Obama: Dropping Malia off at college was like ‘open-heart surgery’

Former President Obama said dropping his oldest daughter Malia off at college was a very difficult moment for him as a father, comparing it to “open-heart surgery.”

Obama said at an event for the Beau Biden Foundation on Monday that when he brought Malia Obama to start her freshman year at Harvard University, he was proud of himself for not crying in front of her.

“For those of us who have daughters, it just happens fast. I dropped off Malia at college, and I was saying to Joe and Jill [Biden] that it was a little bit like open-heart surgery,” Obama said, CNN reported Tuesday.

{mosads}”I was proud that I did not 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,” he said. “It was rough.”

Obama said that while dropping his eldest child off at college was difficult, he called the experience “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 has often praised his daughters Malia and Sasha, calling them “amazing” women who managed to handle “the burden of years in the spotlight so easily” during his farewell address in Chicago earlier this year.

“Of all that I’ve done in my life, I’m most proud to be your dad,” he said.