[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 31, Number 3 (Monday, January 23, 1995)]
[Pages 74-75]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Proclamation 6766--Year of the Grandparent, 1995

January 17, 1995

By the President of the United States

of America

A Proclamation

    The American family has undergone dramatic changes in the past few 
decades. Families have felt the effects of a rising divorce rate, 
declining birth rate, and an increasingly fast-paced and complicated 
economy. At the same time, Americans are living longer, retiring 
younger, and taking advantage of more leisure hours than ever before. 
Today, approximately 60 million grandparents in the United States look 
forward to spending time with their families and to enjoying their much-
deserved respite.
    Despite the many changes, grandparents remain an important source of 
knowledge and stability in American families. Grandparents help us 
understand the past and encourage us to hope for the future. They 
preserve and strengthen the values we hold most dear--compassion and 
generosity, responsibility and tradition. These relationships between 
generations have always been central to the happiness and well-being of 
young and old alike.
    Households made up of several generations have increased by more 
than 50 percent in the past 25 years, and today, some 3.4 million 
children live in a household headed by a grandparent. For parents 
struggling with issues including substance abuse or teenage pregnancy, 
divorce or separation, grandparents can be invaluable resources of 
compassion. For children who are abused or neglected, grandparents can 
be lifesavers. All too often, grandparents embrace these tremendous 
responsibilities because no one else is able. But they also do so out of 
love, out of the wisdom that comes from a lifetime spent learning the 
importance of family. For all they teach us and for all they give, we 
pledge this year to honor grandparents everywhere.
    The Congress, by Public Law 103-368, has designated 1995 as the 
``Year of the Grandparent'' and has authorized and requested

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the President to issue a proclamation in observance of this year.
    Now, Therefore, I, William J. Clinton, President of the United 
States of America, do hereby proclaim 1995 as the Year of the 
Grandparent. I invite Federal officials, local government, advocacy 
groups, and families across the United States to join in commemorating 
the many contributions that grandparents make and in observing this year 
with appropriate ceremonies, programs, and activities.
    In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this seventeenth day 
of January, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-five, 
and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred 
and nineteenth.
                                            William J. Clinton

[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 9:25 a.m., January 18, 
1995]

Note: This proclamation was published in the Federal Register on January 
19.