Michael Chabon has a wonderful chapter in his book Manhood For Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, And Son about that November night when Barack Obama brought his family onto the Grant Park stage to celebrate and consider his winning of the presidency. That chapter and a few others in Chabon's book (full consideration here)are worth reading on this Father's Day.
Did Barack Obama know what he was getting his family into when he ran for president? Of course he did. The Bush sisters party habits, Chelsea's looks and Amy Carter's braces have all been subject of ridicule. What's new here is the direct way the Obama children are being used to criticize their father rather than the round-about associations made toward presidential children (this writer admits to having fun at the Nixon sisters' expense).
Chabon, winner of a Pulitzer Prize for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay ,makes a wonderful image of the weight of his son on his shoulders during the Grant Park event. Elsewhere in the book, he sees the hypocrisies of fatherhood. Here, he sees fatherhood as a series of betrayals. In the chapter "The Binding of Issac," he watches the Obama children on that stage and pities them "for everything they did not realize they were now going to lose: My heart broke ..."
The realization that he conveniently exempts himself from inflicting this loss on his own children leads him to write, "you don't have to become the president of the United States to betray your children." He considers the obligations that even "the least demanding of children" make on fathers and admits that "I have abandoned my children a thousand times, failed them...or neglected their needs in the name of something I told myself merited the sacrifice."
While the piece ends with an embrace of innocence, its main message is about the sacrifices fathers make, both on behalf and in spite of their children. There's no better theme to remember this Father's Day, both by fathers and those remembering them.