Speeches, etc.

Margaret Thatcher

Speech to United Nations World Children’s Summit

Document type: Speeches, interviews, etc.
Venue: UN Building, New York
Source: Thatcher Archive: speaking text
Editorial comments: Around 1300.
Importance ranking: Minor
Word count: 731
Themes: Family, Foreign policy (development, aid, etc), Foreign policy (International organizations)

Mr. Chairman, first can I congratulate the six sponsoring countries on taking the initiative to convene this unique summit, and UNICEF for the excellent work they do for children throughout the world.

The theme of my brief remarks will be the family. It is one which unites all peoples and all nations.

No bond is stronger than that of the family. It sustains us throughout life, in good times and in bad.

All parents are anxious to do the right thing for their children, to give them a better life. That is the most natural ambition in the world. [end p1] For children, family is the most important factor in their lives. The dominant influence on a child's health is the family. The dominant influence on a child's behaviour is the family and the example that it sets. The dominant influence on the success of a child's education is the interest taken by the family.

The most important thing we can do as parents is to give our children time, affection and wise counsel. If we fail to do that, and later something goes wrong, we should never cease to blame ourselves, asking: did I take time to understand their problems, to talk things through with them? Was I patient enough? Did they know that home was the place which they could always turn to, no matter what happened? [end p2] We also need to give children fun. It is important to build in happy memories of childhood, because they stay with children all their lives, reminding them of the warmth, laughter and togetherness of home.

Yet we are finding many family difficulties in the western countries—a lesson that economic progress does not necessarily solve human problems. Homelessness among young people, juvenile delinquency, drugs often have their roots in family breakdown or unhappy family circumstances.

In developing countries, the problems are of quite a different order. Parents often have to toil unremittingly to provide the barest [end p3] necessities of life, with little time to devote to their children.

Television brings us horrifying images, which we cannot erase from our minds: desperate mothers in famine-ridden countries, their babies in the last stages of malnutrition: parents in Kurdish villages trying in vain to shield their children from the effects of Saddam Hussain 's chemical weapons.

The children of families such as these can know none of the joys, the happiness and the security which should be the right of every child.

Mr. Chairman, what can we do? How can we help? Let me list just a few ways: [end p4]

—most of all, children need to be protected from war and from want. That is something which we can help with at the United Nations.

—we must try to see that the Convention on the Rights of the Child is observed far and wide.

—more of our help to poorer countries should be devoted to the needs of families and children;

—we should make a special effort to stamp out the diseases which are most likely to maim or kill children: malaria, measles, diarrhoea, pneumonia and now AIDS. Many of you will know that Rotary Clubs across the world are raising [end p5] enough money to immunize every one of the world's children against polio.

—the greatest pressure on earth's resources, and therefore on the quality of life—and above all family life—comes from unprecedented population growth: from under 2 billion when I was born to 6 billion by the end of this decade. We shall not be able to solve some of the world's problems if population continues to grow at that rate.

—we should stop absent parents walking away from their responsibility to maintain their children. Parenthood is for life: to deny that is the greatest deprivation you can inflict on a child. [end p6]

—the help that we give as governments is not in any way meant to substitute for the responsibilities of parents. It is to help them carry out their responsibilities more fully and effectively.

Mr. Chairman, just as we want to transmit a good environment and an ecologically stable world to future generations, so we want to hand on a world with children from secure and loving homes to be its future parents.

There is a rather lovely poem which says:

“Know you what it is to be a child? It is to believe in love, to believe in loveliness …”

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a wild flower [end p7]
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”
William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

So many children are denied these joys. Let us do all we can to give them that experience.