[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 33, Number 16 (Monday, April 21, 1997)]
[Pages 517-518]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
The President's Radio Address

April 12, 1997

    Good morning. Today I want to talk about the toughest job any person 
can have. It's not a job you can quit, show up late for, or do just 
enough to get by. In every way, it's a lifetime commitment: It's being a 
parent.
    In our times, parenting has become an even greater challenge. The 
world moves faster, and parents rightly worry more about how to protect 
their children's health, their safety, and their future. Jobs place more 
demands on mothers and fathers. Finding a balance between home and work 
takes more effort than ever.
    Parents can use some help. And while Government doesn't raise 
children, it can sometimes give parents the tools they need to make 
their jobs easier. That's why we fought for and won the V-chip and a 
ratings system for TV, so parents can better protect their young 
children from unsuitable shows; that's why we fought to keep the tobacco 
industry from advertising their products to children; and why we're 
fighting to keep streets safer and to reduce juvenile crime. All these 
help parents to do a better job with their children.
    But there is still work to be done. Parents want to do the right 
thing by their children from the very start. And giving our youngest 
children what they need to thrive from the very first days of life is 
something the First Lady has studied for a long time. In her book, ``It 
Takes a Village,'' Hillary called on our Nation to give its attention to 
new findings about the early years of children's lives that so often are 
overlooked in intellectual, social, and emotional development.
    Our administration has worked hard to better understand these early 
years. Since 1993, we increased funding for children's research at the 
National Institutes of Health by 25 percent, or $322 million, and my 
balanced budget plan promotes further increases in funding. We've 
expanded and improved Head Start, and we created an Early Head Start 
program for children age 3 or younger so that they could get the 
stimulation they need at those critical times.
    From our research, we know that from the very first days of life a 
child is developing emotionally and intellectually, and how he or she 
does in those first 3 years of life will help to determine how a child 
does later in school and in life. That's why we need to begin teaching 
and nurturing our children before they go to school.
    We want to sort through our research and get it to parents and to 
caregivers who work with children. So next week Hillary and I will bring 
together researchers, parents, and other experts for the White House 
Conference on Early Childhood Development and Learning: What New 
Research on the Brain Tells Us About Our Youngest Children.
    We will meet for a full day at the White House, with satellite 
hookups to 60 more sites around our Nation. This conference is an 
exciting and an enormous undertaking. It is a call to action to parents, 
to businesses, to caregivers, the media, the faith community, and the 
Government, each to do their part to enhance the earliest years of life. 
It grows out of our commitment to find new ways to support parents and 
to help their children reach their God-given potential.
    As part of that commitment, I also want to call today on the Members 
of Congress to do their part to come to the aid of our families. They 
can do that very simply by passing my expansion of the Family and 
Medical Leave Act.
    This bill would allow workers up to 24 hours of unpaid leave each 
year to fulfill cer

[[Page 518]]

tain family obligations. It could allow a worker to attend a parent-
teacher conference or to take a child to the pediatrician or to find 
quality child care or to care for an elderly relative.
    Families occasionally need these small pieces of time to take care 
of their own. More than 12 million American workers have taken leave for 
reasons covered by the Family and Medical Leave Act since it became the 
very first bill I signed into law in 1993. It was needed then, it's 
needed now, and we need to improve on it. So I urge Congress to act soon 
on this legislation. Don't ask people to choose, ever, between being 
good workers and good parents. We can help them to do both. Pass the 
expanded family and medical leave act.
    I believe this bill is so important that today I am asking all 
Federal departments and agencies to make expanded family and medical 
leave available to their workers immediately. Wherever possible, I want 
workers to have access right now to essential time off for family 
obligations.
    I am committed to doing all we can to support families as they 
struggle to do right by their children. We know that the very earliest 
years will decide whether children grow up to become healthy and happy 
people. That's why we're giving parents time off to care for them, why 
we should extend the family leave law so millions more parents can have 
that opportunity, and why we must focus all our science, education, and 
public efforts to give our children the very best start in life.
    Almost a century and a half ago, Oliver Wendell Holmes said, ``A 
child's education should begin at least a hundred years before he was 
born.'' What we do now can benefit generations of Americans to come. We 
can start with the smallest community, the family. And from there we can 
rebuild and renew the best in America by beginning with the best of 
America, our children.
    Thanks for listening.

Note. The President spoke at 10:06 a.m. from the Oval Office at the 
White House.