A few people mentioned family dinners in recent comments and it got me thinking about Family Dinners in general. I love learning about the things we all do (in this case, eat meals), but do in such different ways, depending on our families’ needs and priorities. 

I would love to know about your own Family Dinner interpretation. Or if not “Family Dinner,” then whatever mealtimes look like in your family. What were evening mealtimes like when you were a kid? What are they like now? What are the top benefits you reap from your family’s way of doing things? 

When I grew up, family mealtimes happened, but not daily. I seem to recall Sunday dinners in particular taking place around the table, but there must have been others that we ate together as well. Although now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t know how that would have been possible during the week. My parents both worked full-time, and I’m pretty sure my dad came home on the late side most nights. Could it be that we only ate together on the weekends? No matter how often they happened: I have a fuzzy but warm feeling toward Family Dinners, and a general feeling that they were A Thing when I was growing up.

My brother and I each had a nanny when we were kids (we were so far apart in age, we had separate nannies), and I remember clearly his nanny making us dinner. She made this dinner of sauteed canned salad shrimp with carrots and celery sliced on the bias that I loved. I… do not think I would love it now. But I am assuming that she made food for me and my brother, and that we ate it together before our parents came home from work. I will have to check with my mom whether that’s true. 

I also remember my mom making lots of wonderful things. Fried chicken, pot roast, a pasta dish with ground beef, corn, and Velveeta that we called “seashells,” tacos, soups. When I was about ten, I made spaghetti or tacos for our family once every week or so. Most Fridays, we ate pizza – for a long time, my mom made it herself but then at some point we switched over to Pizza Hut pizza, which my father brought home in fragrant grease spotted boxes. We ate pizza in front of the TGIF line-up on ABC. 

As I mentioned the other day, I ended up eating fast food on the nights I had extracurricular activities. That really ramped up in high school – I can’t remember my exact schedule, except that I am pretty sure I always had piano on Tuesday nights at around 6:00 and I had cheerleading most days after school. (I also remember scarfing down fast-food tacos or nachos at a friend’s house after practice and then going home and eating dinner. Ah, to have the metabolism of a high school cheerleader.)

What I’m trying to say is, I both have fond memories of family dinners and understand how other priorities (work, extracurriculars, convenience) can reduce the number of nights available to eat together as a family, or eliminate them entirely. 

Family Dinners have so many potential benefits. For me, the top three are:

1. Gathering for a meal as a family allows every family member to interact – without distractions! – and share Quality* Time together. (*Your level of Quality may vary.)
2. Meals together allow for important modeling of things like conversational flow, happy disagreement, table manners, etc. 
3. Eating as a group typically means everyone eats the same meal, which can help picky eaters try new foods and show how other family members deal with foods they don’t love. 

Despite the purported benefits, we don’t do a lot of Family Dinners in my house. Part of me feels a little guilty about this, but the reality is that families are different, and do things differently, and that’s okay. 

Dinners in our house typically look like this: I make Carla something to eat around 5:30 and then I sit with her at the kitchen counter while she eats. Sometimes I read to her (by the way, we finally finished Where the Red Fern Grows, which I delayed based on your kind warnings, and Carla was completely unaffected. I, on the other hand, had to strenuously suppress my gasping tears so that I could read audibly. Carla kept eyeing me, trying to figure out if I was crying, or just really doing a bang-up job voicing the main character, who was definitely crying.), sometimes we chat, sometimes we listen to Kid Nuz or Wow in the World on our Echo. Once in a great while I will eat with her. Then she showers and goes to bed. Once her bedtime routine is over, which is usually around 8:00 or 9:00, my husband and I eat together in front of a TV show. 

Weekends, we often eat dinner together in front of a TV show or movie. (We are watching Junior Baking Show right now and it is just as charming as Great British Baking Show.)

When family is staying with us, we tend to do Family Dinners almost every night. It’s nice in some ways… there’s something pleasant about the ritual of getting everything on the table, and sitting together and being forced to talk to one another instead of look at a screen. But it also reminds me of why I don’t love it: the table has to be set and I use way more serving dishes and there’s so much more clean up afterward. (It’s so small and stupid, but I absolutely hate dealing with place mats or tablecloths.) Plus, people often get out their phones after they’re done eating and sit at the table and stare at their phones, which drives me bonkers. Plus plus, finding a time for all of us to eat together means that my husband has to rush home, often bringing home work to do later in the evening; that he has to skip exercising, which is important for his mental and physical health; and that Carla is often awake much later in the evening than she should be. It’s fine, because it’s for a short duration. And sometimes – over holidays, for instance – things like work and school-night bedtimes aren’t a factor. Maybe if eating together at the table every day were already a habit, it wouldn’t feel like such an ordeal. But it does feel like kind of an ordeal. 

I admit that I’m a little envious of people who sit down nightly to a Family Dinner all together. It sounds so wholesome and idyllic. And I do try to encourage us to eat at the table as a family at least once in a while. There ARE all the benefits I mentioned above (and probably more!) to sitting around the table together for a meal. But I am the only one in my immediate family who cares about it, and I can really only manage it on weekends, and not every weekend day, and sometimes I just don’t have the mental/emotional energy to wheedle my family into doing it at all.  

This most recent time my in-laws were visiting, my mother-in-law and Carla were setting the table, and Carla told her something like, “Oh, we usually eat in front of the TV.” And my mother-in-law laughed, like Carla was trying to pull something over on her, and said, “On a Sunday?!” in a tone of incredulity. That’s the kind of (unintentional) thing that makes me feel ashamed of our dinner habits. As though there is only One Way to do dinner, and I (all on my own, as though my husband has no role) am doing it wrong. 

Well. My own feelings of shame are something to deal with on my own. I would never look at YOU, for instance, and say, “Oh my gosh, HER family doesn’t sit down together for dinners every night?! What are they thinking?!” or otherwise judge you. So why am I so hard on myself for the very same thing? The million-dollar question, isn’t it. 

I remember reading a blog post ages ago – I swear it was from Swistle – that I think about every time I feel a little guilty for not making Family Dinners a priority around my house. It was something like, “Eating together as a family makes me dislike my family,” and it was so freeing. (Oh yes: Here it is.) If you are likewise unable to sit together for regular Family Dinners, for whatever reason up to and including you hate it, I hope that my own report of how we do things releases you from that obligation. 

My husband and I have a close and loving relationship with one another and with our child. Carla is reasonably versed in table manners (whether she uses them is a different topic all together). We find ways to be close and share details of our day at other times. For instance, Carla’s bedtime routine is one of my favorite times of day. I mostly no longer read to her at bedtime (I read to her at other times of the day, but bedtime reading is her father’s province), but there are always at least a few minutes at night when the three of us are snuggled up together in Carla’s bed, chatting about the day behind us and the day ahead, giggling over something silly, or talking through a challenge. It’s not always like this, especially on Call Weeks, when my husband may not make it home in time for bedtime, or on nights when Carla just wants to read her own book to herself (which I thoroughly encourage), but I don’t feel like anything is missing just because we don’t sit down together for a meal each day. 

Carla is extremely picky, and maybe some of that could have been avoided if we’d all been sitting together, eating the exact same food together, every night for her whole life. But… maybe not. And that ship has sailed, so there’s no point in me beating myself up over it any more than I already do.