Whose your Daddy Mr. President?

George Washington did not have a long relationship with his father Augustine who died when the future president was only eleven. The cause of his father’s untimely demise is not recorded although legend has it that his wife Mary nagged him to death. Washington’s mother did indeed nag him unmercifully his entire life to the point that he ran away to join the milita and felt dodging bullets and Indian arrows was much preferable to letting his mother nag him to death as well. Augustine Washington did bequeath to his son 64 slaves, the Strother plantation and the ability to tune out the voice of any woman no matter how loud or long she might harangue him. This caused some difficultly during his Presidency because in Cabinet Meetings he could never follow what Thomas Jefferson had to say as he had a high pitched womanish voice much like that of Jennifer Tilly. This disaffection led to the creation of the two party system and the rise of political parties in the fledging United States.
(Whose You’re Daddy, Presidential Fathers, Doris Kearns Godwin, Bantam Books, 1998)