Life

President Obama Says Dropping Off Malia at Harvard Was Like Having Open-Heart Surgery

I miss having a president. Those were good times.

Barack Obama.
Image via Getty/Pool/Pool

Barack Obama, the final president of the United States, had to get some tears out after dropping daughter Malia off at college in August. Obama issued his message of support for tears while speaking at a Beau Biden Foundation event in Delaware on Monday, WDELreported.

"For those of us who have daughters, it just happens fast," Obama said. "I dropped off Malia at college, and I was saying to Joe and Jill that it was a little bit like open-heart surgery. I was proud that I didn't cry in front of her, but on the way back, the Secret Service was off, looking straight ahead, pretending they weren't hearing me as I sniffled and blew my nose. It was rough." As previously confirmed by a variety of sources, crying is cool and everyone doing it.

Obama added that, when all is said and done, parents' greatest memories are ultimately those they share with their children. "It's a reminder that, at the end of our lives, whatever else we've accomplished, the things that we'll remember are the joys that our children and—hopefully way later—our grandchildren bring us," Obama said.

Malia, 19, recently kicked off her Harvard career after taking a gap year. Prior to beginning college, Malia worked as an intern at both the Weinstein Company and on the set of Lena Dunham's HBO series Girls.

The Beau Biden Foundation for the Protection of Children was launched in June 2015 to help continue the late Joseph "Beau" Biden's efforts in preventing child abuse. The non-profit, which has a charity 5K scheduled for Nov. 19, was praised by Obama during his comments Monday as a "wonderful cause."

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