Barack Obama: One issue that keeps coming up between us is the message American culture sends to guys about what it means to be a man. It is a message that – despite all the changes that have occurred in our society – has hardly really changed since our youth: The emphasis is on physical toughness and toughness, the suppression of emotions and the definition of success mainly through possession and the ability to control others rather than the ability to love and care for others. There is also a tendency to treat women as if they were objects one owns, not full partners and fellow citizens. Maybe we are more sensitive to these issues because we both had complicated relationships with our fathers.
Bruce Springsteen: You know, my dad was the type of guy who – I remember bringing a video camera one day and saying, “Dad, I want you to tell me your life story.” It took five minutes … And he said basically nothing … What I know about my father, I have secondhand. He belongs to the Irish side of our family who were very old-fashioned, very provincial and very active in the Catholic Church. He left school at sixteen, started working as an assistant in a carpet weaving mill and soon after went to war. He was the guy who was sent to war and who never moved after he got home. He worked on the assembly line at Ford, held various positions in factories, was a truck driver, and was a prison guard for a while. Whatever I found out about my father in the end, I owe it to my own observation and the little that my mother told me about him. When I think about it, my father actually went away one day a week, always alone. My mother was at home with us and I couldn’t tell you where he was spending the time or what he was doing. It was something he passed on and I had to work very hard not to copy it.
Obama: You know, the interesting thing for me was not having my own father at home. I had a stepfather for a while.
Springsteen: For how long?
Obama: Probably four years, between the ages of six and ten. He was a kind man, treated me well, taught me boxing, and then …
Springsteen: What happened to him?
Obama: Well, he was Indonesian. We pulled (from Hawaii – FAS) to Indonesia. We lived there for four years. When I was ten my mom, worried about my education, decided, “Okay, I have to Barry” – that was my nickname at the time – “I have to send him back to Hawaii to get an American education.” And so I returned to live with my grandparents in the States. At that point, my mother and stepfather’s marriage was already a little bit troubled. They parted in friendship. And then he got liver disease and died very young. I remember crying when he died.
Springsteen: Yes …
Obama: Even though …
Springsteen: So if you cried when he died –
.
#Insights #insights #boy