Family Dinner

[guajolote]

Talking with a friend over the weekend we bemoaned the fact that few Americans sit at the table together for dinner. Do you usually sit at the dining room/kitchen table to eat? We do almost every night, and now that it is getting nice we usually sit outside. Most of our non-egullet friends seem to just eat whenever/wherever - often in front of the TV

[Lyle]

Most of our non-egullet friends seem to just eat whenever/wherever - often in front of the TV

We almost always sit at our table...which we set directly in front of a TV .

Actually, for about three years we didn't even have a proper, only an entry table with wings that we would fold out when we had company. Eating on

TV trays is a hard habit to break.

[Busboy]

We eat at the table whenever we can -- four or five nights a week. Recently moved to having the girl clear the dishes and the boy wash them - it's like going to a restaurant now, only the food is better (sometimes).

Eating in front of the TV is a guilty treat that we do every now and again, prefereable with carryout food and a lightweight video that appeals to across the 30-year age gap.

Once, we decided to strip the wallpaper in the kitchen and moved all the kitchen stuff into the dining room. We spent a month (we got 2/3 of the way through the project and lost momentum) eating every meal on a table on our front porch, which was delight.

[suzilightning]

the days that both of us are home for dinner we definitly sit at the dining room table or outside on the new patio furniture. we ususally put classical music on the cd and there are no tv or phone calls allowed. it is so much nicer to be able to sit, talk and concentrate on the food.

[mcdowell]

We eat in five nights a week, and it is always a sit-down meal that has been lovingly prepared by one, and usually more than one of us (blended family of four, me & my boy, my girlfriend & her girl, both kids aged ~10).

The kids love to work bread, or mix salad, or flip the salmon cakes frying in the pan. Very inclusive.

We never eat in front of the television, believing instead that good conversation is better fodder for the family, especially since we all lead such active & disparate daytime lives. It's a good time to catch up on what's happened, and plan on what's coming.

We almost always play a game or tell jokes over desert, lingering together until it's time for the kids to go up and do their own nightly thing.

[gsquared]

I find it inconceivable that anything normally on TV can possibly be sufficiently riveting to warrant actually eating a meal in front of it. If that is the norm in any country, it has to speak to the cultural inadequacy and/or deplorable lack of human intercourse in that country. In fact, doing anything in front of the TV - drinking, talking, playing, thinking, writing, cooking, loving, fighting - is just, well, so uncultivated m'dear.

[Lyle]

In fact, doing anything in front of the TV - drinking, talking, playing, thinking, writing, cooking, loving, fighting - is just, well, so uncultivated m'dear.

Are you suggesting that our Tony party last night was uncultivated? We were drinking, talking, playing, thinking, cooking, loving, and arguing - all in front of the TV. It's not all bad. I even find time to read now and again.

[JSD]

We ate dinner together every night for years and years, until 10 seconds after our son started high school. Suddenly he has school activities scheduled at dinner time several nights a week. I hate it.

[gsquared]

Are you suggesting that our Tony party last night was uncultivated?

I guess the Tonys may not be something "normally on TV" ?

[MatthewB]

Are you suggesting that our Tony party last night was uncultivated?

I guess the Tonys may not be something "normally on TV" ?

I thought Cook's Tour was on Fridays.

[sparrowgrass]

We ate dinner together every night, til the kids got jobs and weren't around. Now, my son and I eat together on the nights he is home.

[fresco]

We dine together as a family as often as our 20-year-old son's schedule permits (school, basketball, friends). His friends often dine with us, as do our friends. It makes for interesting conversation. Books are infrequently allowed at the table. Never television.

Edited June 9, 2003 by fresco (log)

[Lyle]

Are you suggesting that our Tony party last night was uncultivated?

I guess the Tonys may not be something "normally on TV" ?

I thought Cook's Tour was on Fridays.

I don't think he's known for turning down parties. Any day of the week.

[snowangel]

7 nights a week (except on the Sunday nights we return from the cabin) we sit down at the table together. We have, in fact, sort of curtailed sporting, etc. activities for the kids that interfere with dinner. No TV. Diana helps cook, and Peter is starting to get into the act, too.

[Bux]

While we were raising our daughter until the time she moved out on her own, dinner was always at the table with the three of us, except on those nights when someone had to be somewhere else. More often than not, that someone was our daughter as she become socially active. In NYC socially activites start very young with dinner at a friend's home by the time one is in kindergarten. Of course that often meant we were four or more at our table.

It's a habit that's stayed to some extent. Even if it's leftovers, sandwiches, or take out pizza, we still eat at a table. One bad habit that's entered the picture is that sometimes the TV is left on while we eat. I envy those with a deck or porch with a table that allows them to eat outside. We do have a common roof garden with tables and chairs, but since the elevator opens directly to the apartments, it's three long flights of stairs, so we're more likely to have an aperitif and hors d'oeuvres than a full dinner upstairs. We've also prohibited hibatchis and grills on the roof since we put in the new roof. For many years we did some cooking up there which was nice, but the residue from the ashes was damaging to the roofing surface.

[Lyle]

Honestly, gsquared, I wasn't trying to come down on you. But on occasion it is not unhealthy to dine in front of the TV. Sporting events come to mind. Probably twice a week we dine in front of the TV. Hell, even tonight. We've had the video of About Schmidt rented for far too long and still haven't watched it. I left the house at 7 a.m. and will probably get home at 7:30 p.m. I suspect (hope) we'll casually eat and watch the video and chat and live our lives. The fact that certain entertainment/culture happens to be delivered to us through that medium does not lessen the inherent value of that entertainment/culture. To enjoy [whatever] that comes on TV that I enjoy/learn from and, through the constraints of time, happen to do it while dining does not reflect on my degree of "cultivated". I still converse with people. I've also tried to read while dining with others and, trust me, no matter how cultivated I felt it still didn't work.

So, bring on some Jerry Springer.

Edit: We don't have kids. We'll raise them in a different utopia, of course.

Edited June 9, 2003 by Lyle (log)

[britcook]

We always eat together, at a table, always have. So OK the one eyed monster may be at the end of the table but we have the mute or off switches and we all know how they work. Maybe it's just me but I can't get on with a TV tray, always seems so...insecure.

[torakris]

Our family of 5 sits down at the table togthter every night, the tv is not visble from the dining room table.

On the about one night a month my husband isn't there for dinner, I let the kids set up the small table in the living room and eat there, in front of the tv.

[fifi]

I live alone now so I eat where I damn well please.

That being said, my son lived with me for a time, in his mid to late 20s, and the rule was that we sat down to dinner every night he was at home. No TV and we refused to answer the phone. If he had friends to dinner or if we had other family over, the same rule applied. It was HIS RULE and HE ENFORCED. My sister was appalled that we would not answer the phone. We would sit there ignoring the damn thing, she would jump up, son would yell... "touch that thing and you lose your dinner".

[Marlene]

My son eats in front of the tv 3 nights a week. He chooses the night. I don't watch TV, ever. During the week, my husband is almost never home in time for dinner with the rest of us, so when he's not travelling, I'll usually keep something warm for him and sit with him while he eats. Usually my son has a friend over on the weekends and we all eat together.

No books at the table, no answering the phone, and no tv when we are eating together.

[hjshorter]

We used to eat together every night. Now Scott gets home after the kids's dinner time, so I feed them, then eat with him when he gets home. We read at the table occasionally. Sometimes we eat and watch TV, but not often. TV trays are hazardous with a one year old cruising around the room.

We have breakfast together every morning too.

[pariah_kerry]

We rarely watched tv during dinner at the table growing up.

My parents were adamant about having family dinners.

Now when I go to have dinner with my parents, they always

have the tv on and my mother shushes me when she sees something she

wants to hear!

[Kim WB]

We eat at home about 3-4 nights per week. Out of these, maybe two ( usually only one) are a complete family meal ( husband, three teens, and me). Otherwise, its me and the kids, or the kids only, and I wait for hubby to get home later... or me and one kid while husband picks up the other one, etc...When we are a complete family, we play "hi/low", whcih is when you need to name the high and low points of your day..it's very revealing. Although my younger son has actually never had any other low besides math class, that I can recall!

[sparrowgrass]

I was talking to a child and family specialist from university extension the other day about this very subject. She was stressing to her clients the importance of having family meals and communicating among family members.

She said one problem with very low income people is that they don't have a kitchen/dining table. The first thing they buy is the TV, then a couch/chairs to sit on, and then (!) beds. The table is way down on the list for folks without money.

[Marlene]

We communicate all the time. We have sit down family meetings where we all discuss issues and things that affect all of us. My son's favourite time to talk is at bedtime. That's usually when I'll hear about things that are bothering him, although I can usually tell long before that .