On Wednesday, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, together with the first lady of New York City Chirlane McCray, announced the launch of the “Talk to Your Baby” campaign in the country’s most populous city. It is an effort aimed at encouraging parents to talk, read, and sing to their young children—to get them learning vocabulary and literacy skills from birth.
Not only will the city run ads in subways and taxis promoting the campaign, but parents can also sign up for weekly texts to come into their phones with tips on how to engage their children in conversation.
At the press conference Wednesday, Clinton joked that though her singing wasn’t very good, she made sure to sing to her daughter Chelsea every night when she was a baby.
“I would hold her in a chair, and sometimes we‘d be looking out the window, and when you could see the moon I’d sing Moon River, my all-time favorite song at that time—until my daughter learned to talk. And the first words out of her mouth—just about—were to put her little finger on my mouth and say ‘no sing, mommy, no sing.’”
The initiative reflects Clinton’s long-held interest in childhood education and children’s rights, which began as early as during her years studying at Yale Law School.
