Skip to footer

Readers Write: Family dinners are good investment; Both GOP and Dems lean right

Letters to the Editor for the August 6, 2012 weekly print issue: Family dinners at home cost less, are more nutritious, teach children verbal skills, and build connections. American political parties aren't governing from the extremes; they're both governing from the right.

Family dinners are a good investment

Regarding the June 25 cover story, "Back to the dinner table": A family dining together at home is an investment in several ways. First, foods purchased, then cooked and served at home cost less and are often more nutritious. Second, dinners at home nurture family connections.

When I was a young child, all in my family were expected to come to the dinner table with two things to share: something learned that day and some event, story, or observation. This practice provides many benefits: value in daily living, language development, practice in speaking, recognition by others.

A child might say something very simple like, "Jimmy has a new bike." Additional questions can prompt recall and encourage more detail: "What color is it?" "How far did he ride?" More than the child's speech is encouraged; personal contribution is acknowledged. All family members have a "turn" and learn about each other's experiences that day.

Julie Hudson

San Diego

Both political parties lean right

I find it frustrating that commentators consistently write that America's two political parties are governing from the extremes. Amy Black echoes this idea in her July 2 commentary, "The dawn of a new independents day." True, the Republican Party has drifted to the extreme right over the past few decades. In the 1950s and '60s, the party cared about workers and the environment. When I became old enough to vote, I tended to vote Republican.

But the Democratic Party has also drifted to the right. As Ms. Black states: "A majority of Democrats and those who lean Democratic say their party is doing only a fair or poor job of standing up for its traditional positions." How can the Democratic Party be operating in the extreme left when its own constituents feel as if they have been forgotten?

They feel left out because the Democratic Party has made so many concessions to Republicans that the normal Democratic constituents feel as if no one is representing them anymore. In many ways, the Democratic Party of today is further to the right than the Republican Party was a few decades ago.

If both parties are governing from the extremes, it is to the extreme right for both, which does not bode well for a large portion of the population.

Patricia Ryan

Bellevue, Wash.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Readers Write: Family dinners are good investment; Both GOP and Dems lean right
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Readers-Respond/2012/0806/Readers-Write-Family-dinners-are-good-investment-Both-GOP-and-Dems-lean-right
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe