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5 quotes from presidential farewell speeches show the power of a strong good-bye.

Ahead of President Obama's final speech, a look back at some important lessons.

5 quotes from presidential farewell speeches show the power of a strong good-bye.

On Sunday, Jan. 10, President Barack Obama will travel to Chicago to deliver his farewell address to the nation.

The farewell address is a tradition dating all the way back to George Washington himself. The address has historically provided outgoing presidents with an opportunity to publicly reflect on their successes and failures, as well as to share a bit of unique wisdom with both their successor and with the general public as a whole.

"Since 2009, we've faced our fair share of challenges, and come through them stronger," wrote President Obama on the White House website. "That's because we have never let go of a belief that has guided us ever since our founding — our conviction that, together, we can change this country for the better."

One of the most interesting aspects of the farewell address is how, as a concept, it's such a contradiction in terms of the president's power and influence.

Usually delivered just days before a successor is set to take office, the farewell address comes at what is arguably the low point in any president's administration in terms of actual policy influence — and yet, these addresses have typically been imbued with such candidness that they become powerful in a whole new way.

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images.

1. George W. Bush shared a message of compassion and understanding for immigrants.

"In the face of threats from abroad, it can be tempting to seek comfort by turning inward. But we must reject isolationism and its companion, protectionism. Retreating behind our borders would only invite danger," Bush warned.

While much of President Bush's speech focused heavily on the importance of national defense and vigilance about preventing future terrorist attacks, at one point during the address, he focused on the very concept of what it means to be American:

Photo by Rod Aydelotte/Waco Tribune Herald, Pool.

2. Bill Clinton urged future generations to embrace equality "in our hearts and in our laws."

"As we become ever more diverse, we must work harder to unite around our common values and our common humanity," implored Clinton in his speech.

During his administration, President Clinton's record on equality was somewhat mixed. As the president who signed both the Defense of Marriage Act (which preemptively blocked same-sex marriages) and the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy (which prohibited gays, lesbians, and bisexuals from serving openly in the armed forces) into law, his farewell address hinted at a bit of regret when it came to social equity:

Photo by AFP/AFP/Getty Images.

3. Ronald Reagan used his address to remind the country why city walls must have doors that are open to everyone.

"I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it," Reagan said in his speech. "In my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity."

"And if there had to be city walls," he said, "the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still."

Reagan's address mostly centered on his successes in office, focusing on economic gains and the U.S.'s role in ending the Cold War, but also included a word of advice for when the going gets tough or problems seem overwhelming

Photo by J. David Ake/AFP/Getty Images.

4. Jimmy Carter played up the importance of defending the human rights of all people in the success of America.

"Those who hunger for freedom, who thirst for human dignity, and who suffer for the sake of justice, they are the patriots of this cause," said Carter during his address.

His anti-isolationist message touched on the U.S.'s role in ensuring that people around the world are treated with dignity, respect, and basic human rights. Carter urged Americans to be a force for good in the world, extending far beyond geographic borders.

Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

5. George Washington warned us of the dangers of partisanship, a message that remains incredibly relevant.

"I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations," wrote Washington. "Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally."

Despite having been delivered more than 220 years ago, Washington's address is perhaps the most prescient for 2017 and beyond. Political parties can serve as coalitions for individuals with similar goals. As President Washington warned, however, they can also lead to despotism. Now, in 2017, as the country's 45th president is about to be inaugurated, it seems our attachment to these political parties has done just that: empowered a despot.

Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

Party allegiances today have even chipped away at the very concept of facts. Should a Democrat say the sky is blue, expect that a Republican will be there to dispute the assertion, and vice versa. It often feels as though the parties are no longer working toward common interests and solutions, but rather, a very dangerous game of one-upmanship, the most obvious example being the rush for Congress and the PEOTUS to repeal President Obama's landmark health care bill, which could boot up to 30 million people off their health insurance.

President Washington warned us. It's not too late to listen to what he — and our other past presidents — had to say.

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This woman found out shelters in LA don't accept women with teen boys. So she made sure hers did.

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Judy Vaughan has spent most of her life helping other women, first as the director of House of Ruth, a safe haven for homeless families in East Los Angeles, and later as the Project Coordinator for Women for Guatemala, a solidarity organization committed to raising awareness about human rights abuses.

But in 1996, she decided to take things a step further. A house became available in the mid-Wilshire area of Los Angeles and she was offered the opportunity to use it to help other women and children. So, in partnership with a group of 13 people who she knew from her years of activism, she decided to make it a transitional residence program for homeless women and their children. They called the program Alexandria House.

"I had learned from House of Ruth that families who are homeless are often isolated from the surrounding community," Judy says. "So we decided that as part of our mission, we would also be a neighborhood center and offer a number of resources and programs, including an after-school program and ESL classes."

She also decided that, unlike many other shelters in Los Angeles, she would accept mothers with their teenage boys.

"There are very few in Los Angeles [that do] due to what are considered liability issues," Judy explains. "Given the fact that there are (conservatively) 56,000 homeless people and only about 11,000 shelter beds on any one night, agencies can be selective on who they take."

Their Board of Directors had already determined that they should take families that would have difficulties finding a place. Some of these challenges include families with more than two children, immigrant families without legal documents, moms who are pregnant with other small children, families with a member who has a disability [and] families with service dogs.

"Being separated from your son or sons, especially in the early teen years, just adds to the stress that moms who are unhoused are already experiencing," Judy says.

"We were determined to offer women with teenage boys another choice."

Courtesy of Judy Vaughan

Alexandria House also doesn't kick boys out when they turn 18. For example, Judy says they currently have a mom with two daughters (21 and 2) and a son who just turned 18. The family had struggled to find a shelter that would take them all together, and once they found Alexandria House, they worried the boy would be kicked out on his 18th birthday. But, says Judy, "we were not going to ask him to leave because of his age."

Homelessness is a big issue in Los Angeles. "[It] is considered the homeless capital of the United States," Judy says. "The numbers have not changed significantly since 1984 when I was working at the House of Ruth." The COVID-19 pandemic has only compounded the problem. According to Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), over 66,000 people in the greater Los Angeles area were experiencing homelessness in 2020, representing a rise of 12.7% compared with the year before.

Each woman who comes to Alexandria House has her own unique story, but some common reasons for ending up homeless include fleeing from a domestic violence or human trafficking situation, aging out of foster care and having no place to go, being priced out of an apartment, losing a job, or experiencing a family emergency with no 'cushion' to pay the rent.

"Homelessness is not a definition; it is a situation that a person finds themselves in, and in fact, it can happen to almost anyone. There are many practices and policies that make it almost impossible to break out of poverty and move out of homelessness."

And that's why Alexandria House exists: to help them move out of it. How long that takes depends on the woman, but according to Judy, families stay an average of 10 months. During that time, the women meet with support staff to identify needs and goals and put a plan of action in place.

A number of services are provided, including free childcare, programs and mentoring for school-age children, free mental health counseling, financial literacy classes and a savings program. They have also started Step Up Sisterhood LA, an entrepreneurial program to support women's dreams of starting their own businesses. "We serve as a support system for as long as a family would like," Judy says, even after they have moved on.

And so far, the program is a resounding success.

92 percent of the 200 families who stayed at Alexandria House have found financial stability and permanent housing — not becoming homeless again.

Since founding Alexandria House 25 years ago, Judy has never lost sight of her mission to join with others and create a vision of a more just society and community. That is why she is one of Tory Burch's Empowered Women this year — and the donation she receives as a nominee will go to Alexandria House and will help grow the new Start-up Sisterhood LA program.

"Alexandria House is such an important part of my life," says Judy. "It has been amazing to watch the children grow up and the moms recreate their lives for themselves and for their families. I have witnessed resiliency, courage, and heroic acts of generosity."

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Spanking can alter kids' brain development the way more severe abuse does, new study finds

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Researchers at Harvard University have studied the connection between spanking and kids' brain development for the first time, and their findings echo what studies have indicated for years: Spanking isn't good for children.

Comments on this article will no doubt be filled with people who a) say they were spanked and "turned out fine" or b) say that the reason kids are [fill in the blank with some societal ill] these days are because they aren't spanked. However, a growing body of research points to spanking creating more problems than it solves.

"We know that children whose families use corporal punishment are more likely to develop anxiety, depression, behavior problems, and other mental health problems, but many people don't think about spanking as a form of violence," said Katie A. McLaughlin, director of the Stress & Development Lab in the Department of Psychology, and the senior researcher on the study which was published Friday in the journal Child Development. "In this study, we wanted to examine whether there was an impact of spanking at a neurobiological level, in terms of how the brain is developing."

You can read the entire study here, but the gist is that kids' brain activity was measured using an MRI machine as they reacted to photos of actors displaying "fearful" and "neutral" faces. What researchers found was that kids who had been spanked had similar brain neural responses to fearful faces as kids who had been abused.

"There were no regions of the brain where activation to fearful relative to neutral faces differed between children who were abused and children who were spanked," the authors wrote in a statement.

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We asked three people about how vaccines have impacted their lives. Here’s what they said.

Images courtesy of John Scully, Walden University, Ingrid Scully
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Since March of 2020, over 29 million Americans have been diagnosed with COVID-19, according to the CDC. Over 540,000 have died in the United States as this unprecedented pandemic has swept the globe. And yet, by the end of 2020, it looked like science was winning: vaccines had been developed.

In celebration of the power of science we spoke to three people: an individual, a medical provider, and a vaccine scientist about how vaccines have impacted them throughout their lives. Here are their answers:

John Scully, 79, resident of Florida

Photo courtesy of John Scully

When John Scully was born, America was in the midst of an epidemic: tens of thousands of children in the United States were falling ill with paralytic poliomyelitis — otherwise known as polio, a disease that attacks the central nervous system and often leaves its victims partially or fully paralyzed.

"As kids, we were all afraid of getting polio," he says, "because if you got polio, you could end up in the dreaded iron lung and we were all terrified of those." Iron lungs were respirators that enclosed most of a person's body; people with severe cases often would end up in these respirators as they fought for their lives.

John remembers going to see matinee showings of cowboy movies on Saturdays and, before the movie, shorts would run. "Usually they showed the news," he says, "but I just remember seeing this one clip warning us about polio and it just showed all these kids in iron lungs." If kids survived the iron lung, they'd often come back to school on crutches, in leg braces, or in wheelchairs.

"We all tried to be really careful in the summer — or, as we called it back then, 'polio season,''" John says. This was because every year around Memorial Day, major outbreaks would begin to emerge and they'd spike sometime around August. People weren't really sure how the disease spread at the time, but many believed it traveled through the water. There was no cure — and every child was susceptible to getting sick with it.

"We couldn't swim in hot weather," he remembers, "and the municipal outdoor pool would close down in August."

Then, in 1954 clinical trials began for Dr. Jonas Salk's vaccine against polio and within a year, his vaccine was announced safe. "I got that vaccine at school," John says. Within two years, U.S. polio cases had dropped 85-95 percent — even before a second vaccine was developed by Dr. Albert Sabin in the 1960s. "I remember how much better things got after the vaccines came out. They changed everything," John says.

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