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Parenting Tips from Obama Please a Crowd
Updated 9:06 a.m.
By Shailagh Murray
BEAUMONT, Texas -- It's more about heft than hope these days as Sen. Barack Obama tries to lock up victories in the Lone Star State and in Ohio on Tuesday. His speeches are bordering on wonkish, packed with details about energy and education and worrisome talk about the economy.
But at a townhall meeting here before a mostly African American audience this afternoon, Obama couldn't resist a brief exegesis on one of his favorite subjects, parenting -- and he got a foot-stomping response worthy of an evangelical church service in reply.
The Illinois senator raised the issue at the end of a lengthy answer to a question about education. After discussing teacher pay, afterschool programs, summer school and recess, Obama added, "Can I make this one last point?"
"It's not good enough for you to say to your child, 'Do good in school.' And then your child comes home, you've got the TV set on, you've got the radio on, you don't check their homework, there's not a book in the house, you've got the video game playing."
The crowd cheered. Women started dancing at their seats, fists waving.
"So, turn off the TV set, put the video game away, buy a little desk," Obama continued. "Watch them do their homework. If they don't know how to do it, give them help. If you don't know how to do it, call the teacher. Make them go to bed at a reasonable time. Give them some breakfast."
His words became almost inaudible as the audience shrieked in delight.
"Can I get an 'Amen' here?" Obama joked.
"All right, all right. Since I'm on a roll, if your child misbehaves in school, don't cuss out the teacher. You know I'm right about that. Don't cuss out the teacher, do something with your child. I'm speaking the truth. I'm telling you, I won't just tell you what you want to hear."
Revved up by the reception to his lecture on raising good students, Obama turned to another parenting challenge, healthy eating habits. This time he addressed African Americans directly.
"Here's an example where once again I gotta talk about us a little bit. We, we can't keep on feeding our children junk all day long, giving them no exercise," he said. "They're overweight by the time they're four or five years old and then we're surprised when they get sick. And then we expect that they're going to get treated for things like adult diabetes that children never used to get. I mean, that's why it was called adult diabetes. But now kids as young as 8, 9, 10 years old are getting it because they are obese. So part of what my health care plan does then is we work with parents, work with families to change nutrition habits."
Just as before, the crowd loved it.
"Look," Obama continued, "I gotta 9-year-old daughter and a 6-year-old daughter, so I know how hard it is to get kids to eat properly, but I also know that if we are, if folks are just letting kids drink eight sodas a day, -- which some parents do -- or you know, eat a bag of potato chips for lunch or Popeye's for breakfast -- y'all have Popeye's down in Beaumont? Alright. I know some of you all, you get that cold Popeye's out for breakfast! I know! That's why you all laughing. I caught you out. You can't do that! Children have to have proper nutrition."
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/02/28/parenting_tips_from_obama_plea.html
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