Clinton, Hillary Rodham "It Takes a Village"

 

Clinton, Hillary Rodham "It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us" - 1996

"No Family is an Island" is one of the chapter titles in this remarkable work by Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton is a wonderful person. If you don't agree, read this book. You can tell how dedicated she is to help children and families to raise their children. This is what her politics is based on, how most politicians should base their values on. We all need to stand together to help the next generation.

The contents of her book can already be seen in the chapter titles. Aside from the one mentioned above, there is "Every Child Needs a Champion", "Kids Don't Come with Instructions", "Child Care Is Not a Spectator Sport", "Children Are Citizens Too", and many more.

I totally agree with her in her point. We all need to help each other out. When my children were in school, I always had other kids over to help them with the subjects that were difficult for both themselves and their parents, to feed them or just to give them a home after school when their parents were at work. I was in the lucky position to be at home with our boys but I opened it up for many other kids most of whom are still in touch with us.

But that's not the main aim of the book. Society in general should help the children to find their way into this world. Often, when I hear about American politics its those who are against guns (as am I) against those who are against abortion (as am I). We can be against both. We can support children and make sure they don't get pregnant as teenagers. And if they do get pregnant, as long as we don't help them, there will be abortions, and illegal ones are very dangerous. If you I pray for the unborn babies, you should also pray for their mothers for whom it was the last resort, the only way out. And for those kids who get killed in the schools and on the streets through the gun laws. Educate kids better, give everyone access to healthcare, help single mothers that they don't end up in total poverty, those are the things that avoid abortions, making them illegal only makes it worse. The United States has 3 times as many abortions as Germany. They also have one of the highest known rates of adolescent pregnancy and births in developed regions. Being pro-birth and not pro-life increases abortions. So, don't just pray for the unborn children but also for the poor girls who are pushed into a situation where they see only one way out. Amd for those who have their children and end up in poverty because of it. And that those who make the laws will make it better for those girls who do get pregnant and can't help themselves.

All in all, Hillary Clinton gives great examples on what we can do better, and we should all strive for a better world, especially for the poorest and weakest among us.

Here are some quotes that give us food for thought:

"Some of us can recall an aunt who longed to go to college, a grandmother who kept voluminous journals she showed to no one, a female cousin with a head for figures. Much of the fiction written by and about women over the centuries contains an undercurrent of disappointment, dissatisfaction, or simple wistfulness about roads not taken."
I was one of those women, and I had to regret all my life that I was not given the opportunitz to go to university.

"Roosevelt's words reflected the popular view that would dominate much of this century. As the private sector grew, people assumed that the excesses of unbridled competition had to be restrained by government. As a result, consumers have been protected by antitrust laws, pure food and drug laws, labeling, and other consumer protection measures; investors have been protected by securities legislation; workers have been protected by laws governing child labor, wages and hours, pensions, workers' compensation, and occupational safety and health; and the community at large has been protected by clean air and water standards, chemical right-to-know laws, and other environmental safeguards.
…
Over the course of the century, our environment has become cleaner, we have become healthier, our workers safer, our financial markets stronger."

"But government is a partner to, not a substitute for, adult leadership and good citizenship."

"In Germany, too, there is a general consensus that government and business should play a role in evening out inequities in the free market system and in increasing the ability of all citizens to succeed. Compared to Americans, Germans pay for higher base wages, a health care system that covers everyone but costs less than ours, and perhaps the world's finest system of providing young workers who do not go on to college with the skills they need to compete in the job market. As a result of such investments, German workers command higher wages than their American counterparts, and the distribution of income is not so skewed as ours is."

There are also many great people whom she quotes in the book, but I will leave it at this one:

"There is not one civilization, from the oldest to the very newest, from which we cannot learn." Eleanor Roosevelt

From the back cover:

"For more than twenty-five years, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton has made children her passion and her cause. Her long experience with children - not only through her personal roles as mother, daughter, sister, and wife but also as advocate, legal expert, and public servant - has strengthened her conviction that how children develop and what they need to succeed are 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. This book chronicles her quest - both deeply personal and, in the truest sense, public - to discover how we can make our society into the kind of village that enables children to grow into able, caring, resilient adults. It is time, Mrs. Clinton believes, to acknowledge that we have to make some changes for our children's sake. Advances in technology and the global economy along with other developments society have brought us much good, but they have also strained 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 to 'the good old days.' 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 understanding the wealth of new information research offers us about them, and, most important, by listening to the children themselves, we can begin a more fruitful discussion about their needs. And by sifting the past for clues to the structures that once bound us together, by looking with an open mind at what other countries and cultures do for their children that we do not, and by identifying places where our 'village' is flourishing - in families, schools, churches, businesses, civic organizations, even in cyberspace - we can begin to create for our children the better tomorrow they deserve."

Clinton, Hillary Rodham & Chelsea "The Book of Gutsy Women"

Clinton, Hillary Rodham & Chelsea "The Book of Gutsy Women: Favourite Stories of Courage and Resilience" - 2019

From Early Inspirations, Education Pioneers to Earth Defenders and Explorers and Inventors, from Healers, Athletes, Advocates and Activists to Storytellers, Elected Leaders and Groundbreakers and finishing with Women's Rights Champions, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton describe a lot of women who changed the world. You can find the name of all the women they describe in their book at the end of the book description. There are many, many whose names are so familiar with us and yet, quite a few that we might have never heard of but have to thank so much. The come from Nigeria, the UK, Pakistan, the USA, Russia, the Netherlands, Austria, Guatemala, Mexico, Italy, Canada, Kenya, Sweden, France, Poland, China, Somalia, Senegal, Japan, South Africa, Colombia, Liberia, Chile, India, Saudi-Arabia, Iraq, so from all over the world where they did their bit so that we could all have an easier life, a more just life.

A quote from the Girl Scouts handbook "How Girls Can Help Their Country" from 1913. "Wherever you go you will have the choice of good or bad reading, and as reading has such a lasting effect on the mind, you should try to read only good things" is an advice that is as valid today as it was a hundred years ago.

And another great one: "I don't study to know more, but to ignore less" Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz who lived in Mexico in the mid-seventeenth century.

Such a fantastic quote. When I was young, my parents didn't have enough money to send me to university, so I did an apprenticeship instead. But I remember at the end of that, I thought, and what now? Am I finished learning? Is there nothing else I can do from now on than what I learned so far? But I soon noticed there were courses I could visit and books I could read and there was a big world out there that would teach me a lot of things. Nowadays, that is even easier because there is so much you can do on the internet and so much you can find there if you really want to know.

In my life, I have experienced a lot of events where I was put down because I was a woman. My education might have been different had I been a boy, I was told that companies hired boys for jobs I applied for (in the office), guys were hired instead of giving me a promotion, not because I was not good enough but because I was a woman who "would get married and have children anyway". So, I am certainly grateful for these women trying to change things for the better, not always just for women but a lot of them have made this world a better one.

I know there could be lots of other women who are just as important as the ones in the book. They missed at least two from their list: Hillary and Chelsea Clinton. They are just as great heroes as the women they described.

From the back cover:

"Hillary Rodham Clinton and her daughter, Chelsea, share the stories of the gutsy women who have inspired them - women with the courage to stand up to the status quo, ask hard questions, and get the job done.

She couldn’t have been more than seven or eight years old. 'Go ahead, ask your question,' her father urged, nudging her forward. She smiled shyly and said, 'You’re my hero. Who’s yours?'

Many people - especially girls - have asked us that same question over the years. It’s one of our favorite topics.

HILLARY: Growing up, I knew hardly any women who worked outside the home. So I looked to my mother, my teachers, and the pages of Life magazine for inspiration. After learning that Amelia Earhart kept a scrapbook with newspaper articles about successful women in male-dominated jobs, I started a scrapbook of my own. Long after I stopped clipping articles, I continued to seek out stories of women who seemed to be redefining what was possible.

CHELSEA: This book is the continuation of a conversation the two of us have been having since I was little. For me, too, my mom was a hero; so were my grandmothers. My early teachers were also women. But I grew up in a world very different from theirs. My pediatrician was a woman, and so was the first mayor of Little Rock who I remember from my childhood. Most of my close friends’ moms worked outside the home as nurses, doctors, teachers, professors, and in business. And women were going into space and breaking records here on Earth.

Ensuring the rights and opportunities of women and girls remains a big piece of the unfinished business of the twenty-first century. While there’s a lot of work to do, we know that throughout history and around the globe women have overcome the toughest resistance imaginable to win victories that have made progress possible for all of us. That is the achievement of each of the women in this book.

So how did they do it? The answers are as unique as the women themselves. Civil rights activist Dorothy Height, LGBTQ trailblazer Edie Windsor, and swimmer Diana Nyad kept pushing forward, no matter what. Writers like Rachel Carson and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie named something no one had dared talk about before. Historian Mary Beard used wit to open doors that were once closed, and Wangari Maathai, who sparked a movement to plant trees, understood the power of role modeling. Harriet Tubman and Malala Yousafzai looked fear in the face and persevered. Nearly every single one of these women was fiercely optimistic - they had faith that their actions could make a difference. And they were right.

To us, they are all gutsy women - leaders with the courage to stand up to the status quo, ask hard questions, and get the job done. So in the moments when the long haul seems awfully long, we hope you will draw strength from these stories. We do. Because if history shows one thing, it’s that the world needs gutsy women.

Harriet Tubman, Anna Pavlova, Isadora Duncan, Maria Tallchief, and Virginia Johnson, Helen Keller, Margaret Chase Smith, Margaret Bourke-White, Maria von Trapp, Anne Frank, Rigoberta Menchú Tum, Jackie Joyner-Kersee and Florence Griffith Joyner, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Margaret Bancroft, Juliette Gordon Low, Maria Montessori and Joan Ganz Cooney, Mary McLeod Bethune, Esther Martinez, Daisy Bates, Patsy Mink, Bernice Sandler, and Edith Green, Ruby Bridges Hall, Malala Yousafzai, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Rachel Carson, Jane Jacobs and Peggy Shepard, Jane Goodall and "The Trimates", Wangari Maathai, Alice Min Soo Chun, Greta Thunberg, Caroline Herschel and Vera Rubin, Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper, Margaret Knight and Madam C.J. Walker, Marie Curie and Irène Joliot-Curie, Hedy Lamarr, Sylvia Earle, Sally Ride, Mae Jemison, Florence Nightingale, Clara Barton, Elizabeth Blackwell, Rebecca Lee Crumpler, and Mary Edwards Walker, Betty Ford, Mathilde Krim, Dr. Gao Yaojie, Dr. Hawa Abdi, Flossie Wong-Staal, Molly Melching, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, Vaccinators, Alice Coachman and Wilma Rudolph, Junko Tabei, Billie Jean King, Diana Nyad, Abby Wambach, Michelle Kwan, Venus and Serena Williams, Ibtihaj Muhammad, Tatyana McFaddenn, Caster Semenya, Aly Raisman, Dorothy Height and Sojourner Truth, Ida B. Wells, Eleanor Roosevelt, Elizabeth Peratrovich, Rosa Parks and Claudette Colvin, Coretta Scott King, Dolores Huerta, The Peacemakers, Victoria Mxenge, Ai-jen Poo, Sarah Brady, Gabby Giffords, Nelba Màrquez-Green, Shannon Watts, and Lucy McBath, Nza-Ari Khepra, Emma Gonzàlez, Naomi Wadler, Edna Chavez, Jazmine Wildcat, and Julia Spoor, Becca Heller, Maya Angelou, Mary Beard, Jineth Bedoya Lima, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, America Ferrera, Ali Stroker, Amani Al-Khatahtbeh, Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm, Ann Richards, Geraldine Ferraro, Barbara Jordan, Barbara Mikulski, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Wilma Mankiller, Michelle Bachelet, Danica Roem, Frances Perkins, Katharine Graham, Constance Baker Motley, Edie Windsor, Ela Bhatt, Temple Grandin, Ellen DeGeneres, Maya Lin, Sally Yates, Kimberly Bryant and Reshma Saujani, Rosa May Billinghurst, The Suffragists, Sophia Duleep Singh, Fraidy Reiss, Manal al-Sharif, Nadia Murad"

Clinton, Hilary Rodham "What Happened"

Clinton, Hilary Rodham "What Happened" - 2017

Years ago, I read "Living History" with my book club and really liked the way, Hillary Clinton described her life as a first lady but also her life as a politician herself.

Nobody who is not US American understands how someone can lose an election when they have three million more voters behind them. Only in America.

I don't think I can make anyone change their mind about Hillary Rodham Clinton or her party. Those who are against her will come up with hundreds of reasons why they didn't vote for her. I can name one very good reason why they should have: Donald Trump. Anyone who still supports him either doesn't want to know what is going on or is just as ignorant as he is. Because who would support a misogynist like him?

Hillary Clinton tells us everything that happened during the election. Not that a lot of it was any news for me, I followed it quite closely. I have a lot of American friends who - like me - were shocked by the outcome; unfortunately, I also know some who were happy about it.

Even in Europe, my view is considered left-wing, so I would agree far more with Democrats than with Republicans. I found it quite eye-opening at some points, how far right even the American left is.

What I liked was her humour, her tongue-in-cheek which shows how much more intelligent she is than the present incumbent of the post.

If you are really interested in politics, you give this book a chance. Hillary Clinton is a strong woman and we all should be glad there are people like her.

Some quotes:
"The election is now over,
The result is now known,
The will of the people
has clearly been shown. *
Let’s get together;
Let bitterness pass.
I’ll hug your Elephant;
and you kiss my Ass."
* Yes, the will of the people was Hillary.

Here she explains quite interestingly, how some of the stories start:
"Bernie: I think America should get a pony.
Hillary: How will you pay for the pony? Where will the pony come from? How will you get Congress to agree to the pony?
Bernie: Hillary thinks America doesn’t deserve a pony.
Bernie Supporters: Hillary hates ponies!
Hillary: Actually, I love ponies.
Bernie Supporters: She changed her position on ponies! #WhichHillary? #WitchHillary
Headline: 'Hillary Refuses To Give Every American a Pony.'
Debate Moderator: Hillary, how do you feel when people say you lie about ponies?
Website Headline: "Congressional Inquiry into Clinton's Pony Lies"
Twitter Trending: #ponygate"

From the back cover:

"Almost two years on from one of the most unprecedented and unpredictable elections in American history, the world is still gripped by the circumstances and consequences of Hillary Rodham Clinton's devastating loss to the ever-controversial Donald Trump.

Free from the constraints of running, Hillary takes us behind the scenes of an election marked by rage, sexism, exhilarating highs and infuriating lows, stranger-than-fiction twists, foreign interference and an opponent who broke all the rules. In her most personal memoir yet, she tells readers what it took to get back on her feet after the mistakes and disappointments of her candidacy and what the experience has taught her about the challenges, criticisms and double standards that come with being a strong woman in the public eye.

In this edition, now updated to include a comprehensive new afterword reflecting on the events that have come to pass under Trump's administration, Hillary connects the dots to show just how dangerous the forces are that shaped the presidential outcome and why Americans need to understand them to protect their values and democracy in the future.

What Happened is the enthralling story of a campaign and its aftermath - both a deeply intimate account and a presciently cautionary tale."

Clinton, Hillary Rodham "Living History"

Clinton, Hillary Rodham "Living History" - 2003

Everybody knows Hillary Clinton, well everybody knows the wife of former US president Bill Clinton. But there is a lot more to her than just being the wife of a successful guy. They always say behind every successful man there is a strong woman. They must have talked about Hillary and Bill Clinton.

We read this book a long time ago, long before Mrs. Clinton ran for president herself, more or less between her candidacy and the Lewinsky scandal.

Whether you like her politics or not, this book is an account of a woman who is very strong and who managed to get to a certain point through studying and hard work.

We had an interesting discussion, our members were from the United States, Canada, Italy and Germany at that meeting, so we had a view from different perspectives. Not everybody liked it but I put that down to political differences. I am glad I got to read the book and learn more about American politics and the American dream.

We discussed this in our international book club in June 2004.

From the book cover:

"A surprisingly engaging and, at points, even compelling book...Clinton provides enough of a peek behind the curtain to keep the pages turning and presents intriguing new details on her role in shaping the policies of her husband's presidency.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is known to hundreds of millions of people around the world. Yet few beyond her close friends and family have ever heard her account of her extraordinary journey. She writes with candor, humor and passion about her upbringing in suburban, middle-class America in the 1950s and her transformation from Goldwater Girl to student activist to controversial First Lady. Living History is her revealing memoir of life through the White House years. It is also her chronicle of living history with Bill Clinton, a thirty-year adventure in love and politics that survives personal betrayal, relentless partisan investigations and constant public scrutiny.

Hillary Rodham Clinton came of age during a time of tumultuous social and political change in America. Like many women of her generation, she grew up with choices and opportunities unknown to her mother or grandmother. She charted her own course through unexplored terrain -- responding to the changing times and her own internal compass -- and became an emblem for some and a lightning rod for others. Wife, mother, lawyer, advocate and international icon, she has lived through America's great political wars, from Watergate to Whitewater.

The only First Lady to play a major role in shaping domestic legislation, Hillary Rodham Clinton traveled tirelessly around the country to champion health care, expand economic and educational opportunity and promote the needs of children and families, and she crisscrossed the globe on behalf of women's rights, human rights and democracy. She redefined the position of First Lady and helped save the presidency from an unconstitutional, politically motivated impeachment. Intimate, powerful and inspiring, Living History captures the essence of one of the most remarkable women of our time and the challenging process by which she came to define herself and find her own voice -- as a woman and as a formidable figure in American politics."

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

 

If you would like to read more about Hilary Clinton, I higly recommend "What Happened".