Proclamation 7093

By the President of the United States of America A Proclamation

Mothers are the heart of our families and the soul of our society. They are the nurturers of life, our teachers, confidants, counselors, and lifelong friends. They believe in our dreams and help us to achieve them. They help us develop the values, self-esteem, strength of character, and generosity of spirit we need to embrace the wider world beyond the family. Above all, mothers provide us with the blessing of their love.

While this special love between mother and child is unchanging, the challenges of motherhood are not. The role of women in our society has changed dramatically during the past century. Millions of American women today pursue full-time careers in addition to carrying out their duties as parents, balancing family, job, and community responsibilities. Whether they stay home with their children or become working mothers, mothers today care for their families and meet the new demands of our complex society with strength, courage, and quiet selflessness. On Mother's Day, let us honor all mothers-biological or adoptive, foster or stepmother-whose unconditional love has strengthened us and whose many gifts have graced our lives.

The Congress, by a joint resolution approved May 8, 1914 (38 Stat. 770), has designated the second Sunday in May each year as "Mother's Day" and requested the President to call for its appropriate observance.

Now, Therefore, I, William J. Clinton, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 10, 1998, as Mother's Day. I urge all Americans to express their love, respect, and appreciation for the contributions mothers have made to all of us, and I call upon all citizens to observe this day with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this seventh day of May, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-eight, 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, 8:45 a.m., May 11, 1998]