[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 33, Number 48 (Monday, December 1, 1997)]
[Page 1887]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Proclamation 7054--National Family Week, 1997

November 21, 1997

By the President of the United States

of America

A Proclamation

    As we approach the end of the 21st century, our world is becoming 
increasingly complex, our society more mobile, and our pace of life more 
rapid. It is at times like this, full of dynamic challenge and change, 
that we need to remember the fundamental values and institutions that 
strengthen and uplift us. Among the most precious of these are our 
families.
    Families come in many forms and sizes. They can number several 
generations or only one; they can include birth parents and stepparents, 
foster children and adopted children. Families are created by ties of 
blood or law, but they are sustained by ties of love and caring.
    Few people in our lives will have so profound an effect on us as our 
family members. From the day we are born, the people who live with us, 
nurture us, and guide us play a crucial role in shaping the kind of men 
and women we become. They challenge us to look beyond ourselves and to 
respect and care for others. At their best, they help us to be our best. 
Families are the most basic--and the most important--unit of our 
society.
    Recognizing this, we realize that many of our dreams for America 
begin with strong families. We want to be a caring people, and the 
lessons of tolerance, sharing, and compassion are best taught in the 
home. We want to be a peaceful people, and we look to families to teach 
our young people how to respect one another's differences and resolve 
disputes without resorting to violence. We want to be wise people, so we 
need families that value education and acknowledge the importance of 
lifelong learning.
    Nothing is more important to our future than preserving and 
promoting strong, loving families. This week, as we gather with our own 
families to celebrate Thanksgiving, let us resolve to do all we can as 
individuals, and as a Nation to help families who are in need, to 
provide support and encouragement for troubled families, and to promote 
policies at the local, State, and Federal level that will help America's 
families to flourish.
    Now, Therefore, I, William J. Clinton, President of the United 
States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the 
Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim November 
23 through November 29, 1997, as National Family Week. I call upon 
Federal, State, and local officials to honor American families with 
appropriate programs and activities; I encourage educators, community 
organizations, and religious leaders to celebrate the strength and 
values we draw from family relationships; and I urge all the people of 
the United States to reaffirm their family ties and to reach out to 
others in friendship and goodwill.
    In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-first 
day of November, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-
seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two 
hundred and twenty-second.
                                            William J. Clinton

[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 11:55 a.m., November 24, 
1997]

Note: This proclamation was released by the Office of the Press 
Secretary on November 22, and it was published in the Federal Register 
on November 25.