When Moms Attack. Episode I: The Dinner Table

I vote for dinner and TV as two separate things. I think families spend so little time together as it is that dinner should be reserved for conversation and good food.

I have very happy memories of sitting down to dinner with my family. I guess it depends on the family energy, but I think it can be a very positive thing for kids.

Maybe you can compromise, Boomer. Family sit down dinners on Fri., Sat., and Sunday, TV during the week. Maybe an after dinner family walk to help digest and burn calories.

Yeah, we had the late-arrival problem too for quite a while. (E.G. would get home at 8, 9, 10...) Before school started that's just when we ate -- when he came home, whenever that was. Sucked mightily.

Once school started (I mean when she started first grade and needed to be up early), that was absolutely not tenable. So I made a real push about 9 months before first grade started (January 2007) to switch our schedules around and get dinnertime to a reasonable place.

The one thing that worked best was that I just made a dinner -- for everyone -- that was ready at 6 PM. Every day. If E.G. was home for it, cool. If he wasn't, oh well. Sozlet and I ate at the table and he could have leftovers. By himself.

(Note, he has complete control over his own hours.)

He got tired of having cold leftovers and no company and has been much, MUCH better about getting home at a reasonable hour. He works about the same amount of time but leaves earlier. That's OK.

U bring out a good point,
about the family enengy, GW.





David

That reminds me; about 40 years ago,
I overheard my father mention to my mother
that dinnertime (while thay were eating together at the table) was his favorite time of day.

I never gave it much thought.
I just ate when I felt like it, usually in bed watching TV.





DAvid

I think these are good ideas.

Here, we eat in front of the TV but it's on low and we mute it if we really need to talk. We end up mainly talking during evening walks. One thing with dinner is that we work together to make it. I think that's important too, getting the food together, preparing it (more or less) together (actually, tonight RP cooked but I took stuff out for him), clean up together, etc. It's a process that doesn't just involve consumption.

Growing up, I had to help with dinner prep. We all sat down together and ate every day at the same time. And then I had to help clean up. (My mother did not get a dishwasher until I was long gone.)
Mom and I got to spend lots of quality time together, especially over the dishes. Singing, spelling lessons, talking. (I was the only girl. The men in the family didn't have to help in the kitchen.)

It drives me crazy eating dinner with K and his kids (16 1/2 and 19). They don't help with the making and if they clean up afterwards, it's with nagging and groaning.
Yes, they do sit at the table. And the tv is off.
Most of the time they are sitting/eating for less time than it takes to make the meal and clean up. We discovered if we want them to sit for longer, we need to make something like fondue or tacos....

I rarely eat with all of them, even though I loved a home-cooked meal I didn't cook, because their eat and run attitude pisses me off.

Soz, I love you setting a time and hubby showing up. That's great.

Yes, I think families should sit and eat together. And I think everyone should help in the making and the cleaning.
Like Jes said, it's the whole process. And it's a nice bonding moment.

The three of us have dinner together almost every night, whether it's home cooking or eating out. We're on our own for breakfast and lunch, so this is one of the main times we're all together. No TV during dinner, no reading, and no phone calls. It's our time to talk to each other about our day. It's an important way for us to stay connected.

Variation happens. My husband (x, but not, y'know, scorned) is a writer. Most of our years together had me at work and, some years, school after work some days of the week. In those time, he was home writing and was the cook then. He's a much better natural cook than I could ever hope to be, used to orchestrate - not all the time, but once in a while - a meal around some culinary theme. Must have been the reaction to his family's horrid cooking...). Alternately, I was the main cook for more or less years at a time, and we also often cooked together, one helping the other get stuff to the table for wider family or guests. In those years, I also went through the 7, a call, 8, a call, 9, and arrival home at ten.. There was this tendency to be optimistic re rehearsal timing.

So... I'm not subscribing to any one pattern..

but I am wary of people in a house working their way into isolated space territories except for the odd raging arguments or intimate engagements..
not good in the long run (my opinion).

Eating dinner with family is a celebration of life.

Hope it's clear that it didn't last long... we now eat dinner, together, every night around 6-7. (It's not a specific time, and sometimes goes later for special circumstances.)

Without schedule constraints it wasn't that big of a deal -- we'd just eat together, whenever (sometimes very late). But once sozlet started school, there WERE schedule constraints, that needed to be dealt with. E.G. got that intellectually but had a really hard time wresting himself out of what had become his routine -- having a hot (or at least fresh) dinner ready at 6 or so helped.

Oh, sure, it was clear, that post was just a riff on late husbands, more of a reminiscence thing. Even with the optimistic estimations re theater rehearsals, it wasn't really a serious problem for us.. he always called with the closer re-estimate. And we didn't have the school timing constraints. Think that family dinner arrangement is a good thing, important for family life.