The Audacity of Hope (43 page)

I realize I’m not alone in this; at some level I’m just going through the same conflicting emotions that other fathers experience as they navigate an economy in flux and changing social norms. Even as it becomes less and less attainable, the image of the 1950s father—supporting his family with a nine-to-five job, sitting down for the dinner that his wife prepares every night, coaching Little League, and handling power tools— hovers over the culture no less powerfully than the image of the stay-at-home mom. For many men today, the inability to be their family’s sole breadwinner is a source of frustration and even shame; one doesn’t have to be an economic determinist to believe that high unemployment and low wages contribute to the lack of parental involvement and low marriage rates among African American men.

For working men, no less than for working women, the terms of employment have changed. Whether a high-paid professional or a worker on the assembly line, fathers are expected to put in longer hours on the job than they did in the past. And these more demanding work schedules are occurring precisely at the time when fathers are expected—and in many cases want—to be more actively involved in the lives of their children than their own fathers may have been in theirs.

But if the gap between the idea of parenthood in my head and the compromised reality that I live isn’t unique, that doesn’t relieve my sense that I’m not always giving my family all that I could. Last Father’s Day, I was invited to speak to the members of Salem Baptist Church on the South Side of Chicago. I didn’t have a prepared text, but I took as my theme “what it takes to be a full-grown man.” I suggested that it was time that men in general and black men in particular put away their excuses for not being there for their families. I reminded the men in the audience that being a father meant more than bearing a child; that even those of us who were physically present in the home are often emotionally absent; that precisely because many of us didn’t have fathers in the house we have to redouble our efforts to break the cycle; and that if we

want to pass on high expectations to our children, we have to have higher expectations for ourselves.

Thinking back on what I said, I ask myself sometimes how well I’m living up to my own exhortations. After all, unlike many of the men to whom I was speaking that day, I don’t have to take on two jobs or the night shift in a valiant attempt to put food on the table. I could find a job that allowed me to be home every night. Or I could find a job that paid more money, a job in which long hours might at least be justified by some measurable benefit to my family—the ability of Michelle to cut back her hours, say, or a fat trust fund for the kids.

Instead, I have chosen a life with a ridiculous schedule, a life that requires me to be gone from Michelle and the girls for long stretches of time and that exposes Michelle to all sorts of stress. I may tell myself that in some larger sense I am in politics for Malia and Sasha, that the work I do will make the world a better place for them. But such rationalizations seem feeble and painfully abstract when I’m missing one of the girls’ school potlucks because of a vote, or calling Michelle to tell her that session’s been extended and we need to postpone our vacation. Indeed, my recent success in politics does little to assuage the guilt; as Michelle told me once, only half joking, seeing your dad’s picture in the paper may be kind of neat the first time it happens, but when it happens all the time it’s probably kind of embarrassing.

And so I do my best to answer the accusation that floats around in my mind—that I am selfish, that I do what I do to feed my own ego or fill a void in my heart. When I’m not out of town, I try to be home for dinner, to hear from Malia and Sasha about their day, to read to them and tuck them into bed. I try not to schedule appearances on Sundays, and in the summers I’ll use the day to take the girls to the zoo or the pool; in the winters we might visit a museum or the aquarium. I scold my daughters gently when they misbehave, and try to limit their intake of both television and junk food. In all this I am encouraged by Michelle, although there are times when I get the sense that I’m encroaching on her space—that by my absences I may have forfeited certain rights to interfere in the world she has built.

As for the girls, they seem to be thriving despite my frequent disappearances. Mostly this is a testimony to Michelle’s parenting skills; she seems to have a perfect touch when it comes to Malia and Sasha, an ability to set firm boundaries without being stifling. She’s also made sure that my election to the Senate hasn’t altered the girls’ routines very much, although what passes for a normal middle-class childhood in America these days seems to have changed as much as has parenting. Gone are the days when parents just sent their child outside or to the park and told him or her to be back before dinner. Today, with news of abductions and an apparent suspicion of anything spontaneous or even a tiny bit slothful, the schedules of children seem to rival those of their parents. There are playdates, ballet classes, gymnastics classes, tennis lessons, piano lessons, soccer leagues, and what seem like weekly birthday parties. I told Malia once that during the entire time that I was growing up, I attended exactly two birthday parties, both of which involved five or six kids, cone hats, and a cake. She looked at me the way I used to look at my grandfather when he told stories of the Depression—with a mixture of fascination and incredulity.

It is left to Michelle to coordinate all the children’s activities, which she does with a general’s efficiency. When I can, I volunteer to help, which Michelle appreciates, although she is careful to limit my responsibilities. The day before Sasha’s birthday party this past June, I was told to procure twenty balloons, enough cheese pizza to feed twenty kids, and ice. This seemed manageable, so when Michelle told me that she was going to get goody bags to hand out at the end of the party, I suggested that I do that as well. She laughed.

“You can’t handle goody bags,” she said. “Let me explain the goody bag thing. You have to go into the party store and choose the bags. Then you have to choose what to put in the bags, and what is in the boys’ bags has to be different from what is in the girls’ bags. You’d walk in there and wander around the aisles for an hour, and then your head would explode.”

Feeling less confident, I got on the Internet. I found a place that sold balloons near the gymnastics studio where the party would be held, and a pizza place that promised delivery at 3:45 p.m. By the time the guests showed up the next day, the balloons were in place and the juice boxes were on ice. I sat with the other parents, catching up and watching twenty or so five-year-olds run and jump and bounce on the equipment like a band of merry elves. I had a slight scare when at 3:50 the pizzas had not yet arrived, but the delivery person got there ten minutes before the children were scheduled to eat. Michelle’s brother, Craig, knowing the pressure I was under, gave me a high five. Michelle looked up from putting pizza on paper plates and smiled.

As a grand finale, after all the pizza was eaten and the juice boxes drunk, after we had sung “Happy Birthday” and eaten some cake, the gymnastics instructor gathered all the kids around an old, multicolored parachute and told Sasha to sit at its center. On the count of three, Sasha was hoisted up into the air and back down again, then up for a second time, and then for a third. And each time she rose above the billowing sail, she laughed and laughed with a look of pure joy.

I wonder if Sasha will remember that moment when she is grown. Probably not; it seems as if I can retrieve only the barest fragments of memory from when I was five. But I suspect that the happiness she felt on that parachute registers permanently in her; that such moments accumulate and embed themselves in a child’s character, becoming a part of their soul. Sometimes, when I listen to Michelle talk about her father, I hear the echo of such joy in her, the love and respect that Frasier Robinson earned not through fame or spectacular deeds but through small, daily, ordinary acts—a love he earned by being there. And I ask myself whether my daughters will be able to speak of me in that same way.

As it is, the window for making such memories rapidly closes. Already Malia seems to be moving into a different phase; she’s more curious about boys and relationships, more self-conscious about what she wears. She’s always been older than her years, uncannily wise. Once, when she was just six years old and we were taking a walk together along the lake, she asked me out of the blue if our family was rich. I told her that we weren’t really rich, but that we had a lot more than most people. I asked her why she wanted to know.

“Well…I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ve decided I don’t want to be really, really rich. I think I want a simple life.”

Her words were so unexpected that I laughed. She looked up at me and smiled, but her eyes told me she’d meant what she said.

I often think of that conversation. I ask myself what Malia makes of my not-so-simple life. Certainly she notices that other fathers attend her team’s soccer games more often than I do. If this upsets her, she doesn’t let it show, for Malia tends to be protective of other people’s feelings, trying to see the best in every situation. Still, it gives me small comfort to think that my eight-year-old daughter loves me enough to overlook my shortcomings.

I was able to get to one of Malia’s games recently, when session ended early for the week. It was a fine summer afternoon, and the several fields were full of families when I arrived, blacks and whites and Latinos and Asians from all over the city, women sitting on lawn chairs, men practicing kicks with their sons, grandparents helping babies to stand. I spotted Michelle and sat down on the grass beside her, and Sasha came to sit in my lap. Malia was already out on the field, part of a swarm of players surrounding the ball, and although soccer’s not her natural sport—she’s a head taller than some of her friends, and her feet haven’t yet caught up to her height—she plays with an enthusiasm and competitiveness that makes us cheer loudly. At halftime, Malia came over to where we were sitting.

“How you feeling, sport?” I asked her.

“Great!” She took a swig of water. “Daddy, I have a question.”

“Shoot.”

“Can we get a dog?”

“What does your mother say?”

“She told me to ask you. I think I’m wearing her down.”

I looked at Michelle, who smiled and offered a shrug.

“How about we talk it over after the game?” I said.

“Okay.” Malia took another sip of water and kissed me on the cheek. “I’m glad you’re home,” she said.

Before I could answer, she had turned around and started back out onto the field. And for an instant, in the glow of the late afternoon, I thought I saw my older daughter as the woman she would become, as if with each step she were growing taller, her shape filling out, her long legs carrying her into a life of her own.

I squeezed Sasha a little tighter in my lap. Perhaps sensing what I was feeling, Michelle took my hand. And I remembered a quote Michelle had given to a reporter during the campaign, when he’d asked her what it was like being a political wife.

“It’s hard,” Michelle had said. Then, according to the reporter, she had added with a sly smile, “And that’s why Barack is such a grateful man.”

As usual, my wife is right.

Epilogue

MY SWEARING IN to the U.S. Senate in January 2005 completed a process that had begun the day I announced my candidacy two years earlier—the exchange of a relatively anonymous life for a very public one.

To be sure, many things have remained constant. Our family still makes its home in Chicago. I still go to the same Hyde Park barbershop to get my hair cut, Michelle and I have the same friends over to our house as we did before the election, and our daughters still run through the same playgrounds.

Still, there’s no doubt that the world has changed profoundly for me, in ways that I don’t always care to admit. My words, my actions, my travel plans, and my tax returns all end up in the morning papers or on the nightly news broadcast. My daughters have to endure the interruptions of well-meaning strangers whenever their father takes them to the zoo. Even outside of Chicago, it’s becoming harder to walk unnoticed through airports.

As a rule, I find it difficult to take all this attention very seriously. After all, there are days when I still walk out of the house with a suit jacket that doesn’t match my suit pants. My thoughts are so much less tidy, my days so much less organized than the image of me that now projects itself into the world, that it makes for occasional comic moments. I remember the day before I was sworn in, my staff and I decided we should hold a press conference in our office. At the time, I was ranked ninety-ninth in seniority, and all the reporters were crammed into a tiny transition office in the basement of the Dirksen Office Building, across the hall from the Senate supply store. It was my first day in the building; I had not taken a single vote, had not introduced a single bill— indeed I had not even sat down at my desk when a very earnest reporter raised his hand and asked, “Senator Obama, what is your place in history?”

Even some of the other reporters had to laugh.

Some of the hyperbole can be traced back to my speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention in Boston, the point at which I first gained national attention. In fact, the process by which I was selected as the keynote speaker remains something of a mystery to me. I had met John Kerry for the first time after the Illinois primary, when I spoke at his fund-raiser and accompanied him to a campaign event highlighting the importance of job-training programs. A few weeks later, we got word that the Kerry people wanted me to speak at the convention, although it was not yet clear in what capacity. One afternoon, as I drove back from Springfield to Chicago for an evening campaign event, Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill called to deliver the news. After I hung up, I turned to my driver, Mike Signator.