By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON - It is no secret that President Obama desperately wants Congress to pass legislation to overhaul health care. But recently, when Mr. Obama convened Congressional Democratic leaders at the White House for a marathon negotiating session, another priority intervened.

His 11-year-old daughter, Malia, had a band recital.

Thus did the president of the United States ditch his own health care talks - temporarily, at least - to slip off to Sidwell Friends School for a few hours to listen to Malia play the flute. When the recital was over, he returned to the White House, and everybody went back to work. The talks wrapped up at 1:30 a.m., and if the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi; the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid; or anybody else had anything to say about the delay, they held their tongues.

“There are certain things that are sacrosanct on his schedule - kids’ recitals, soccer games, basketball games, school meetings,’’ David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, said in an interview the day after the session. “These are circled in red on his calendar, and regardless of what’s going on he’s going to make those. I think that’s part of how he sustains himself through all this.’’

When Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle, arrived in Washington little more than a year ago, Mrs. Obama promptly declared herself the mom in chief, and mothers across the nation watched as she juggled her duties as first lady with her responsibilities as a mother. But her husband, the president, conducts an unabashed juggling act of his own.

He knocks off work at 6 p.m. each evening to have dinner with his family, and has given his schedulers strict instructions that, if he must have night-time activities, they are to take place after 8 p.m. That includes matters of war; in November, as the commander in chief wrestled with sending more troops to Afghanistan, he called an 8 p.m. meeting of his national security team, in deference to his role as father in chief.

He squeezes in parent-teacher conferences, soccer and basketball games, and broke away from an economics briefing to call his younger daughter, Sasha, on her eighth birthday. (She was in London with her mother.) And when the White House announced that Mr. Obama would be traveling next month to Indonesia and Australia, the president’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, confirmed that the trip was timed to coincide with the girls’ spring break.

“We spend a lot of time coordinating the girls’ holidays and vacation time,’’ said Valerie Jarrett, another senior adviser. “It doesn’t just drive Michelle’s schedule, but it drives the president’s as well.’’

Yet even in today’s father-friendly world, Mr. Obama’s balancing act is not risk-free - especially in an economy where so many ordinary Americans are struggling. Critics could accuse him of slacking off when the country is in need. And this city is filled with politicians who have sacrificed their families for their jobs, so Mr. Obama must be careful not to generate resentment among those whose schedules must swing around his own.

“People elect you not to be a good family man, they elect you to fix their problems, and that’s the cold-hearted reality of it,’’ said John Feehery, a Republican political strategist. “And all those folks on the Hill, they’ve left all their families at home; they don’t have the luxury of skipping back home in the middle of the meeting to catch their daughter’s recital.’’

In a sense, the 48-year-old president is reflecting attitudinal changes about fatherhood that are typical of men in his generation, said Ellen Galinsky, the president of the Families and Work Institute, a nonprofit research organization. Ms. Galinsky says men, now more than women, feel caught between work and parenthood; her surveys show that 59 percent of men report experiencing some or a lot of work/life conflict, up from 35 percent in 1977.

Yet while Mr. Obama’s advisers like to think he is setting an example for fathers everywhere, he does, in fact, have more flexibility than most - he is, after all, the boss.

President Obama insists that his schedule makes ample room for time he can spend with his daughters, Malia, 11, left, and Sasha, 8. / KEVIN LAMARQUE/REUTERS