WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama, speaking in highly personal terms as the son of an absentee father, devoted much of his workday Friday to promoting the importance of parental commitment and mentoring.
Celebrities from the worlds of music and sports joined the president at the start of Father's Day weekend for what Obama called the beginning of a national conversation about fatherhood and personal responsibility.
"I decided that if I could be one thing in life, it would be to be a good father," he told a White House audience, after saying that his father's decision to walk away from his family had left "a hole in a child's heart" that couldn't be filled.
Obama spoke after five men, including a former addict from Baltimore, described their own struggles. The president said there was "no rule that says that you have to repeat your father's mistakes."
Adults who were deserted by a parent "have an obligation to break the cycle" and "do better than they did, with your own children," he said.
Joe Jones, 50, founder of the Center for Urban Families in Baltimore and a prominent advocate for inner-city fathers, described his 17-year struggle with heroin and cocaine addiction that began at age 13, not long after his family broke apart.
Jones thanked Obama for making fatherhood issues a priority and said that "the right kind of support systems and the right kind of public policies" can overcome problems "that attack young men's ability to manage their own behavior."
Later, during a question-and-answer session with members of the East Room audience, Jones asked Obama about his decision to run for president with two young daughters at home.
"Frankly, I don't think we would have made the same decision if our kids were a little older," the president said. "Sasha was 5. Malia was 8. And they were still in Chicago. They had my mother-in-law, and they had a whole network and a community and a family that could help and support them."
In response to another question, Obama drew on his biography to underscore the importance of adult influence on young people.
Obama's Kenyan father deserted the family when his son was 2, and reappeared briefly when he was 10. Still, the president said yesterday, that fleeting encounter "in the few weeks that I was with him" made an impact. Obama, a basketball enthusiast and jazz fan, said that his father gave him his first basketball and took him to his first jazz concert.
