Living History, by Hillary Rodham Clinton: on Families & Children

Hillary Clinton: 1974 article: put abused children into state care

Who would have predicted that during the 1992 presidential campaign, nearly two decades after I wrote the article, conservative Republicans like Marilyn Quayle and Pat Buchanan would twist my words to portray me as “anti-family”?

Hillary Clinton: Even welfare children are better off with their parents

I thought this was horrible idea. All the work I have done on behalf of children convinced me that they are almost always best off with their families, that poverty is not a disqualification from good parenting, that financial and social support for families with special problems, including poverty, should be a first step before we give up on them and take away their children. Only when children are endangered by abuse and neglect should the government intervene on their behalf.

In a speech before the New York Women's Agenda on Nov. 30, 1994, I criticized Gingrich for promoting legislation that punished children for circumstances over which they had no control.

Gingrich swung back: "I'd ask her to go to Blockbuster and rent the movie Boys Town [an orphanage]."

Hillary Clinton: "It Takes a Village" implies family as part of society

Dole missed the point of the book, which is that families are the first line of responsibility for children, but that the village--a metaphor for society as a whole--shares responsibility for the culture, economy and environment in which our children grow up. The policeman walking the beat, the teacher in the classroom, the legislator passing laws and the corporate executive deciding what movies to make all have influence over America's children.