While many know former US President Barack Obama as the former president of the United States, there is so much more behind this persona that many do not know. He grew into the person that we all know and admire today, but there were many obstacles he had to overcome to become the public figure he developed into. Barack Obama’s childhood was both unique and emblematic of many American stories. Like many, he had difficulties with his home life and parents, leaving a young Barack to navigate many trials. Read on to learn more about his humble beginnings, as well as the struggles and various lessons Barack Obama had to navigate during his childhood.
Obama was raised by his single mother
Despite her high level of education, his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, occasionally relied on food stamps to support her family. Dunham and Barack Obama Sr. divorced in 1964, when Obama was just two years old. However, his father had already left the family the previous year, leaving young Barack to navigate his identity as a mixed-race boy during the tumultuous period of the civil rights movement.
The reality of Obama’s early life was complex and layered. His parents were passionate academics committed to enacting positive change, though their methods differed. Dunham didn’t harbor resentment toward Obama Sr., but the young Barack still felt the impact of his father’s absence. “I know the toll that being a single parent took on my mother … And I know the toll it took on me,” he remarked in a 2008 Father’s Day speech, as reported by Politico. During particularly challenging times, Dunham left her 10-year-old son with her parents while she traveled halfway across the world.
Dunham’s work also took Obama to Southeast Asia, exposing him to a world that was both drastically different and often harsh. This experience fundamentally altered his worldview. “The world is complicated, Bar. That’s why it’s interesting,” he recalled his mother telling him in an Instagram post.
Obama’s childhood, filled with both hardships and unique experiences, played a crucial role in molding his perspective and character. It was a journey of navigating personal identity, overcoming adversity, and learning invaluable lessons that would later inform his leadership and vision for the future.
Barack Obama was just a child when he last saw his father
He was 10 years old when Barack Obama Sr. visited him in the United States in the early 1970s. Reflecting on this visit, the younger Obama shared in a March 2021 Facebook post, “That trip was the first and last I saw of him; after that, I heard from him only through the occasional letter.” During that visit, Obama Sr. gave his son a basketball and introduced him to jazz music, creating memories that would be cherished but never repeated.
The story of Obama’s parents’ separation is complex. While it is true that Obama Sr. left Stanley Ann Dunham to raise their son alone, Dunham herself was an aspiring anthropologist who left her husband to pursue her education. In 1961, she moved to Seattle to study at the University of Washington, taking her newborn son with her. She was aware that her husband wanted to be involved in Kenya’s democratic transition, and she had initially agreed to move to Africa with him.
However, the situation became more complicated due to the strong opposition from the Obama family and the violent conflicts occurring in Kenya at the time. Dunham ultimately decided against the move. As she explained in “Dreams from My Father,” “It wasn’t your father’s fault that he left, you know. I divorced him.” She hoped that her son, now an adult, could understand the complexities of their situation and not harbor resentment towards his father. “I hope you don’t feel resentful towards him,” she said.
Barack’s mother left him to live with his grandparents at one point in his life
When Barack Obama was 10 years old, he moved in with his grandparents in Hawaii while his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, stayed behind in Indonesia. For four years prior, Obama had lived in Indonesia with his mother, his Indonesian stepfather Lolo Soetoro, and his half-sister, Maya. Dunham was concerned that the environment in Jakarta was limiting Obama’s opportunities, so she took matters into her own hands. While Obama attended a local school, she would wake him up before dawn to give him extra lessons in English.
This routine was quite demanding. “At a certain point, she decided she wasn’t serving his interests well by keeping him in Indonesia and in Indonesian schools,” recounted biographer Janny Scott, author of “A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mother,” in a 2011 interview with NPR. In 1971, Dunham sent Obama back to Hawaii to live with her parents, reminding him of the wonderful times he had spent with his grandparents.
However, it was a different argument that ultimately persuaded him. “‘You won’t have to wake up at four in the morning,’ she said, a point that I found most compelling,” Obama wrote in his memoir, “Dreams from My Father.” Dunham and Maya joined him in Hawaii a year later. When his mother returned to Indonesia for anthropology fieldwork three years after that, Obama chose to stay in Hawaii. “I’d arrived at an unspoken pact with my grandparents: I could live with them and they’d leave me alone so long as I kept my trouble out of sight,” he reflected.
Obama tried drugs in high school
While he was under the more lax supervision of his grandparents, Barack started to experiment with drugs amongst his other peers in Hawaii. While trying to discover who he was as a black man being raised by his white family, he became obsessed with finding his identity. He even reached out to his father for guidance in discovering who he was, but he did not get a reply. “I had grown tired of trying to untangle a mess that wasn’t of my making,” he wrote in “Dreams from My Father,” so he ultimately stopped writing.
Obama’s candidness about his youthful experimentation with drugs distinguishes him from other presidents, though he expresses regret and wishes he had made different choices. He views this period as one of his significant moral shortcomings, attributing it to his self-centeredness at the time. Reflecting on his past, then-Senator Obama remarked at a 2008 forum hosted by Reverend Rick Warren (via CNN), “I was so obsessed with me and the reasons I might be dissatisfied, I couldn’t focus on other people.” This forthcoming in opening up about his past most likely attributes to the widespread acceptance and admiration the general public continue to hold for this former US president.