Barack Obama's Speech about Father's

I'm sure he'll disappoint me someday, but I'll enjoy it while I can and hope that I'll be surprised.

Tiny piece of his speech, much of which is a paean to single mothers:
I resolved many years ago that... if I could be anything in life, I would be a good father to my girls; that if I could give them anything, I would give them that rock - that foundation - on which to build their lives. And that would be the greatest gift I could offer.
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I say this knowing that I have been an imperfect father - knowing that I have made mistakes and will continue to make more... I say this knowing all of these things because even as we are imperfect, even as we face difficult circumstances, there are still certain lessons we must strive to live and learn as fathers....
The first is setting an example of excellence for our children - because if we want to set high expectations for them, we've got to set high expectations for ourselves.... It's up to us to set these high expectations. And that means meeting those expectations ourselves. That means setting examples of excellence in our own lives.
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The second thing we need to do as fathers is pass along the value of empathy to our children. Not sympathy, but empathy - the ability to stand in somebody else's shoes; to look at the world through their eyes. Sometimes it's so easy to get caught up in "us," that we forget about our obligations to one another.
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the final lesson we must learn as fathers is also the greatest gift we can pass on to our children - and that is the gift of hope.
I'm not talking about an idle hope that's little more than blind optimism or willful ignorance of the problems we face. I'm talking about hope as that spirit inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better is waiting for us if we're willing to work for it and fight for it. If we are willing to believe.