government, and I am here to father you. *Groan*
"I had a heroic mom and wonderful grandparents who helped raise me and my sister, and it's because of them that I'm able to stand here today," he told a throng of youngsters and leaders of community organizations. "But despite all their extraordinary love and attention, that doesn't mean that I didn't feel my father's absence. That's something that leaves a hole in a child's heart that a government can't fill."
In candid terms, Obama said he promised himself he would not repeat his own father's mistakes.
"Just because your own father wasn't there for you, that's not an excuse for you to be absent also. It's all the more reason for you to be present," Obama told the young men in his audience.
"You have an obligation to break the cycle and to learn from those mistakes, and to rise up where your own fathers fell short and to do better than they did with your own children," Obama said. "That's what I've tried to do in my life."
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.
Can we please have a real democracy when all this economic strife is over? PLEASE?
- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)
Created in a heat of politically motivated outrage, right here on Blogger.
Created in a heat of politically motivated outrage, right here on Blogger.
