I can't say I'm surprised by reports of Bill not really respecting his wife. After all, most of the functional marriages I know do not involve the husband shtupping his intern. Still, I can wish he would treat her better, especially during such a long, stressful haul.
On another topic, poor Sasha! It's gotta be hard to see your Dad that little. And her Mom's been pretty busy too. She's very little to understand everything that's going on.
Yeah...what really made me sad regarding Sasha was this quote:
"His ache for time lost with his daughters feels palpable. On his plane recently, he described the nightly calls home. Malia, 9, is loquacious, rattling off every detail of her day. Six-year-old Sasha, whom he has nicknamed Cool Breeze, goes monosyllabic.
How was your day? “Fiiiine,” Mr. Obama mimics her uninterested voice.
Because, well, when you haven't really seen your Dad much for a year and you're six, of course you're going to distance yourself... And the adult Obamas made that choice knowingly, and knowing what it would do to their family, but still. Got to be hard for a six-year-old.
Yeah. I had a very distant dad when I was six (until high school or so), and it makes a permanent dent in your ability to have a real relationship with him, even if he tries to fix it later.
I completely get that Obama has made a careful and thoughtful choice and I am sure he is trying his best with his kids. But the history of how First Children turn out is not reassuring, and for them to be dealing with it so young seems particularly cruel.
Chelsea seems to have managed fairly well, as does Amy Carter and Caroline Kennedy, the Ford kids, and, for that matter, Julie Nixon Eisenhower and David Eisenhower, two First Kids who married each other (and are apparently now big Obama supporters; one can only imagine what their dads would have thought.)
But yeah...it's got to be really hard on them nonetheless - and campaign seasons have gotten so much longer and more grueling than they used to be.
Yes, when you're six, "Your dad is busy, because he's the most important man in the whole country!" seems like, duh, of course he's the most important man. It still doesn't explain why he isn't building me a treehouse right now, since I'm obviously the most important kid.
Hopefully she'll have 8 years to come to terms with it.
Here's a picture of Barack and Sasha which just makes you go, "oh, poor sweetie...": http://bp2.blogger.com/_HJO5gb7hdlU/SEqdytzI-5I/AAAAAAAAAMA/4kRVX58nqGI/s1600-h/34137231.jpg
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On another topic, poor Sasha! It's gotta be hard to see your Dad that little. And her Mom's been pretty busy too. She's very little to understand everything that's going on.
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"His ache for time lost with his daughters feels palpable. On his plane recently, he described the nightly calls home. Malia, 9, is loquacious, rattling off every detail of her day. Six-year-old Sasha, whom he has nicknamed Cool Breeze, goes monosyllabic.
How was your day? “Fiiiine,” Mr. Obama mimics her uninterested voice.
Because, well, when you haven't really seen your Dad much for a year and you're six, of course you're going to distance yourself... And the adult Obamas made that choice knowingly, and knowing what it would do to their family, but still. Got to be hard for a six-year-old.
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I completely get that Obama has made a careful and thoughtful choice and I am sure he is trying his best with his kids. But the history of how First Children turn out is not reassuring, and for them to be dealing with it so young seems particularly cruel.
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But yeah...it's got to be really hard on them nonetheless - and campaign seasons have gotten so much longer and more grueling than they used to be.
Sasha
Hopefully she'll have 8 years to come to terms with it.
Re: Sasha
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