Obama and the Black Daddy Dilemma

Father's Day is fast approaching and I have been thinking about President Obama's relationship to black fatherhood.

His loving engagement with his daughters is the very embodiment of idealized male parenting. Michelle Obama even encouraged us to link Barack's fatherhood to his capacity for political leadership. At the DNC convention she retold the story of Barack driving her and their first child home from the hospital- carefully navigating the difficult terrain of Chicago's snowy streets. Michelle encouraged us to see that he could similarly act as a father for the nation, safely steering our country through an uncertain future. It was an effective metaphor.

In his role as "good" father, Obama has been critical of "bad" fathers. During his campaign Barack Obama appalled some in the African American community during a guest sermon at a black church when harshly criticized absent black fathers. To some this criticism seemed liked a cheap and easy way for Obama to distance himself from black communities in order to gain white votes. His goal may have been racially strategic, but I suspect that Obama sincerely believes in the absolute centrality of black fathering.

So it is interesting that Obama's role as good and loving father allows us to ignore the simple fact that the first black president of the United States did not have a present and available black father. I suspect that had the elder Barack Obama remained married to Ann Dunham and present in the young Barack's life he would not now be the President of the United States. President Obama's particular life experiences, his challenges, his search for self-identity, and his exceptional achievements were possible, in part, because his father was absent. Obama largely documents this reality in his thoughtful autobiography, Dreams from My Father.

Had his father remained Barack would never have lived in Indonesia, his grandparents would have taken a less active role in his upbringing, he may even have grown up in his father's Kenya rather than in the United States where he made a home and political career. Had his father been present he might have had less adolescent angst, but then again that angst was part of what sent him into a world of books from which he emerged a formidable intellectual. Part of Barack Obama's greatness is his fatherlessness.

I don't mean to suggest that it is better, in general, not to have a father. President Obama is right when he points to the importance of loving, involved, financially responsible men in the lives of their children and their communities. I do want to suggest that President Obama lacks some imagination when it comes to analyzing the necessary ingredients for childhood success. That lack of imagination is odd given that the recipe is readily apparent in his own biography.

Barack Obama survived and even thrived even though his own father was absent because he had an intergenerational support network, access to quality education, and opportunities for travel and enrichment.

In America today black women are more likely than any other group to never marry, to divorce, or to be widowed young. We will mostly raise our children alone. Those of us who are parenting with little financial or emotional support from our children's father appreciate President Obama's insistence on greater male responsibility. Mothers deserve and desire support. But we have little choice but to proceed in child rearing even if that support is not forthcoming. We have daughters and sons to raise right now.

We live in an age when family is being remade in creative ways. Gay men and lesbians are fighting for the right to marry and raise their families with full civic equality. There are more interracial and bi-lingual households in our country. Financial necessity is bringing friends, neighbors, and extended family into single households. We have to do more than assert and embody a single, rigid ideal of parenting and family.

As we embrace new models of family we can also support children who are growing up in many different circumstances. President, Barack Obama can't make all fathers be responsible parents but he can help single mothers give our kids the opportunities he had.

In order for grandmothers and grandfathers to be able to provide important back-up coverage for working single moms they need to be able to retire at a reasonable age, have quality health care, and opportunities for dignified housing. We need the federal government to shore up social security, protect and extend Medicare, and make more affordable housing opportunities available for seniors. In order for all kids to have the chances young Barack had, we need quality public schools and enrichment programs that offer travel, language, and cultural exposure to poor and working class kids whose life opportunities are too often limited by parental income. In order for single mothers to provide adequately for their children they need affordable child care, gender equity in pay, and support for continuing education and job training. In order for the children of LGBT couples to have the secure family unit President Obama trumpets we need to have marriage equality.

We can assert the value of fathers and still create government and community structures that more fully support families of all kinds.

Comments (32)

1. MHL:.....Michelle encouraged us to see that he could similarly act as a father for the nation, safely steering our country through an uncertain future. It was an effective metaphor.....

   Oh, dear......Magic was elevated to God (sort of) and now, Michelle (and Melissa) want us to see him "as a father for the nation".....Are you all in love with this shady character?

   Posted by Happy at 06/16/2009 @ 11:13pm

2. Happy;

   1.George Washington father of our nation is now being usurbed by the Obamanation that makes desolation!? That is as repugnent as his being treated as the new afro-american messiah by the liberal national media and leftist as he campaigned and when he won!

   2."Had his father remained Barack would never have lived in Indonesia, his grandparents would have taken a less active role in his upbringing, he may even have grown up in his father's Kenya rather than in the United States"

   No need, he is rapidly turning America into the genuine reflection of a "third world" or poor African nation!

   Posted by BigPasture at 06/16/2009 @ 11:28pm

3. OMFG, I just fapped to some ladyboy porn with more trenchant analysis than this.

   Posted by Still_Here at 06/16/2009 @ 11:29pm

4. .....he is rapidly turning America into the genuine reflection of a "third world" or poor African nation!

   Posted by BigPasture at 06/16/2009 @ 11:28pm

   IF one reads Melissa's sacred offering for Magic, she is saying exactly what she sounds like.....it's just fine and dandy NOT to have black fathers around, so long as Big Gubbers, that's BHO now as "father", stands ready to "help single mothers give our kids the opportunities he had".

   Melissa and her type, are the 21st Century slave owners....it's just that they are black and know how to work and enlarge the welfare state....like back in pre-colonial Africa where they enslaved each other long before white men set foot on the continent....with the key difference being a slavery (today) based on mental and spiritual dependency, embracing of victimology and inferiority of the masses; other than they, the slave masters of course.

   Posted by Happy at 06/16/2009 @ 11:51pm

5. Which is why Obamanation and the Demoncrats reinstated generational welfare in their porkulus spending bill! Slaves vote Demoncrat every time!

   Posted by BigPasture at 06/17/2009 @ 12:03am

6. This is the sort of nonsensical gaseous writing that gives progressives a bad name.

   Posted by sloper at 06/17/2009 @ 12:47am

7. i recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.The post from <a href="http://www.watches-space.com">wholesale watches</a> Company.

   Posted by wujing at 06/17/2009 @ 01:53am

8. Keep repeating your mantras, boys.

   This is what I hear you saying:

   La la la la la la la la la la la la la I CAN'T HEAR YOU, Ms. HARRIS-LACEWELL! la la la la la la la la la la la.

   What she has written makes perfect sense to me.

   Sometimes, fathers succeed as role models. Sometimes, they fail. In the second case, do mothers and their children deserve to suffer? Or should we step in to help?

   I perceive clearly that a certain number of US-Americans would have preferred the pure, simplistic "justice" of a second Great Depression rather than the complexities of an economic stimulus to forestall it. Fine, but YOU PEOPLE LOST THE ELECTION. DEAL WITH IT.

   I myself don't like the way most of the stimulus money is spent, but this is because it's being spent on the rich, not the needy. Complaining that the stimulus is being spent primarily to create an intergenerational welfare class is just nonsense. Primarily, it's being spent to prop up a dying financial system that needs to be overhauled, and I sincerely wish our know-nothing Congressfolk would re-regulate this system before they spent another penny on it.

   Posted by JakobFabian at 06/17/2009 @ 06:28am

9. "In America today black women are more likely than any other group to never marry, to divorce, or to be widowed young. We will mostly raise our children alone." Ms. Harris-Lacewell

   Ms Lacewell, have you ever stopped and taken the time to ask yourself why this is? Maybe you have and just don't like having the truth stare right back at you.

   Posted by fram at 06/17/2009 @ 06:30am

10. "Fram," have you ever stopped and taken the time to ask YOURSELF why this is? If you've discovered the "truth," well, let's hear it. Show me your research and your findings.

    Posted by JakobFabian at 06/17/2009 @ 06:36am

11. HAPP and RIO or the Chinese watch guy spam?

    hmmmmm....

    I'll go with (Posted by wujing at 06/17/2009 @ 01:53am) for most useful post of those three.

    LOL

    Posted by Mask at 06/17/2009 @ 08:05am

12. posted by MELISSA HARRIS-LACEWELL on 06/16/2009 @ 11:05pm

    Thoughtful writing today, thanks.

    Posted by syfriendly at 06/17/2009 @ 10:50am

13. While I do believe that we can offer more support and guidance to single mothers AND fathers, I find it interesting that while you only allude to financial support, your call for all this governmental change does not mention child support enforcement or custody issues?

    To say that Obama's success means that fathers arent needed, also means that government change/support is also not needed as he became president w/out much of what you call for.

    Trust me, a young boy can experience much of the same drive, identity issues, etc WITH a father as w/out. I would argue that being bi-racial and multi-cultural led to more of his success than his father issues. And the support of his grandparents is squarely because his grandparents were still married and present.

    People should not have children unless they can commit to being present to raise and support those children.End of story.If that commitment entails marriage, then further commitment at conflict resolution is desirable. Just because children grow to success in spite of broken families does not make it any more desirable than jumping from a roof because other people have survived unharmed.

    Posted by manostorgo at 06/17/2009 @ 11:50am

14. i found the posture and thoughts on this very interesting. i don't think the article championed or infered a position one way or the other. if anything, the article underscored the paradox of his life;not having a father.

    the blueprint of what a family looks like today vs. 40 years ago has vastly changed. one of the focal points in the article are the approximations given on how community and governing bodies can converge to build infrastructure(s) to support families; fatherless or otherwise.

    again, interesting take on honoring a father w/out a father.

    Posted by southern_belle at 06/17/2009 @ 1:15pm

15. 'Just because children grow to success in spite of broken families does not make it any more desirable than jumping from a roof because other people have survived unharmed.'

    This is a useful metaphor, "manostorgo." It puts me in mind of the temptation of Jesus of Nazareth in the wilderness. One of these temptations was to leap from the pinnacle of the Temple with the assurance that God's angels would swoop down and rescue the Son of God.

    According to the Gospels, Jesus refused to jump. I interpret this to mean that we are free to hope that God or good fortune may yet save us from our mistakes, but that we should not be so confident that we carelessly make mistakes, in the expectation that they will have no harmful consequences, because "God will save us." Simply put, we always have the right to hope for miracles, but it is the height of hubris and irresponsibility to expect them.

    Still, whether we are careful or not, families do break; some of them always have, and some of them always will. When they do, children are put at risk. It is not that they jump from a roof; it is that the roof, that is, the family that once supported them, caves in beneath them. They fall, but through no fault of their own. Don't these children deserve our compassion and our help?

    Some children are tough and survive falls like these, and they have stronger bones to show for it later; but most others are wounded, some of them permanently, and a few later seek vengeance in a life of crime. I agree with you that the success of a few extraordinary survivors should not tempt us to abandon all of those who fall. It is absurd to assume that since hardship transforms a few children into heroes, we ought to increase their hardship generally, so that we will produce more heroes.

    Posted by JakobFabian at 06/17/2009 @ 1:18pm

16. @ JakobFabian, I agree with you and also with Melissa as to the need to help support all manner of families in order to strengthen the fabric of our society.

    I tend to be a middle ground type of person and know that there is never an "either, or" solution. Usually a combination of multi-phased approaches. So while providing support mechanisms, I would also like to see more education/discussion on making healthy family choices. If we look at the health epidemics in America and say, let's teach kids how to eat properly....Then why can't we look at broken/strained relationships and say, let's teach people how to make healthy "life choices". That's not to say that politics or religion dictate what those choices are, just that the individual can create a self aware decision making process. Choosing a relationship that is unhealthy is just as bad as ingesting unhealthy or toxic foods. There is damage done to children when parents split.Why do they split? Why did they get together to begin with? I'd look at those questions removed from any liberal or conservative agenda.

    In specific regard to this article as it deals with fatherhood, I just think men in general need to own up to their responsibility.I'd like to keep the pressure on that. As many issues as I have had with my father, as much love as I got from my mother and extended family, I know that I am grateful for the relationship I have with my father.

    Posted by manostorgo at 06/17/2009 @ 3:43pm

17. So...we are supposed to greadly expand the social welfare state to make up for the fathers that can't or won't live up to their responsibilites?!

    Um..yeah, good luck with that one. I've got a radical idea--how about we go after fathers who aren't supporting their offspring and not sit back and expect the government to take over the paternal role.

    Seriously, what incentive is there for a man to take responsibility for his actions if the message is "don't worry--big brother is here if you can't handle the daddy thing."

    What a load of liberal tripe--get real folks or your culture will continue to generate more losers.

    Posted by vertigoskippy at 06/17/2009 @ 6:19pm

18. "Papa was a rolling stone; wherever he laid his hat was his home . . . "

    That about sums it up for irresponsible males--regardless of the culture.

    Posted by missionunaccomplished at 06/17/2009 @ 8:21pm

19. Very interesting article. However, I find Obama's support of "involved" fathers very superficial. Obama doesn't want fathers to take primary responsibility for raising the children; he just wants them to help out and leave the "heavy parenting" to Mom.

    During the campaign, Michelle Obama hinted strongly that she would focus on work-family balance issues if her husband were elected. But so far, she hasn't delivered very much.

    I wish I could say Happy Father's Day to every father in the world. But I only do it if I know the father is taking close to 50% of the housework and childcare responsiblities and really respects the mother. So most of the time, I say nothing to fathers on Father's Day.

    Posted by ktrig at 06/17/2009 @ 11:24pm

20. What greatness would this be? Warmonger, crony capitalist, accessory after the fact to torture and murder, gay rights denier, pawn of lobbyists and corrupt bankers, accomplished liar...couldn't someone argue that his lack of an ethical male role model is to blame?

    The author is clueless.

    Posted by DrBrian at 06/17/2009 @ 11:36pm

21. If Michelle Obama's image of Barack the Father – who will navigate America through precarious times – was so effective, and if Barack's success is at all reducible to his own father's absence, should not the American electorate, if they want analogous success for themselves, dispense with such wishy-washy, coddling, condescending imagery?

    I don't see the author's connection between (a) Barack's political benefit from idealized fatherhood and his real inexperience of it and (b) his lack of imagination for childhood success. If voters are too duped to get the contradiction, why serve up its real solution when pandering to the fatherly child in them is apparently enough for electoral success?

    Posted by Canadianone at 06/18/2009 @ 09:03am

22. That's the "fatherless" child in them.

    Posted by Canadianone at 06/18/2009 @ 09:06am

23. "Black Daddy Dilemma"? Love how the title wraps up black fatherhood in a nice tidy stereotypical bow. Absentee fathers are not exclusive to the Black community. Props to the Black fathers who are doing their best for their children while facing disproportionate obstacles in darn near every facet of American life.

    Posted by wildroots at 06/18/2009 @ 2:50pm

24. This is a great piece Melissa. Thank you for this.

    Posted by Chrichelle at 06/18/2009 @ 2:51pm

25. This was an excellent post by Ms Harris-Lacewell. Most of the responses, however, I find very disturbing in that they are so self-righteously hateful and close-minded.

    Posted by bonnieheaven at 06/18/2009 @ 2:54pm

26. Very good article. No successful person achieved their success by themselves. It is cliche to say "It takes a village" but it is true. The myth of the American "Rugged individual" is just that, a myth.

    Posted by mwhitmore at 06/18/2009 @ 3:01pm

27. It seems to me that the operative word in the article is "Black" Daddy, emphasis on "Black".

    Notwithstanding the comments regarding the absence of fathers in the Black Community, the influence of mothers (absent of fathers) in the family, the comparison to the LBGT community, etc, the point of the article is that the absence of a "Black" Daddy paved the way for his success.

    White Americans would not have accepted a Barack Obama with an African Daddy (absent his white mother) as they have of a Barack Obama of a European Mother (absent his Black Father).

    The so-called "qualities" of Obama are attributed to his mother rather than his father. In other words, the absence of his father is considered to be as asset.

    The point of the article is to make one point. With a Black Father at his side, he would have been marginalized even moreso than he was during the campaign, and he would never have been accepted as a candidate or elected to represent the USA as president.

    Posted by Bamaguze at 06/18/2009 @ 5:23pm

28. As I understand it, President Obama's father was an idealized figure in his life. It appears he lived with his mythical presence throughout his life, though he was rarely with him.

    It's easy to imagine Obama trying to be as much of or more of a leader than his fantasy pop. Because if he had to live with him and his reported struggles with alcoholism, I suspect he would be a very different man.

    Posted by 4wrdthnkndad at 06/19/2009 @ 8:37pm

29. This article thoughtfully and provocatively goes after systems of racism and patriarchy in present-day America. Great work Melissa!

    Posted by brendon_tigger at 06/21/2009 @ 11:31am

30. "Obama's 'greatness'" - surely you jest (or are suffering from a severe mental illness)

    Posted by tucanofulano at 06/21/2009 @ 4:50pm

31. So Barack Obama turned out to be such an upstanding guy because.....his father was ABSENT?

    What a heap of bullshit. Thanks, Melissa, for reminding me why I am not a Nation subscriber. The anti-male bigotry is profuse and nauseating.

    Posted by sjmcnamara at 06/21/2009 @ 7:51pm

32. Oh, and one last thing.

    If maleness and patriarchy are such bad bad things, tell me, do tell me, why...

    ...the greatest peacemakers in history have been men (Jesus, Francis of Assisi, Gandhi, Martin Luther King).

    ...the greatest scientists in history have been men (Galileo, Newton, Copernicus, Einstein, Hawking).

    ...the greatest literary talents have been men (Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Voltaire, Flaubert, Eliot).

    ...the greatest mathematicians have been men (Euclid, Pythagoras, Pascal, Descartes, Fermat, Riemann).

    ...the greatest musicians have been men (Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Wagner, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Verdi, Stravinsky, Copeland).

    ... the greatest businessmen have been men (Rockefeller, Ford, Carnegie, Morgan, Gates).

    Almost every notable achievement in life has come from men.

    Posted by sjmcnamara at 06/21/2009 @ 8:06pm