This is Obama's Advice to an Aspiring 10-Year-Old President

SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images(COLUMBIA, S.C.) —  A town hall discussion with President Obama on expanding youth opportunities in their communities was taken a bit too literally Friday when a 10-year-old asked how he, too, could become the leader of the free world.

“I was just wondering, you know, I’m 10. And I was just wondering when you know, you were interested in being a president,” the boy asked.

When Obama asked the boy if he was thinking of a run, the child shyly responded, “A little.”

“All right. Well, I mean, you’re definitely ahead of me,” Obama said, chucking. “Now just remember, you got to wait until you’re 35. That’s in the Constitution. So you’ve got at least 25 years to prepare.”

The president told the child that when he was his age he thought he wanted to be an architect, “building buildings,” and “then I went through a bunch of stuff and, for a while, I thought I might be a basketball player and it turned out I was too slow and I couldn’t jump and so I stopped thinking that. And then I became interested in being a lawyer. And I did become a lawyer.”

But Obama said the child’s favorite school subject, “social studies,” was a good start.

“I think the most important thing is to just make sure that you work hard in school. I think it’s really good if you, you know, get involved in like some service projects and, you know, help out people in your community, whether it is through the Scouts or your church or some other — or school, some other programs so that you get used to trying to help other people.

Make sure you graduate from college. And then, who knows? You might end up being the — I might just be warming up the seat for you.

And if you become president, I want you to remind everybody how, when you talked to President Obama, he said go for it.


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