Zeroing Out Marriage
Chuck Donovan /
President Obama addressed an attentive audience at a community center in Southeast Washington this week and called once again for a “new conversation about fatherhood.” He also took the occasion to announce a nationwide Fatherhood and Mentoring Initiative, which will be complemented by a $500 million Fatherhood, Marriage and Families Innovation Fund. The Fund will make grants to nonprofits across the country for a variety of purposes that the President outlined as including “jobs training, or parenting skills classes, [or] domestic violence prevention.”
The President was at his most eloquent – and clearly most engaged – when he reminisced about the drive home from the hospital with wife Michelle and their newborn Malia (“going about 10 miles per hour”). He mentioned the fact that his own father abandoned the family when Barack was two years old. He vowed, he said, that, “If I could be anything in life, I would be a good father.” He went on to say, “The most challenging, the most fulfilling, the most important job I will have during my time on this Earth is to be Sasha and Malia’s dad.”