I am like you. You are like me.
February 20, 2016 2:30 PM   Subscribe

"For 3 year old Clark Reynolds, Thursday began like most others." Janell Ross on Pete Souza's photograph of Obama and his "little visitor."

"What Clark does know is the president's name, his face when he sees Obama on TV and the sound of President Obama's voice when it comes through the satellite radio in his dad's car. Then, there's Clark favorite book, the one that Clark almost always picks when it's reading time. Clark has been through the 'The White House Pop-Up Book' by Chuck Fischer so many times that, almost as soon as Clark and his mother walked onto the White House grounds Thursday, Clark knew where they were.

. . .

Obama is our president. Still, this remains a country where children who look like Clark, but are perhaps a decade older, are widely regarded as a menace. They are to be feared and contained. Obama's touch says, this child is precious and valuable because of who he is and what he can become. But when Obama said as much -- telling reporters in 2012 that if he had a son, that son would look like Trayvon Martin -- a good portion of America reacted as if that reminder was itself an extreme affront.

On Thursday, before Clark left the White House, President Obama inscribed Clark's favorite book. Clark's mother brought it along. The inscription reads: 'To Clark -- Dream big dreams! Barack Obama.'"

This photo, one of many reflecting Obama's deep and loving connection to children, kicked off the hashtag #ObamawithKids. Not enough for you? Here's 60 more photos of Obama with kids.

And the kids love him back - Caprina Harris's granddaughter is not ready for a new President (facebook video).
posted by sallybrown (34 comments total) 36 users marked this as a favorite
 
This made me weepy, in a good way.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 2:42 PM on February 20, 2016 [2 favorites]


I feel exactly like Caprina Harris's granddaughter.
posted by k8t at 2:43 PM on February 20, 2016 [16 favorites]


Here's 60 more photos of Obama with kids.

Kids being excited to meet the President is one thing, but what I find really striking is how genuinely happy Obama seems to be in most of those photos.
posted by dersins at 2:47 PM on February 20, 2016 [14 favorites]


Yeah, k8t, I almost started crying too watching it. I hate the thought of someone else giving the State of the Union. I'm trying to make my peace with the fact that I will probably never admire another president in the way I admire Obama. It's tough.
posted by town of cats at 2:57 PM on February 20, 2016 [15 favorites]


An oldie but a goodie: Obama gets baby to stop crying (2011).
posted by filthy light thief at 3:24 PM on February 20, 2016 [17 favorites]


I'M NOT CRYING YOU'RE CRYING
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 3:28 PM on February 20, 2016 [11 favorites]


I cried at this like 5 times already. Don't make me do it again!

(I always kind of giggled at my grandmother having framed photos of Kennedy and the Pope. Now I'm just trying to decide where Barack and Francis should go.)
posted by sallybrown at 3:33 PM on February 20, 2016 [19 favorites]


When my oldest was in pre-K, and was learning about the president, he was looking through a "photos of the week" site with me and suddenly said at a picture of Obama and Biden, "I know those guys! The black guy is the president and the white guy is the helper president! We learned about them at school!" and my parenting antennae go shooting up and I very carefully say, "Oh? Why are they the black guy and the white guy?" in case he's been learning to refer to people by skin color and I have to manage that situation. My 4-year-old looks at me like I'm particularly stupid and says, "Because the president has black hair and the helper president has white hair."

"Oh, fair enough," I said.

Then he leaned in really close and whispered, "At first I thought they were the red guy and the blue guy," he confided, pointing at Obama's tie, "but sometimes they switch."

Everything you need to know about men's political fashion, ladies and gents.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 3:36 PM on February 20, 2016 [101 favorites]


Obama is by far the classiest president of my near half century on the planet.
posted by srboisvert at 3:44 PM on February 20, 2016 [8 favorites]


Is this the Obama love thread? I love Obama.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:45 PM on February 20, 2016 [18 favorites]


The photo is unbelievably beautiful, but my favorite Obama/kid thing is President Obama with the pope-mobile baby.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 3:46 PM on February 20, 2016 [4 favorites]


Well that really opened up the flood gates. Thanks—wouldn't have seen this if not for you. Beautiful, beautiful. Also this one from the other link.
posted by absqua at 3:59 PM on February 20, 2016


The part I love about the "Obama gets a baby to stop crying" one is the looks he and Michelle give each other when he does it - she does this "are you KIDDING me?" take at him, and he just looks back all smug.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:05 PM on February 20, 2016 [8 favorites]


HEYYYY MICHELLLLLLE
posted by Rhaomi at 4:34 PM on February 20, 2016 [11 favorites]


tfw...
for half a decade you've been vacillating about whether to Baby or not. and not-entirely-dissimilarly, feeling all sorts of ways about President Obama's administration. and then you click the first link and you melt and remember how lovable Human Obama is. and then you're clicking the next link and hanging on every single photo. and suddenly calculating your next ovulation cycle in order to somehow time a birth and then a White House trip before next January, and start lifting cans of soup in order to one-arm-thrust your newborn into Obama's reach. and you play and replay adorable granddaughter's shocked wails and sniffles, and you also are whimpering and sniffling and your partner to your left on the sofa looks rather concerned. <3
posted by cluebucket at 4:45 PM on February 20, 2016 [7 favorites]


I'm trying to make my peace with the fact that I will probably never admire another president in the way I admire Obama.

Same here. There will be presidents who I am glad won their elections, and there will be presidents whose departure I will mourn, but I can't imagine another Obama. I'm glad to have been here for this presidency, and I wish my kids were old enough to remember this time better.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 4:49 PM on February 20, 2016 [9 favorites]


"I am like you."
"...well, half like you, half like that other kid over there I don't look like. And I've worked most of my life to achieve acceptance by people like that other half and I've still reached less than half of them."

...for the record, I'm one white guy who spends most his time sincerely ashamed of his whiteness and guyness.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:51 PM on February 20, 2016


There's basically nothing in the entire world better than that picture of him on the floor with the baby in the elephant costume.
posted by gerstle at 5:05 PM on February 20, 2016 [4 favorites]


I'M NOT READY FOR A NEW ONE!

Dang it -- those Pres/Kiddo pics are about to be my go-to picker-upper.
posted by allthinky at 5:28 PM on February 20, 2016


Michelle's outfit in the Pope photo is so great.
posted by k8t at 6:14 PM on February 20, 2016 [2 favorites]


I don't think there has ever been a politician as tuned to kids.

Compare Cruz, for example.
posted by fredludd at 6:14 PM on February 20, 2016


I don't think there has ever been a politician as tuned to kids.

To be fair to Cruz, that's not a kid; that's a teenager.
posted by The arrows are too fast at 6:34 PM on February 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


POTUS dons tiara for Girl Scouts always gives me a case of the smiles.
posted by Dr. Zira at 8:25 PM on February 20, 2016 [7 favorites]


Obama wearing a tiara with the Girl Scouts is spectacular. I'm also a huge fan of his look of surprise when Joey shows him the marshmallow cannon at the 2012 Science Fair.

Visiting Obama in the White House is also a huge plot point in the Sara Benincasa novel DC Trip. I don't think that scene really works with any other President, nobody else could be that cool.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 8:35 PM on February 20, 2016 [2 favorites]


There's something great about living in a time when our daughters don't think it's particularly noteworthy that a man puts on a tiara.
posted by padraigin at 9:17 PM on February 20, 2016 [4 favorites]


Obama is by far the classiest president of my near half century on the planet.

With 13 presidents in my life, I gotta say that Kennedy still seems like the "classiest" - at least in public - but Obama runs a close second and easily makes "coolest". The bit with Seinfeld in the 'vette sorta clinches that for me.
posted by Alter Cocker at 9:20 PM on February 20, 2016


He is America's Cool Dad
posted by angrycat at 5:35 AM on February 21, 2016


To be fair to Cruz, that's not a kid; that's a teenager.

That's his seven year old daughter.
posted by katemonster at 6:41 AM on February 21, 2016


Obama is not just savvy about photo ops with kids, he's also savvy about Internet memes - even the ones that make fun of him.

unfortunately, one of the "you may also be interested in" articles that came up while I was looking for those was a recent piece about Trump saying that "I would be so angry at Obama if I were black", and I'm having this whole "Camelot is ending" moment now.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:07 AM on February 21, 2016 [3 favorites]


I love the cookie being too big skit. It just makes me giggle every time 'cause that year my friends and I went through a spat of "Thanks Obama" for EVERYTHING.
posted by Deoridhe at 1:58 PM on February 21, 2016 [3 favorites]


OK, this is the exact opposite of Obama and kids, but wow.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:59 PM on February 21, 2016 [3 favorites]


roomthreeseventeen, Virginia McLaurin is a pretty amazing person.
posted by dhens at 9:17 PM on February 21, 2016 [4 favorites]


There's basically nothing in the entire world better than that picture of him on the floor with the baby in the elephant costume.

Naw, the shots from the campaign with him and Sasha driving a bumper car.

Also better in an unrelated way: when you have five to eight five week old puppies in a bucket or something and a nice freshly cleaned Baby Jail and you sit down in Baby Jail and your special schmoopy hands you a puppy and hands you a puppy and hands you a puppy and hands you a puppy and hands you a puppy and they're all wriggling around and biting your toes and and crawling up on your lap DEMANDING to receive The Patting and bombling around like tiny little drunks and dude I swear your blood pressure can actually go negative.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:47 PM on February 21, 2016 [2 favorites]


Not everyone is happy with #ObamaandKids.

That's a new low, even for Freddie.
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:07 PM on February 22, 2016


« Older "I can't afford to buy groceries..."   |   Moments Of Weightlessness Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments