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Much Depends on (Family) Dinner


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Cameron Stracher in today's Wall Street Journal.

"...as home becomes more like work, and work becomes more like home, there are fewer reasons to rush back in time for dinner. Most men say that, if given a choice between time or money, they would choose the former; in fact, they choose the latter. After all, who wants to deal with a six-year-old having a temper tantrum because there is green stuff on her pasta? ...By missing mealtime, we are missing a substantial part of our children's lives. Sooner than we realize, they will not be at our table. Sooner than that, they will not want to have anything to do with us."

Not groundbreaking, but well put.

I'm on the pavement

Thinking about the government.

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Cameron Stracher in today's Wall Street Journal.

To me, these factoids are even more frightening:

The decline in the family dinner has been blamed for the rise in obesity, drug abuse, behavioral problems, promiscuity, poor school performance, illegal file sharing and a host of other ills.

It is sad indeed that we no longer see the joy in our children's faces as they share their stories over meals ... our loss as well as theirs ... :sad:

The nice thing about more traditional Jewish families (who are observant) is the fact that the Shabbat meal is a time for everyone to join together, not only for the food itself but the camraderie of the family (no television on, not answering a ringing telephone, etc.) The breaking of bread with a short blessing, the kiddush over the wine, the blessing of the children, all make the meal a very unique one.

Melissa Goodman aka "Gifted Gourmet"

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The decline in the family dinner has been blamed for the rise in obesity, drug abuse, behavioral problems, promiscuity, poor school performance, illegal file sharing and a host of other ills.

Didn't anyone else snicker over this? File-sharing, I mean. (And I though obesity was now officially a disease ...)

I like what the writer said, and identify with a lot of it. I also think that it's not so much the lack of family mealtimes that are being blamed for all the ills of society - it's the fact that so little time is spent as a unit. We're busy, the kids are busy, and we try to eat together a few times a week. And if the kids were cranky or fussy or not feeling like family bonding, well, that's kind of what you sign up for when you have them, dont' you think?

Avoiding sitting to dinner together because you have to cook separate meals for everyone is just nuts. You don't have to sauce the entire pot of pasta. If you really want to be together, you can find time to do it. If you really don't, you find excuses.

"Oh, tuna. Tuna, tuna, tuna." -Andy Bernard, The Office
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The decline in the family dinner has been blamed for the rise in obesity, drug abuse, behavioral problems, promiscuity, poor school performance, illegal file sharing and a host of other ills.

Didn't anyone else snicker over this? File-sharing, I mean. (And I though obesity was now officially a disease ...)

together, you can find time to do it. If you really don't, you find excuses.

I think there were a couple tongue-in-cheek moments, both that and:

The recent death of Gerry Thomas, whom many credit with inventing the TV dinner (think Swanson), draws to a close the kinder, gentler era when happy families gathered around a television set, aluminum trays in hand, enjoying their chopped sirloin beef and sweet green peas in seasoned butter sauce while laughing at the wacky antics of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.

Apparently subject he takes seriously, though, given what appears to be his virgin post on his new blog, www.dinnerwithdad.com.

As for me, my daughter is at camp and my son, now 16, has plans to run amok tonight with friends. But I told him he damn well better be home for dinner tomorrow night...

I'm on the pavement

Thinking about the government.

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Interesting. We decided early on to have dinner with the kids every night, and we've stuck to that for 6 years now, but we're moving away from it. We get little enough time together without the kids, and might start feeding them early then having dinner together after they go to bed on weeknights.

That said, I'm a stay-at-home mom, and my husband either works from home or leaves the office by 5 in order to be at home for dinner, bath and bedtime, so they aren't lacking for face time with us. :smile:

Heather Johnson

In Good Thyme

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Even when my kids became teenagers and had better things to do than join us for dinner, my rule was SUNDAY dinner is family time and you'd better be here! It was only once a week but we remain a close family and still share many meals and I think that some of that is a result of our Sunday dinner rule. We adhere to no religion, but Sunday seems the most appropriate to be together - after all, there isn't much for teenagers to do on Sunday! :biggrin:

Anna Nielsen aka "Anna N"

...I just let people know about something I made for supper that they might enjoy, too. That's all it is. (Nigel Slater)

"Cooking is about doing the best with what you have . . . and succeeding." John Thorne

Our 2012 (Kerry Beal and me) Blog

My 2004 eG Blog

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"We accommodate their pickiness because we can and because it's easier than the consequences if we don't."

Only in the short term. What a stupid statement. :wacko:

"Even in families where both parents are at home, they often wait until the kids are in bed to eat. As one mother told me: 'It's just not fun to eat with them.'"

No, but it educational for them. Eating together as a family helps the children learn postive social behavior.

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Even on days when we are all together, our dinner table resembles a diner, with each family member ordering his own meal. My son will eat pasta with pesto, but not with red sauce, while his sister loves the latter but hates the former. She will eat hamburgers and chicken, while my son will only eat hot dogs. Neither likes cereal with milk, but my daughter adores milk and cereal (just not together). My son can't stand either. We accommodate their pickiness because we can and because it's easier than the consequences if we don't.

I'm not sure when parenting changed from doing what it best for the children to doing what is easiest for the parents. I often hear parents talk about all the separate meals they make each night. Not only is it time consuming for the parents, it also takes away a child's opportunity to try new things. I'm sure some kids grow up to be adventurous eaters despite this, but the few that I know who were raised this way are just as limited in their meal choices as adults as the days of chicken nuggets and cereal dinners.

Tammy Olson aka "TPO"

The Practical Pantry

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We always ate as a family, promptly at six. If Dad wasn't home by six, we ate without him. His shop closed at 5:30 and it was about two miles from the house. For my parents, the dinner table was the place for issuing instructions, warnings, and criticism. Imagin having to eat your lunch while your boss gave you a poor performance evaluation We all always ate together for Sunday dinner (served around 2:00 PM). Dad was a very slow eater, and my brother and I had to sit there until he was done eating. Several times when I was an adult my mother mentioned how sorry she felt for my brother and me having to sit there while Dad finished eating.

When my brother had his own family, his children were allowed to come and go at will, eat or not eat, make critical comments about the food, and engage in all sorts of behavior. They also were not required to allow the people not done eating to finish their meal in peace.

Now I eat alone about 350 days of the year, while doing a crossword puzzle. I like it that way. No more "If your mouth was wider you could shovel more in, except for what you've already dropped on the floor" or "You may not like hearing what I'm about to say, but etc".

In view of what some parents regard as appropriate dinner table conversation, some children are better off if they don't have to eat together as a "family".

Edited for a typo.

Edited by Arey (log)

"A fool", he said, "would have swallowed it". Samuel Johnson

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Eating together as a family helps the children learn postive social behavior.

Only if you grow up with a decent family. I learned a fair amount of negative social behavior at our dinner table. We put the fun in dysfunctional. :wink:

...wine can of their wits the wise beguile, make the sage frolic, and the serious smile. --Alexander Pope

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"We accommodate their pickiness because we can and because it's easier than the consequences if we don't."

Only in the short term. What a stupid statement. :wacko:

"Even in families where both parents are at home, they often wait until the kids are in bed to eat. As one mother told me: 'It's just not fun to eat with them.'"

No, but it educational for them. Eating together as a family helps the children learn postive social behavior.

That's not a stupid statement at all -- it's reality. We all make choices with respect to raising a family. We all have different priorities. If we all decide that we will sit down together for dinner every single night, then two of the children would not be on their soccer teams. I probably wouldn't be a partner at my law firm. We decided that I would get home before the children go to bed, but my wife will cook for them. She does not cook. She hates to cook. She works, does car pool to soccer, ballet, math clubs. She volunteers at the school. The last thing she wants is a battle over the meals. Thus, she lets the kids get involved in the meal planning. Every weekend, it's one child's week to choose the meals from a list of about 10-12 protein items, a list of vegetables, a list of fruits, some starches and some miscellaneous. Much of the food is frozen or processed, but each meal must consist of a fruit and a vegetable (with some minor exceptions). For example, on Monday the meal is macaroni and cheese, grapes, and lima beans. Thursday is bratwurst, corn, rice and yogurt (inexplicably included as a fruit on my wife's list).

This method gives in to each child's pickiness in some fashion, but it also gives my wife some peace of mind. Before she started this system, she would go crazy every week, trying to sort out meals. This helps the kids understand how to offer some balance in meals as well.

Nevertheless, we do eat together on the weekends, and that works out well. So we'll take what we get.

We all strive for the ideal, June and Ward Cleaver type of family meals, but it just doesn't work that way very easily. It's easy to judge those who don't eat together every night when your family has found a way to reach that romanticized setting every night or if you don't have children. But times have changed in a lot of different ways, and we find ourselves in a constant give-and-take to eat dinner together 2 or 3 times a week. But I wouldn't trade the opportunities my children have today for what I had growing up, just to ensure we're eating together.

Dean McCord

VarmintBites

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When did the "family dinner" become a social norm?  And how did children learn positive social behavior on the days when children took their meals in the nursery?

I'm betting that the dinner in the nursery was a pretty rare phenomenon, limited to a small number of wealthy and haute bourgeoise. I'm pretty sure no one in my family, going back many generations, had their children fed in the nursery.

I'm on the pavement

Thinking about the government.

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When I was younger, my mom would return home at 6 and my dad at 7. We would eat dinner together with dishes prepared by mom. Now, my mom usually do not get home until 8:00 and my dad would be lucky to get home by 9:00. It is increasingly common for workers in Hong Kong to get home at around 8 or 9. Most middle or upper class families hire helpers to take care of the chores and the children. Parents do not want to be bothered with cooking and lecturing the kids at the dinner table so the helpers and the children would usually eat dinner at an earlier time. I think it is easy to critize those that do not spend time with their children for dinner but they do try their best to make up to their children such as spending their night talking to their children and going through their homework(when they have already been exhausted by 11 hrs of office work).

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  • 1 month later...

Washington Post book review

THE SURPRISING POWER OF FAMILY MEALS

How Eating Together Makes Us Smarter, Stronger, Healthier and Happy

By Miriam Weinstein

"Family supper is important because it gives children reliable access to their parents. It provides anchoring for everyone's day. It emphasizes the importance of the family nonverbally. It reminds the child that the family is there, and that she is part of it."... (meals) were regular, routine occasions at which we gathered as a family and functioned as a family: exchanging the trivial news of our lives, hearing tales about ancestors long since dead and relatives in faraway places, picking up bits and pieces of informal but invaluable education. All of the children -- eventually there were four of us -- came away from the table with firm if unconscious knowledge of ourselves as part of a human lineage to which, in time, we would contribute.

Do you see the family supper per se as a cure-all?

Is a meal with one parent at the table is still a family meal?

Melissa Goodman aka "Gifted Gourmet"

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Do you see the family supper per se as a cure-all?

Is a meal with one parent at the table is still a family meal?

Not a cure-all. Nothing is a cure-all for anything, is it? But all time spent with one's children gives rewards of all varieties both in the present and for the future, is my personal feeling. Even though one might want to run away from the sibling bickering often. :biggrin:

As for the second question, if there is only one parent in the family, then it must be a family meal, for that is the family.

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The key is time spent together. It doesn't have to be at the dinner table, and given the amount of activities kids seem to be involved in today, that's just not always feasible. But we play board games together, ride our bikes together and even at 13, Ry and I still read together in the evening.

Families of course should eat together when they can. That's where table manners, the art of carrying on a conversation etc are well learned. But I don't think that families fall apart if they don't eat together every night, as long as your child is getting quality time with you somewhere.

Marlene

Practice. Do it over. Get it right.

Mostly, I want people to be as happy eating my food as I am cooking it.

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We always ate as a family, promptly at six.  If Dad wasn't home by six, we ate without him. His shop closed at 5:30 and it was about two miles from the house.  For my parents, the dinner table was the place for issuing instructions, warnings, and criticism.  Imagin having to eat your lunch while your boss gave you a poor  performance evaluation We all always ate together for Sunday dinner (served around 2:00 PM).  Dad was a very slow eater, and my brother and I had to sit there until he was done eating.  Several times when I was an adult my mother mentioned how sorry she felt for my brother and me having to sit there while Dad finished eating.

Sounds like you grew up in my house!

Family dinners were also where my sisters and I got a head start on some nice eating disorders, since we were always being yelled at to eat either more or less or forced to eat something we didn't like. (There wasn't a picky eater among us but some of the food was just gross.) If I had kids now, we'd all sit down to dinner once in a while but I would go out of my way to avoid repeating that rouine.

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We always ate as a family, promptly at six.  If Dad wasn't home by six, we ate without him. His shop closed at 5:30 and it was about two miles from the house.  For my parents, the dinner table was the place for issuing instructions, warnings, and criticism.  Imagin having to eat your lunch while your boss gave you a poor  performance evaluation We all always ate together for Sunday dinner (served around 2:00 PM).  Dad was a very slow eater, and my brother and I had to sit there until he was done eating.  Several times when I was an adult my mother mentioned how sorry she felt for my brother and me having to sit there while Dad finished eating.

Sounds like you grew up in my house!

Family dinners were also where my sisters and I got a head start on some nice eating disorders, since we were always being yelled at to eat either more or less or forced to eat something we didn't like. (There wasn't a picky eater among us but some of the food was just gross.) If I had kids now, we'd all sit down to dinner once in a while but I would go out of my way to avoid repeating that rouine.

Ouch. Yes, your stories are making my tummy hurt.

My childhood dinner table memories are of total silence while at the table with my mother who never spoke. The plates had a piece of overdone meat and some sort of canned vegetable. Once in a while an iceberg salad with Catalina dressing. Once in a while spagetti, which was good.

It actually frightened me when I made friends and started eating at their homes at the elementary school age. So much stuff was going on! I did not know how to eat a baked potato and watched in awe as they did it. I was stunned by the fact of their fathers who were definitely "father figures" besides being fathers at the head of the table. So gruff and masculine. Startling.

At home, I took to bringing a book to the table with me and reading while eating.

My mother did not mind.

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

Yes, there are some odd stories of families at table.

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

In my own case, I must say that it did not strike me too oddly that this was the way it was when I was a child. It started to sink in as other ways were shown to me.

Finally, in my mother's defense, I must add that her behavior very well might have been due to undiagnosed depression. In those days, not much was known of these sorts of things, and people just lived with what happened.

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

Most people do the best they can, I guess, within our own individual limitations.

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We had wondeful family meals when I was growing up. We usually ate around 7, and dinner always took a good hour, with all of us discussing what was going on.

I want very much to have the same for my kids. But nowadays it is so hard. Employers pretty much expect people to stay late. I get home at 6:30, after having picked up both kids from two different programs, and my husband straggles in around 7. By the time we get the mail sorted, the phone messages, and the school papers sorted, it is 7:30. We end up never eating before 8:30! and the poor kids have to get to bed at some decent time in order to get up for school the next day.

Parenting books and articles all insist that kids should be in bed by 8, and still somehow have "quality time" with both parents. I would love to know how that happens in real families. Does anyone nowadays still have a job and commute that gets them home by 5pm?

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I'm alway leary of a survey on a choice between money and time. Alot of people I know would say time because they think its what they should say. However, in my career, I've seen people when given the real opportuntity between the two, most take money.

As for dinner, my wife and I have made a concious effort to make dinner a family event (even if it is leftovers). Everyone has to sit at the table (even if they choose not to eat) with no TV or radio. We do try to make it as fun and unstructured as possible.

Over this summer, we gotten into a nice ritual. We have dinner and the we take dessert out to the front yard to eat while the kids played with their neighborhood friends. I'm going to miss that when it gets dark by dinner time.

Now if I could only find something the kids liked eating beyond pasta, noodles and hot dog, I'd be set.

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