Jay Rockefeller: “I think there is a tendency in this body, when we do something for children--let's say we do a tax credit or we do…”

“I think there is a tendency in this body, when we do something for children--let's say we do a tax credit or we do something in Head Start or where we do something in health care--to say that we made a dent and we can go on the next issue in the next year. I think of all the areas of life that we deal with in the Senate, that is the most inaccurate assessment and approach. When it comes to what our children need to prepare for their futures and what they are going to be like as adults, we need to follow through. And we must begin in the earliest years. I spent a number of years in Japan. In Japan, when a baby is born, and while the baby is growing to a certain age, they do not have cribs. They do not have cribs, because in Japan the baby sleeps between the mother and the father. Why is that so? That is so because they, as a matter of culture and history and instinct, know that bonding has to start at the beginning. That is about the clearest form of bonding that there can be.”