Obama talks to students about growing up with divorced parents

Obama talks to students about growing up with divorced parents

Tuesday, President Obama responded to a question about growing up with divorced parents from a child whose parents have divorced as well. The president said the experienced would ultimately make them "stronger over time." Obama then went on to describe his father, who was absent from most of the president's life. "He was a very, very smart man, but he was sort of arrogant and kind of overbearing, and he had his own problems and his own issues. So my mother always used to say that if he had been around, I probably would have been having a lot of arguments with him all the time," Obama said. "On the other hand, I think that not having a dad in some ways forced me to grow up faster. It meant that I made more mistakes because I didn't have somebody to tell me, here's how you do this or here's how you do that. But on the other hand, I had to, I think, raise myself a little bit more. I had to be more supportive of my mother because I knew how hard she was working. And so, in some ways, maybe it made me stronger over time, just like it may be making you stronger over time," the president added.