There are a lot of different schools of fatherhood.

The picket-fenced ideal of yore – jocular, stoic, energetic, bad at asking for directions, emotionally distant, decent set of stock options quietly ticking over in the background, occasionally stares at the wall for half an hour – isn’t for everyone.

But Donald Trump’s introduced an entirely new mode of parenting altogether: become a non-corporeal being and pretend you had nothing to do with the child’s creation at all.

I mean, who can forget when Trump referred to son Barron as “Melania’s son.”

Trump indicates that his drive against vaping came at the behest of Melania. He then describes his son Barron in a very odd way.

"That's how the First Lady involved. She's got a son — together — that's a beautiful young man, & she feels very very strongly about it." pic.twitter.com/s5wNzUCSmj

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 11, 2019

After some gibbering about China and the EU and fighting for American companies (“because I see it as jobs”) Trump told a press gathering in the White House: “Vaping has become very big business as I understand it, giant business in a very short period of time. But we can’t allow people to get sick, and we can’t have our youth be so affected… that’s how the First Lady got involved. She’s got a son – together – that’s a beautiful young man, and she feels very very strongly about it.”

That beautiful young man would be 13-year-old Barron Trump, who as far as anyone can tell is very much also Donald Trump’s son. “She’s got a son – together” goes somewhere beyond the passive voice and into the three-months-comatose voice.

But it’s not surprising considering what Trump said back in 2005.

IN an interview with Larry King on CNN, Trump said he wouldn’t mind having a kid with newlywed wife Melania, because he wouldn’t do anything.

He actually said, “I may never even see the kid.”

Nice.