It Takes a Village

For more than twenty-five years, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton has made children her passion and her cause. Her experience with children has strengthened her conviction that how children develop and what they need to succeed is inextricably entwined with the society in which they live and how well it sustains and supports its families and individuals. In other words, it takes a village to raise a child. It is time, Mrs. Clinton believes, to acknowledge that we have to make some changes for children's sake. Advances in technology and the global economy along with other developments in society have brought us much good, but they have also stressed the fabric of family life, leaving us and our children poorer in many ways-- physically, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually. She doesn't believe that we should, or can, turn back the clock. False nostalgia for "family values" is no solution. Nor is it useful to make an all-purpose bogeyman or savior of "government". But by looking honestly at the condition of our children, by sifting the past for clues to the structure that once bound us together, by identifying places where our "village" is flourishing, and, most important, be listening to the children themselves, we can begin to create for our children the better tomorrow they deserve.