On a recent Facebook photo posted by Humans of New York, a comment was left by none other than President Obama. The post featured an Iranian father and his son, sitting down together. In the caption, the father describes a sweet moment where he witnessed his son perform an act of kindness. “One time when he was five years old, he came with me to the store and we bought two pounds of fresh apricots,” the father had said. “After awhile, I asked him to hand me an apricot. ‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I’ve given them all away.’ I knew then that I was raising a humanitarian.” Aww.


Brandon Stanton, the photographer behind Humans of New York, took the picture while on a trip to Iran. Obama was moved by the story and left a comment through the White House Facebook page, Time reports.

What an inspirational story. One of the most fulfilling things that can happen to you as a parent is to see the values you’ve worked to instill in your kids start to manifest themselves in their actions – and this one really resonated with me. I hope this young man never loses his desire to help others. And I’m going to continue doing whatever I can to make this world a place where he and every young person like him can live up to their full potential. (And if I ever get to meet him, I hope he’ll save me an apricot!) -bo


Of course, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen the president be a total softie when he talks about raising his daughters. During his interview with Marc Maron, Obama described the biggest fun he had was watching them grow up. “Look, hopefully every parent feels the way I do about my daughters. But I think they are spectacular,” he said in the June podcast. “And when Michelle and I came into office, the biggest worry we had was is this going to be some weird thing for them, and are they going to grow up with an attitude, or are they going to think that everybody eats off of china? You know it turns out that they’ve just become—they’re kind, they’re thoughtful, they treat everybody with respect, they don’t have any kind of airs. They’re confident, but without being cocky.”