Thaindian News

New York, June 19 (ANI): American President Barack Obama’s primary goal is to be a good father, reveals a gripping Father’s Day essay he has written.

The essay will be published by Parade magazine on Sunday.

Obama, , the son of father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas, has written in the write-up that he observes Father’s Day not just as a dad grateful for his two precious daughters, but also as a son who grew up without a father in his life.

The President apparently knows first-hand the pain of paternal abandonment because he was raised by his mother and maternal grandparents. His father is now dead.

“In many ways, I came to understand the importance of fatherhood through its absence — both in my life and in the lives of others,” the New York Daily News quoted Obama as having written in his first Father’s Day essay as the country’s 44th President.

“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. We can do everything possible to provide good jobs and good schools and safe streets for our kids, but it will never be enough to fully make up the difference,” he writes.

Obama also urges fathers to be accountable for raising and caring for their children.

“We need fathers to step up, to realize that their job does not end at conception; that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise one,” he writes.

He even admits being an “imperfect father” who has made mistakes and allowed the demands of work to interfere with his paternal duties, citing the recent campaign trial as the prime example.

“There were many days out on the campaign trail when I felt like my family was a million miles away, and I knew I was missing moments of my daughters’ lives that I’d never get back. It is a loss I will never fully accept,” he writes.

“On this Father’s Day, I think about the pledge I made to Malia the day she was born: that I would give her what I never had-that if I could be anything in life, I would be a good father,” he adds. (ANI)