2017
November
27
Monday

Monitor Daily Podcast

November 27, 2017
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Mark Sappenfield
Senior global correspondent

We are spending more time with our kids, apparently. That news comes from a survey of 11 Western countries, and the difference is big. The amount of time we spend caring for our children is more than double what it was in 1965, reports The Economist.

Hooray! Right?

Melissa Milkie would disagree. The scientist is one of many who have come to the conclusion that the amount of time we spend caring for our kids is no predictor of anything. “I could literally show you 20 charts, and 19 of them would show no relationship between the amount of parents’ time and children’s outcomes.... Nada. Zippo,” she told The Washington Post in 2015.

So what kinds of interactions do matter? Reading. Family meals. One-on-one conversations. In other words, quality is what counts, not quantity.

Trends evolve, with society arguing over helicopter parenting and mommy wars, but one thing is clear from the research: Genuine warmth and sensitivity aren’t dependent on a clock for validation or effectiveness.

Now, here are our five stories of the day, which look at how standards of fairness, humanity, and decency are being debated and reshaped around the world. 


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Amr Nabil/AP
Relatives of wounded worshipers gather outside the Suez Canal University hospital in Ismailia, Egypt, Nov. 25, a day after an attack on a mosque that was the deadliest attack ever by Islamic extremists in Egypt.
Thibault Camus/AP
Protesters shout slogans during a demonstration for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women in Paris Nov. 15.
Moises Castillo/AP
Maria Meza Paniagua tapes a portrait of a person who was disappeared to the back of a chair, at a ceremony marking the National Day of the Disappeared, in Guatemala City on June 21, 2017. According to human rights groups, more than 40,000 people were "disappeared" during Guatemala's 36 years of internal conflict.

The Monitor's View

AP Photo
Actor and composer of Puerto Rican descent Lin Manuel Miranda distributes food to victims of Hurricane Maria in La Placita de Güisin, in Vega Alta, Puerto Rico, Nov. 7.

A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

A message of love

Nyimas Laula/Reuters
Balinese farmers in Amed, Karangasem Regency, tend their crops Nov. 27 as Mt. Agung erupts in the background. Some 100,000 people were evacuated from the immediate area, and the airport was closed.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte. )

A look ahead

Thank you for reading today. Please come back tomorrow when we talk to women at different stages of their political careers. They explore how their experiences – and the current climate – could help change the calculus of sexual harassment in politics.

More issues

2017
November
27
Monday
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