Remarks by the President at Kenny's BBQ Smokehouse

Kenny’s BBQ Smokehouse
Washington, D.C.

12:26 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT:  (In progress) -- these guys are also young fathers, and they're doing a great -- he’s got four kids.  He’s got two.  And Michelle and I have been working a lot with military families, trying to support them.  When these guys are deployed sometimes, they're leaving the family behind.  I just want to make sure they get support.

And then the reason the two older gentlemen are here is, as I was mentioning, barbershops are where a lot of men go -- and we want to work with them -- we want to work with barbershops to figure out how we can get better information to fathers about resources that are available to them so they can find job training programs; they can find support groups for fathers.  Because the more information we’re getting out there to folks about how they could take responsibility for their kids, make sure that they're in their child’s lives, help support their mother even if they're not living with the mother, makes a huge difference.

It turns out that with the father being involved, the kids are less likely to do drugs, they're less likely to -- girls are less likely to get pregnant.  And so that message is something that we want to make sure gets out there.  And barbershops are a good place to do it, so that's where everybody hangs out -- right?

Although I was teasing these guys, cutting their hair wouldn’t be that complicated.  (Laughter.)  You just take a -- (Laughter.)  I was just saying you got to give these guys a discount if they come into your barbershop because they'll only take five minutes.

All right, guys, thank you.  We’re going to eat in peace now.  (Laughter.)

END
12:28 P.M. EDT