My thanks to the brilliant Dr. Thomas Szasz for alerting me to the sickening specter of Obama talking treacle in PARADE magazine. As the president vaporizes about his vision of fatherhood and his hopes for his girls, you get the sense that these kids must think they are at the center of the universe. In that, the president resembles most American parents.

“Too often, especially during tough economic times like these,” writes the country’s chief Idiocrat, “we are emotionally absent: distracted, consumed by what’s happening in our own lives, worried about keeping our jobs and paying our bills, unsure if we’ll be able to give our kids the same opportunities we had. Our children can tell. They know when we’re not fully there.”

In better times, before we began breeding self-absorbed brats, mom would say to the cherubs: “Kids, your father is worried. Let him relax a bit before you go in … ”

A world of wisdom was conveyed in the message Mr. Mindless urges against. Yes, children matter a great deal, but so does dad; he is not an extension of the kids, roped into making their world perfect at a cost to himself. (As we have established that mother is an entity entitled to her own fulfillment, why not father?) And yes, he bears a far greater burden than they can fathom. There is nothing wrong with a child having a sense of the weight of that fatherly responsibility.

Here’s Überdad, again:

“I came to understand that the hole a man leaves when he abandons his responsibility to his children is one that no government can fill.”

What does government have to do with fatherhood and family? In a better America nothing. In Obama’s America everything. The man starts from the premise that government can do pretty much everything. His own experience of state largess has not taught him to question his premise. Rather, Obama seems to have concluded that, affirmative action and racial privilege; the best jobs and career track the pigment burden can buy—these are all well and good, but not as good as being blessed with the love of a dad.

Its hackneyed message aside, Obama’s prose, which seems to thrill the low and high-brow alike, is uninspiring and mundane.

Update (June 22): Myron, a single dad, is BAB’s Daddy of the Year. I’ve seen a photo of the apple of Myron’s jaded eye, and she’s an absolute doll. Her daddy, moreover, is nothing like the country’s papa Stalin. Myron’s cherub looks truly happy.
Myron, you’ll be disqualified, though, if the young lady begins to paint her pretty face and talk in a mixture of Valley Girl and ungrammatical grunts (that’s a botched quote from “Idiocracy“). Also, do not deprive her of your unique humor and wit out of some sense of propriety. I inflicted mine on my daughter. The result: she’s the funniest girl I know. For your own sanity, you can’t cultivate a dull, deadpan kid, which is what the schools churn out.

For example: At my daughter’s primary school, back in South Africa, the women were in the habit of running what we called a tuck shop, “Brit for a shop in or near a school, where cakes and sweets are sold,” mainly to raise money. At least so I think. My girl, then only 7 or 8, wanted to know why I never made any cookies. I told her right away that I did, only my cookies were invisible. She was too small to appreciate the joke, and big enough to get furious at my poking fun at her. You should have seen the little Rumpelstiltskin stomp her little feet. Obama would disapprove of her mother big time.

You know how parents are always telling kids, “You are so cute I can eat you”? Well, in my home the well-worn expression got a bit of a twist. After telling her how cute she was, I’d get this serious look on my face, while looking her over, and say, “Hmmm… Juicy adorable kid. Maybe I should eat you, what do you say? Do you know how much time and money it’ll save me. Think about it….” Then I’d chase her all over the house trying to catch her. She’ll deny it today, but initially she was a bit nervous. Good fun.

Abuse in Obama’s book.

The joking had the tendency to backfire. When I read her Roald Dahl’s Enormous Crocodile, who sounded a lot like her mother as he discussed what kind of child was tastiest, she began to scold me, “Stop joking mommy; read the book.” I promised her that the text was real, but by that time I had lost all credibility. Each time the Enormous Croc expatiated on the hazards of eating children (“they give you tummy rot”), my child recoiled; she could not believe another character was as wacky as her mother. Good times.