Barack Obama, Stop Ruining My Marriage

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from Sean Gregory at TIME: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1903306,00.html


THE list of reasons to admire Barack Obama is longer than Pennsylvania Avenue. But please, and I'm begging here, let's not hold him up as an exemplary husband simply because he takes his wife out on a date.

On Sunday, the New York Times did just that, with a story headlined "If They Can Find Time For a Date Night..." The gist: if the Obamas — with mom committed to her various causes and dad trying to save the free world — can still find time for each other, hey, lame husband sitting on the couch watching sports, time to step it up. The writer suggests that the President has placed an "elbow in the ribs of husbands," while Jon Stewart has joked "take it down a notch, dude." (See pictures of the Obama's dancing on Inauguration Night.)

Yes, daily down time and date nights are cathartic and healthy: my wife and I, working parents with two young children, have strived, with varying amounts of success, to find the right moments to put out an APB for a sitter. But in the relationship department, no husband or couple should ever wonder why they're not meeting a standard set by the Obamas.

Did you catch that NBC special on the White House? The Obamas happen to have some of the world's smartest people working tirelessly on the dirty details of governance. Think those staffers working 'til midnight and grinding away the weekends spend a ton blissful time with their wives? Chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel is killing himself while his wife and kids are stuck back in Chicago. Now there's a guy I can relate to . . . more



(ha ha)