First Dads

Parenting and Politics from George Washington to Barack Obama

By Joshua Kendall
First Dads

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Every president has had some experience as a parent. Of the 43 men who have served in the nation’s highest office, 38 have fathered biological children and the other five adopted children. Each president’s parenting style reveals much about his beliefs as well as his psychological make-up. James Garfield enjoyed jumping on the bed with his kids. FDR’s children, on the other hand, had to make appointments to talk to him. In a lively narrative, based on research in archives around the country and interviews with members of several First Families, I show presidential character in action. Readers will learn which type of parent might be best suited to leading the American people and, finally, how the fathering experiences of our presidents have forever changed the course of American history.

The book, which was published by Grand Central on May 10, 2016, divides America’s First Dads into six types. The largest category, “the preoccupied,” describes those presidents such as Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson who were consumed by politics. As James Roosevelt, FDR’s eldest son, put it, “Heads of state have little time to be heads of families... father was too busy building his political career to play a regular role in our upbringing.” Leaders such as Ulysses S. Grant and Theodore Roosevelt who connected with their children primarily through play are dubbed “playful pals.” The “double-dealing dads”—those who fathered illegitimate children—include Grover Cleveland and Warren Harding—plus a few surprises. Both John Adams and John Quincy Adams qualify as “tiger dads,” as they demanded perfection in their offspring. Among the “grief-stricken dads,” who were deeply affected by the loss of a child during their time in office, were Franklin Pierce, Abraham Lincoln, and Calvin Coolidge. And then there were “the nurturers” such as Rutherford B. Hayes and Harry Truman. As Truman wrote his teenage daughter, Margaret in 1941, “You mustn’t get agitated when your old dad calls you his baby, because he will always think of you as just that—no matter how old or how big you may get. When you’d cry at night with that awful pain, he’d walk you and wish he could have it for you. When that little pump of yours insisted on going 120 a minute when 70 would have been enough, he got a lot of grey hairs. And now—what a daughter he has! It is worth twice all the trouble and ten times the grey hairs.”

The Author

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Joshua C. Kendall is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Mother Jones, and BusinessWeek, among other publications.

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Reviews

"Joshua Kendall’s First Dads vividly brings the personal histories of the presidents to life from a new angle – their experiences as fathers. With meticulous research, he draws connections between presidential parenting styles and governing policies. First Dads is a fresh and engaging take.”
-Jay Winik, New York Times best-selling author of April 1865: The Month That Saved America and 1944: FDR and The Year That Changed History
“What kind of a father is a man? The question is so basic and potentially revealing of character, yet most presidential biographers barely discuss it. With insight, grace, and wit, Joshua Kendall delves deeply into the fascinating and often fraught relationships of presidents and their progeny. An illuminating and highly readable book.”
-Evan Thomas, author of Being Nixon and Ike’s Bluff
“The conflict between work and family is the American story, but it is nowhere else so complex as it is when the job is the presidency. In First Dads, Joshua Kendall gives us a window into the many challenges the role includes, and shows how some men have succeeded in balancing love of family and love of country, while others have tripped over the joint role. It is an engaging book, presenting the most human face that can be given to great power.”
-Andrew Solomon, National Book Award-winning author of Far From the Tree

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