Governor, president and now Father of the Year.
It’s quite the resume for President Bill Clinton, who received the award from the National Father’s Day Committee on Tuesday.
“I [received] a text message from Hillary saying, ‘Congratulations. I think you deserve this,” Bill said, according to Parade. “In our family, that’s a very big deal.”
Though Hillary Rodham Clinton wasn’t in attendance, the former president’s daughter, Chelsea Clinton, surprised her father at the New York City luncheon benefitting Save the Children, where she presented the award.
“Every day he’s my dad, and I don’t need an award to tell me he’s the best that I ever could have hoped for,” Chelsea said. “But I’m grateful he’s getting the recognition that I, of course, his unapologetically biased daughter, think he’s always deserved.”
Upon accepted the award, Bill recounted the night of Chelsea’s birth in 1980.
He had just returned home from a governor’s conference in the nation’s capitol, and Hillary’s water broke 15 minutes later. When the couple arrived at the hospital, the doctors told the Clintons Chelsea was in a breech position and Hillary would have to undergo a Cesarean section. Fathers, he said, were forbidden from entering the operating room.
But that didn’t stop Bill.
“If you send her into that room without me, I think you’re making a big mistake … I want to see my daughter born,” he told the audience. “They let me go in and hold Hillary’s hand. I saw Chelsea come out, and it changed the hospital’s policy on letting fathers into the delivery room when surgery was required. And from that day to this, I have believed without the shadow of a doubt that it was the greatest thing that ever happened to me.”
The National Father’s Day Council announced Bill would be named Father of the Year in January. The 72nd award ceremony was held at the Grand Hyatt New York Hotel.
The Father of the Year Award has been presented by the National Father’s Day Committee since 1942. Past recipients include President Ronald Reagan, Dick Van Dyke and Al Gore.
