Obama's 'national conversation' on fatherhood: LA Times

Quoted via LA Times:

Reporting from Washington -- President Obama, who barely knew his own father, devoted his afternoon Friday to promoting the importance of being a good dad, saying he wanted to start a "national conversation" on the subject.

Two days before Father's Day, Obama attended events related to fatherhood -- gathering famous and not-so-famous dads for a series of service projects around Washington and a White House town hall meeting, then addressing young men on the South Lawn.

He spoke in deeply personal terms of "the hole in a child's heart" left by an absent father and of the powerful influence his Kenyan father exerted during the only visit the senior Obama made after he and the president's mother had divorced. Obama noted that during that visit -- when he was 10 -- his father gave him his first basketball and took him to his first jazz concert, stirring lifelong interests. more