Family Mealtime Guilt

[Carrot Top]

An article in the New York Times discusses the subject.

On a recent weeknight at my house, my 16-year-old gobbled leftover pasta and a protein bar at 5:15, then raced off to baby-sit at 5:30. My 13-year-old left for Hebrew school at 6, where dinner is served in the form of pizza and salad (though I can’t swear that he ever eats the salad). My husband, whose usual commute brings him home at about 7, drove directly to pay a condolence call at 7:30, where he snacked on a cookie. I ate low-carb cereal standing at the kitchen sink.

I have been touchy on this subject for years, ever since the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University began releasing studies equating life without family dinner to something akin to child abuse.

Its most recent report compares teenagers who have two or fewer family dinners per week with those who have five or more, and finds that the group that rarely eats en famille is twice as likely to have tried cigarettes, one and a half times more likely to have tried alcohol, and twice as likely to have tried marijuana. It goes on to link all this with academic performance, saying the greater the incidence of family dinners, the more A’s and B’s on report cards.

Because the fact is, failing to sit around the table as a family every weeknight hardly condemns your children to substance abuse and failing grades. The study by the center on addiction, while widely cited in simple shorthand, actually shows a complicated correlation, not a straightforward causation. “The question isn’t really do you eat dinner together, the question is are you involved in your family’s life,” says Dr. Harold Koplewicz, director of the New York University Child Study Center. “Dinner is something we can count, so it becomes shorthand for much more. But it’s not the food that’s important as much as the time and connection.”

So the hours I spend sprawled on the couch with the boys, arms and legs entangled, critiquing our favorite TV shows? That counts? Or the time spent in the car driving to all the activities that make dinner an impossible goal? That counts, too?

“Absolutely,” Dr. Koplewicz says.

Well well. Columbia vs. NYU on parenting and particularly on how we raise our children, and most particularly on how we eat and with whom.

Which university will get your dollars for further studies?

[srhcb]

Well well. Columbia vs. NYU on parenting and particularly on how we raise our children, and most particularly on how we eat and with whom.

Which university will get your dollars for further studies? 

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Neither.

I'll give my dollars to the local Food Shelf and Salvation Army Meal Program.

SB (not a big fan of university "studies" )

[Carrot Top]

SB (not a big fan of university "studies" )

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Mmm. But you will admit that university studies make wheels turn when they come from well-respected names. People often get hired for "good jobs" or not based on university affiliation and people look to these places for guidance as how to do their best in the world.

Journalism follows along behind university studies in terms of stories presented in the mass media, which then affects how we look at the world and what we consider our best choices to be, within the choices presented and vouched for by our paid and sanctioned intellectual leaders (who would be the university people ).

There are people worrying at this very moment that their children will become drug addicts or failures in life (getting bad grades and being unable to get *into* "the better" universities therefore, well. . . the saga of worries could continue endlessly here ending in dissolution of character and other losses) because they do not eat dinner together at a table on an ongoing basis with aforementioned kinder.

You, with stern visage, obviously do not worry about these things.

But some of the rest of us do.

[srhcb]

Journalism follows along behind university studies in terms of stories presented in the mass media

"ay, there's the rub" - Hamlet

I hold the field of "Journalism" in even lower regard than "University Studies".

There are people worrying at this very moment that their children will become drug addicts or failures in life (getting bad grades and being unable to get *into* "the better" universities therefore, well. . .  the saga of worries could continue endlessly here  ending in dissolution of character and other losses) because they do not eat dinner together at a table on an ongoing basis with aforementioned kinder.

You, with stern visage, obviously do not worry about these things.

But some of the rest of us do. 

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On the scale of What Parents Could Realistically Worry About, I think this should rank fairly high.

The obvious "solution" to this "problem" is having children and parents WANT TO eat with each other. I believe other "studies" have indicated that many children would like to spend more time with their parents in various activities, including eating?

SB (stern )

[Carrot Top]

The obvious "solution" to this "problem" is having children and parents WANT TO eat with each other.  I believe other "studies" have indicated that many children would like to spend more time with their parents in various activities, including eating?

SB (stern )

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Oh yes. I agree with that. I spend hours and hours each day with my kids. If they are not at school, and not doing something else that is one of their chosen activities, they are with me.

*But* there are often times that we do not sit down at a table and eat together. We might set out food in the kitchen and wander through the house nibbling on it. We might choose to eat different things at different times. We might eat fast food, driving somewhere in the car. We even *want* to go out a lot, for often we are at home, together, the three of us. And surprisingly (or maybe not, to those who have experienced this) a brother and a sister with an eighteen-month age difference and vastly different personalities just plain don't want to eat together. Not now. Someday, when they are older, based on what I have seen with others in this situation, they will.

Do they gain some sort of moral advantage from being forced to do this now? I'm not so sure about that.

Do we have to want to eat together all the time, as a family? Does this one single thing make a family a family, or is it the sum parts of all things that make a family a family?

I know people who were forced to sit at table while growing up, eating dinner, nightly - who have terrible family relationships/situations. The function of eating together did not create the domestic bliss that it promised, but rather created a sense of shoving things under the tablecloth in fear and formalcy, the polite veneer of masks pasted on with the intention of many of those who sat at table, food together at dinner, politeness or not - to get up from that table when "excused" then to go as quickly as possible on to other things that might not be so palatable to the Mother and Father who created the Fine Dinner Table - to go on to these things without telling Mom and Dad, for the very rigidity of the family structure would forbid communication of what was "really" going on in these kids' lives.

I know kids right now who are dining with their families at the dinner table who are doing other things behind their parent's backs - things that might prove not-so-great in the long run but that is not the point. The point is that the Dinner Meal Together does not create magical communication. It is a nice thing if it works. But if it does not, given the fact that our lives are very different than they were in terms of timing and structure (work and the traditional family being two things that have altered drastically in past years) there are other ways to create the bond.

Dinner at Table With Children each day (to my mind) is not a panacea. It is an action that can be taken, among others, to ease communication, if done in a way that works. But it is not the only way, and the world does not and will not end if the structure of it is altered.

.................................

Edited, SB, to add my own ( stern visage).

Edited June 14, 2007 by Carrot Top (log)

[srhcb]

The obvious "solution" to this "problem" is having children and parents WANT TO eat with each other.  I believe other "studies" have indicated that many children would like to spend more time with their parents in various activities, including eating?

SB (stern )

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Oh yes. I agree with that. I spend hours and hours each day with my kids. If they are not at school, and not doing something else that is one of their chosen activities, they are with me.

*But* there are often times that we do not sit down at a table and eat together. We might set out food in the kitchen and wander through the house nibbling on it. We might choose to eat different things at different times. We might eat fast food, driving somewhere in the car. We even *want* to go out a lot, for often we are at home, together, the three of us.

I would count these as "eating together".

Do we have to want to eat together all the time, as a family? Does this one single thing make a family a family, or is it the sum parts of all things that make a family a family?

I was going by the standard set forth in one of the studies that compares "teenagers who have two or fewer family dinners per week with those who have five or more".

Depending on the age of the children, and taking into consideration the demands our society puts on the time of both adults and children, five dinners might be considered a lofty goal, but "two or fewer" seems to me would indicate a problem inherent and/or developing?

"Eating together" is, of course, neither a direct cause or effect of family problems.

SB (true to character, hiding his visage behind shades )

[Carrot Top]

I was going by the standard set forth in one of the studies that compares "teenagers who have two or fewer family dinners per week with those who have five or more".

Depending on the age of the children, and taking into consideration the demands our society puts on the time of both adults and children, five dinners might be considered a lofty goal, but "two or fewer" seems to me would indicate a problem inherent and/or developing?

"Eating together" is, of course, neither a direct cause or effect of family problems.

SB (true to character, hiding his visage behind shades  )

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*Time* dedicated to a thing shows results.

I have an argument with the "demands our society puts on the time of both adults and children", probably.

It is, to me, the time given that matters, not the thing. The thing being, in this case, the Family Dinner. If the focus is on the Thing, it is not on the time.

Time is capable of being shaped in so many ways that can fit and fill people better than any Thing.

Plus, I do not like this Thing being made into a Results-Driven act.

.....................................................

I am beginning to sound like Dr. Seuss. Thing One is The Family Dinner. Thing Two will be . . .(will have to think about it. )

[Carrot Top]

Here's another thing I wonder about, that touches upon The Family Dinner. It will be Thing Two.

I see many children lately who spend lots of time with their grandparents. The grandparents have replaced the parents in terms of spending time with the children as the parents work.

When hearing discussions of this here and there, often I hear "Better for the kids to spend time having a decent Family Dinner (at the grandparents) than to be at home eating whatever the parent(s) might be able to feed them with the time they have."

I wonder about that, too.

Edited June 14, 2007 by Carrot Top (log)

[MomOfLittleFoodies]

My children seem convinced that Mom isn't supposed to sit at the table to eat. I'm supposed to gladly leap out of my seat every time someone drops a fork or wants something from the kitchen.

[Carrot Top]

I'm supposed to gladly leap out of my seat every time someone drops a fork or wants something from the kitchen.

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So, the Family Dinner is the Family Dinner with someone always jumping up and down from the table at your house. You. That leads to the question of whether there is such a thing as a Family Dinner without somebody being subliminally the servant.

I used to know a woman who got so tired of things being like this that instead of putting the kids in time-out she used to say she was going to time-out and would go climb in the baby's crib for a rest.

[Kouign Aman]

I set myself a personal time limit for this activity.

When the munchkin is 3, I stop playing get-up-&-fetch. In the meantime, there has been considerable training of the munchkin, and of me - in what might be needed, to be on the table when its set etc, so I can live up to my promise to myself.

I'm thinking with more than one kid, the possibilities increase exponentially, and I dont think there's enough space on the table for all the maybes. So I dont hold anyone else to this concept (heck, I havent even had to hold myself to it yet!).

This means serving "family style" as my husband is used to, instead of plating it in the kitchen which is what I grew up with. This has taken some getting used to for me. My husband is not reluctant to dirty extra pots and pans; I am, except for "special occasions". But I cant quite bring myself to put the skillet on the table, even for a family dinner.

Re the family dinner - its our best chance to learn about munchkin's day, teach table manners, and keep an eye on vegetable/fruit intake. So we'll keep it a habit as long as we can. Its been a pain to adjust to, given that munchkin gets hungry much earlier than we used to. Do I feel guilty if we dont eat all together? If its less than 2x a week, I probably will feel at least annoyed. (and I'll wonder if my cooking is really that bad!)

[srhcb]

Although it's not specifically dedicated to the act of parents and offspring dining together, this song still contains some pretty good advice that could be applied to that topic.

Pay particular heed to the line about both generations feeding each other on their respective dreams.

What could be more nourishing than dreams?

SB (old hippie )

[Busboy]

With an 18-year-old working many nights and about to leave home, and a 14-year-old daughter who is sometimes sullen and distant in the way that teenagers (my wife would say teenage girls) seem especially good at, I've gotten to scheduling family dinners in advance: "you will hold Thursday and Sunday open to eat with your mother and I." Half of the reason is purely selfish -- nothing delights me more. But the other half is that -- given the random schedules the four of us keep, we might otherwise go days without a civil conversation amongst us. Overtime, soccer, dating, what-have-you...I think that these are not excuses to avoid eating together but reasons to make sure it happens regularly. It's also, though this is less a consideration, a regular lesson in everything from setting the table properly to not making intestine-oriented jokes during dinner.

I do indeed feel guilty if we go too many days in a row without eating together, and I think I should.

On the other hand, when my daughter says she's the only one of her peers who knows how to eat at a restaurant, and my son's friends parents say "Joey loves going over to your house; he says you eat dinner together and everything," it's a nice little stroke. Will all the other things I've probably screwed up at least we have this one corner of life nailed down pretty well. And one of which the whole family is a part.

[Carrot Top]

Ah, Sir Charles.

I am glad you've chimed in.

"you will hold Thursday and Sunday open to eat with your mother and I.  Half of the reason is purely selfish -- nothing delights me more.  But the other half is that -- given the random schedules the four of us keep, we might otherwise go days without a civil conversation amongst us.  Overtime, soccer, dating, what-have-you...I think that these are not excuses to avoid eating together but reasons to make sure it happens regularly.  It's also, though this is less a consideration, a regular lesson in everything from setting the table properly to not making intestine-oriented jokes during dinner. 

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Do you really talk like that?

Will all the other things I've probably screwed up at least we have this one corner of life nailed down pretty well. And one of which the whole family is a part.

Sounds good to me.

[K8memphis]

I guess my prettiest and nicest piece of furniture is my dining room table and chairs. Antique no less. I thought we were all supposed to eat together but we use the table for holidays and rare 'sit down' meals. We eat in the den. It's just more comfy.

Well, when we first got it, we had pizza delivered and one of the hot boxes slid off the towel it was on and made white marks on the table. So right after I refinished the table, I found the product that removes the white without refinishing.

Umm, we got our teenaged girl (she's 27 now) hooked on coffee at an early age . My husband makes the coffee here and so he would make her a cup every morning. tee hee hee. So we kept that door open. We chatted every morning come what may.

However we could not get the boy up that early and he flat refused the coffee injection/addiction. But God forbid you should get 'caught' by chef-boy in the hallway around midnight, he would talk both your ears off and if you ever got back to bed, you might never get back to sleep. So we stayed close there too. Sleepy but close. Tuned in.

I don't think the meal thing counts. At all. Like it says it's one marker that can quantify 'closeness'. Ours was morning coffee and midnight chats.

She's going for a second master's. He got a 4.0 in culinary school. He did quit high school but he called me to come pick him up that day. We only wanted them to be safe and to do thier thing whatever they chose. They want us to be proud of them. We are. My husband recently said that our kids have given us sweet sleep. No worries.

I finally broke down & let the cat get up on the table that's pushed up against the window to keep an eye on the neighborhood. If we rarely did before we sure don't eat there now.

Being together is the warmest feeling of all.

[Carrot Top]

I finally broke down & let the cat get up on the table that's pushed up against the window to keep an eye on the neighborhood. If we rarely did before we sure don't eat there now.

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It must have been a long-term plot by the cat in the first place to have this happen.

Nice story.

[Carrot Top]

I set myself a personal time limit for this activity.

When the munchkin is 3, I stop playing get-up-&-fetch. In the  meantime, there has been considerable training of the munchkin, and of me - in what might be needed, to be on the table when its set etc, so I can live up to my promise to myself.

I'm thinking with more than one kid, the possibilities increase exponentially, and I dont think there's enough space on the table for all the maybes. So I dont hold anyone else to this concept (heck, I havent even had to hold myself to it yet!).

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When does munchkin become three? I wish you best of luck with your plan.

[Kouign Aman]

Later this summer. I wish me luck too!

[foodie52]

Growing up, our kids were not allowed more than 2 extracurriculars a week. One sport, one music. We ate together as a family 4 to 5 nights a week. Weekends didn't count.

My grown kids now vow to do the same when they have children. The fellowship and conversation around the table was apparently more important to them than anything else. It didn't really matter what the food was. They got to talk to us. And it was a big, whopping 1/2 hour out of our day...

[Porthos]

"Eating together" is, of course, neither a direct cause or effect of family problems.

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I SO agree.

I have to jump in here without reading the cited articles because I've heard of other such studies in years past.

I'm in twelve-step recovery. I have a brother still on drugs in his late 50s. I have another brother who is addicted to food. My wife comes from a family with substance abuse issues. My father never got into recovery for his addictive issues. Why am I talking about the addictive history my children have been brought up around? Because the balance is that we raised them with a moral compass, we did eat dinner together, and we talked with them about the substance abuse problems in our families when they were old enough to comprehend. That way they had some clue that we weren't Ozzie and Harriet and the kids.

We ate dinner together as a family unless there was a real reason not to be there until my older daughter moved out (she's almost 26) and my younger daughter (20) decided not to be home for dinner at all most days. My older daughter comes over for dinner and to do laundry on Tuesdays and when she does we still eat our meal together. Even her sister.

My and my wife's concern for them developing addictions of their own is very real. But that concern in not based upon family bonding at meal-time or the lack therof, but the very real effects of having multiple addictions in the family tree.

What I'm sounding off about here is that I think there are far too many factors and dynamics of family life to let whether or not a family eats together or not be a major source of worry for parents. My opinion - strongly held - but still just my opinion.

edited to add this comment: When she was about 16 myounger daughter told me we were a weird family because we ate dinner together.

Edited June 14, 2007 by Porthos (log)

[Matcha Eyes]

There were times in my life when things got so bad in the family, eating alone in my room was a blessing. The more the family sat at the table together, the more likely the neighbors would be watching a live version of "Cops". I can certainly say that it wasn't not having lively family suppers that got me addicted to cocaine. There is so much more to good parenting and happy, healthy family besides mealtime. Communication is the key, and that can happen at anytime of the day or night and anywhere, not just at the table.

[hjshorter]

Our kids are too young to have play practice, or dates, so we have dinner as a family every night. I am sure it's doing us all of lots and lots of good, but I am heartily sick of the endless repetition of "eat with your fork and not your fingers" and "please chew with your mouth closed," and long for the days when children were fed in the nursery and not expected to dine until they were at least sixteen.

[purplewiz]

I'm with the crowd who thinks that the family dinner is more of a result of other things going right in the family rather than an end in itself. Yes, we ate dinner together as a family almost every night. Yes, I stayed out of trouble. No, I don't think it's because of the dinners because they were, as a rule, unpleasant. Unpleasant to the point where I still don't like to think about those meals.

Family dinners may help facilitate caring and communication, but they are by no means the only route to that end. Or even the best. They're just convenient.

Marcia.

[Busboy]

The thing about family dinners is this: for all the moments you may or may not be together as a family during a typical day, none of them are going to involve an hour, or an hour-and-a-half, or even two hours together face-to-face. In addition, after a certain age, the mundane chores assigned the kids -- setting, clearing, washing, a bit of cooking -- bring them into the process and give them a little stake and pride in dinner and gives them a kind of quasi-equal footing that fosters conversation. As does the meal itself.

And I don't think time together just happens these days, and maybe it never did. If I waited for the family to coalesce naturally, we'd all be watching House or maybe buying popcorn at one of those rare movies that pleased The Snob, The Romantic, The Hipster and that the Teeniebopper can get into, or doing chores. It's not as though we're all bringing in the crops together or milking the cows; school and three jobs and all the delights of the city tend to have a centrifugal effect. Lacking any better excuse, mandated dinner brings us back together.

Of course, like the girl (or me, when my hair goes awry) with the curl in the middle of her forehead, when it is good, it is very, very good. And when it is bad...

[Carrot Top]

The thing about family dinners is this: for all the moments you may or may not be together as a family during a typical day, none of them are going to involve an hour, or an hour-and-a-half, or even two hours together face-to-face. 

[ . . .]

And I don't think time together just happens these days, and maybe it never did. 

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We actually are face to face often, on an ongoing basis, day to day. Our conversation is an all-day long thing, only interrupted by school or chosen activities. It can range from the bright red extensions that my daughter wants to clip in her hair, to how to cook tripe (and what it is, to start off with), to books or politics. We don't need a table or food for this, for our own dinnertable of conversation is an all-day long buffet with breaks taken as required.

Tables and food are wonderful things, and the sharing of them can be one of the best things in life, of course, but the set-piece displayed in a subtle sense of it being something that can save civilization as we know it seems to me to be false.

I have nothing at all against the tradition of Family Dinner (when it is good) being passed along in families. But it's not the only way, for everyone. There are other ways to reach towards the same thing and to obtain it. Unless the goal *is* the Family Dinner, to knowing it as Family Dinner and to practice it, the ritual. That is a thing unto itself, but the promises inherent in it do need to be looked at in a general overall sense to see if the Thing is delivering on its promise (as some of the posts above have shown). Rituals can take on sensibilities of their own that can be true and truth-ful or not, depending on the instance and practicioners involved.

Edited June 15, 2007 by Carrot Top (log)