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US President Barack Obama (left) with US First Lady Michelle Obama (right), and daughters Malia (seated left) and Sasha
Speaking before some 300 people gathered at an event in Washington, Obama officially launched a mentoring initiative that will provide additional funding for job training, parenting classes, domestic violence prevention and other services to help strike out the blight of absent fathers.
Acknowledging that he "can't legislate fatherhood," Obama said his administration would also work to help divorced fathers catch up with child support payments and "re-engage them in their children's lives."
Obama, whose Kenyan father left when he was only two years old, has launched a national dialogue on how to address early on the challenges of father absence, dispatching top officials around the country to discuss the issue.
He has not shied away from talking openly about being abandoned as a child by his father, who Obama last saw when he was just 10 years old.
"I say all this as someone who grew up without a father in my own life. He left my family when I was two years old. And while I was lucky to have a wonderful mother and loving grandparents who poured everything they had into me and my sister, I still felt the weight of that absence," Obama said.
"It's something that leaves a hole in a child's life that no government can fill."
With Attorney General Eric Holder watching on, Obama said the Justice Department planned to create its first "Fathering Re-Entry Court" for dads who are ex-offenders.
Under the initiative, fathers would receive help as soon as they leave the criminal justice system in order to obtain employment and services to begin making child support payments and "reconnecting them with their families."
After the birth of his eldest daughter Malia, who turns 12 in early July, Obama said he "made a pledge that day that I would do everything I could to give my daughter what I never had -- that if I could be anything in life, I would be a good father."
But he recognized that the constraints of his public life have prevented him from spending as much time as he would like with his daughters, as he called fatherhood "not just an obligation and a responsibility; it is a privilege and a blessing, one that we all have to embrace as individuals and as a nation."
The president later welcomed fathers and mentors for a lunchtime barbecue on the White House lawn.
In an emotional plea to supporters on Father's Day, Obama had encouraged dads to "step up and fulfill their responsibilities as parents, partners and providers."
He pointed to studies showing that people who spent their childhoods without fathers were more likely to drop out of school, go to prison or become teenage parents.
In his traditional presidential proclamation on the Father's Day holiday, released last week, Obama took the unusual step of giving a nod to non-traditional fathering by mentioning the role of families with "two fathers."
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Acknowledging that he "can't legislate fatherhood," Obama said his administration would also work to help divorced fathers catch up with child support payments and "re-engage them in their children's lives."
Obama, whose Kenyan father left when he was only two years old, has launched a national dialogue on how to address early on the challenges of father absence, dispatching top officials around the country to discuss the issue.
He has not shied away from talking openly about being abandoned as a child by his father, who Obama last saw when he was just 10 years old.
"I say all this as someone who grew up without a father in my own life. He left my family when I was two years old. And while I was lucky to have a wonderful mother and loving grandparents who poured everything they had into me and my sister, I still felt the weight of that absence," Obama said.
"It's something that leaves a hole in a child's life that no government can fill."
With Attorney General Eric Holder watching on, Obama said the Justice Department planned to create its first "Fathering Re-Entry Court" for dads who are ex-offenders.
Under the initiative, fathers would receive help as soon as they leave the criminal justice system in order to obtain employment and services to begin making child support payments and "reconnecting them with their families."
After the birth of his eldest daughter Malia, who turns 12 in early July, Obama said he "made a pledge that day that I would do everything I could to give my daughter what I never had -- that if I could be anything in life, I would be a good father."
But he recognized that the constraints of his public life have prevented him from spending as much time as he would like with his daughters, as he called fatherhood "not just an obligation and a responsibility; it is a privilege and a blessing, one that we all have to embrace as individuals and as a nation."
The president later welcomed fathers and mentors for a lunchtime barbecue on the White House lawn.
In an emotional plea to supporters on Father's Day, Obama had encouraged dads to "step up and fulfill their responsibilities as parents, partners and providers."
He pointed to studies showing that people who spent their childhoods without fathers were more likely to drop out of school, go to prison or become teenage parents.
In his traditional presidential proclamation on the Father's Day holiday, released last week, Obama took the unusual step of giving a nod to non-traditional fathering by mentioning the role of families with "two fathers."
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