Real Marriages: Family Dinners

My husband and I have to stay flexible with our fairly insane schedules. But, because of them, I've spent months of Kyle's (already short!) life racked with guilt over rarely sitting down to a meal as a family.

When Emily with Not That You Asked mentioned this exact "family dinner" issue on Twitter, I asked her to write a guest post on the topic.

I love her take on it.

***

I think my son Asher was seven months old when I started worrying about making Family Dinner a priority in our house.

Seven months old. Do you know what seven-month-old babies do at dinner? They cry. They wiggle. They refuse to hold their own utensils. They spit stuff. ORANGE stuff, and they spit it right onto your nice, clean, white shirt. (Someone tell me why they don't make bibs for parents who FEED infants? It would make a heck of a lot more sense for ME to be the one wearing the vinyl hazmat suit, you know?) But OH, the GUILT I felt sometimes for not orchestrating a grand, three-course meal that we could all sit down to together when my husband arrived home from work. You know, so he could eat it and I could attempt to shovel purees of seemingly unnatural combinations of food (peas and carrots plus OATMEAL? Are you KIDDING ME?) into a fussy, tired baby.

It took me a really long time to get past the idea that Family Dinner equaled Happy Family. Because it just doesn't. Guess what: Your family is not going to fall apart if you don't eat together every night.

Now, don't get me wrong. Family Dinner is definitely important. I look forward to the days when our kids will be old enough to participate in conversations about everything from school to current events to vacation planning around the dinner table. I hope that we're able to eat together often and I hope that it becomes something we really enjoy doing together.

But I refuse – REFUSE - to feel guilty if we can't swing it all the time, especially now, when my kids are small. Because when kids are small, they require help eating. They make constant demands that they can't get out of their own chairs to fulfill. They don't necessarily eat what or when the adults want to eat. I'd say 95 percent of our Family Dinners end up being chaotic, frustrating, stressful experiences, where one kid whines that he needs help and the other one secretly smears yogurt all over the wall behind her chair all while my food and Dave's food goes stone cold in the insanity. Yeah, THAT'S fun for everyone, especially when it escalates to discipline and stern warnings. (Have you ever cleaned yogurt off of BEADBOARD? ALL. THOSE. CREVICES.)

When our kids are older (school age) and we don't SEE them as much as we do now, then I'll make a concerted effort to gather them in one place on a daily basis. I do think that making that effort for them when they've got their own social agendas and activities is a Very Big Deal. When they're old enough to slam their bedroom doors and demand privacy and roll their eyes when I ask if they've finished their homework. I know that when they're older, dinnertime might be the only time I can demand their presence. And I most certainly will.

But right now? When they're little? When they can barely sit still for the time it takes to ingest half of a chicken nugget? I believe they get enough quality time with us without us having to watch each other cram food down our gullets. (That's what we do. Really. We cram. So it doesn't get cold.) I'm especially lucky, because I'm with those little beasts 24 hours a day. And although Dave works outside of the house, he does his best to make his time with them count. He spends his evenings (and some mornings) reading to them, taking them to the playground, roughhousing and tickling and laughing. We still talk to them about all the important things in their lives; we still make time to be together as a family. We just don't do it around the table.

Yet.

There's nothing wrong with making dinnertime your family time, if you can swing it. Oh, how I ENVY you, if you can swing it! Perhaps your children can come over and teach mine how to keep their yogurty hands off the china cabinet! But remember that there are lots of other ways to learn how to connect as a family. Give yourself permission.

***

Thanks, Emily!

So, what's dinner like in your house? And, how was it with small kids?

Comments

[april]

My son is two and never really eats dinner, so I usually make dinner for my husband and me at a time which we are hungry and don't worry about the little one so much. He eats so much during the day that I don't force the issue, and I really don't want to fight with him at the table.

I make a plate for him every night, and usually he'll wander pass and decide if he wants it, and then he'll crawl up and join dinner. Last night he got up in his chair to have a couple bites of couscous and one bite of fish, and then decided he really wasn't hungry for the rest of the fish or green beans. Food is always there if he wants it, but I'm not about to push - it's not like he's going hungry.

[jodifur]

We didn't start doing family dinner until Michael was 4 and 1/2. 4 and a half. My husband worked too late and Michael was starving at like 5. So Michael ate first, and then we ate after he went to bed. And you know, it was fine. I was riddled with guilt, but I also really liked my alone time with my husband. We do family dinner now, and while it is nice to sit down as a family every night, I also miss the alone time with my husband. Michael is done eating in like 10 minutes and I miss lingering over a glass of wine and talking about our days. Sometimes on a weekend we will still put michael to bed early and eat dinner just the two of us.

[Dawn]

We just started doing family dinners this past January when Noelle turned 3. Before that, Dyl and I ate after we put her to bed. But now with Noah, we strap his 9 month wiggly butt into a high chair and ply him with Cheerios, a sippy of water and sometimes a mango popsicle. And yeah, it's chaotic making 2 dinners (she is still on the all nugget/fishstick all the time diet)
but she's starting to eat (a little) more foods.
And I'm totally doing this for me right now: I do NOT want to have to make dinner starting at 8:30. I LIKE having my evenings free after the kids are in bed. To do fun stuff like dishes and mopping and who am I kidding? I get on the computer and play. Plus it's setting an expectation for when they are older. And Noelle is starting to join us in saying our 'prayers' before food. In fact she has to say it before every meal. I really hope that it doesn't get her into trouble at school...
And I think that it's helped tremendously with my weight loss so no going back for me! When mama's happy, everyone is happy.

[Marie Green]

With two 7 1/2 year olds and one 3 1/2 year old, "family dinners" ARE actually possible. And we do eat together as a family nearly every night, it's just what we do. That being said, dinner is not EVEN CLOSE to my favorite time of day. My kids are extremely picky eaters, bitch and moan about what's for dinner, will ask for more milk (or whatever) as SOON as I finally sit down... and then POUT and REFUSE to get up and get if for themselves. And they are TOTALLY capable of getting more themselves. (Well, not our youngest.)

We usually eat at our kitchen table, which has is a little "nook" with a smallish table and two benches. My older two are ALWAYS standing on the benches, and we tell them 3584502484 time PER MEAL to sit the EFF down. Our youngest demands TOTAL SILENCE while she speaks (ha, ha, HA), and...

Usually once per meal we have a couple of minutes of peace. We eat together because that's what's easiest in terms of timing. We think it's too much work to make two dinners. We eat, and then we do dishes, and then we are DONE.

Summer is great b/c we often eat on the porch, and the new scenery is great (at least for awhile)...

[Hillary]

Our dinners aren't always pretty affairs, and some nights it's just me and the kiddos, but we do it anyway. My 2-year-old, who is just starting to get picky, sometimes doesn't eat much, but he has to try everything and he has to sit -- or squirm quietly -- while everyone else eats. He gets our napkins for us at the beginning of the meal and we're just starting to teach him to clear his plate. I hold the squirming 6-month-old and try to feed both of us. Some nights all of this ends badly. But other nights, most nights, I hear the most amazing things come out of my toddler's mouth. And I really believe sitting down to dinner is the only way the kids are going to learn to sit down to dinner.

[Raven]

We eat dinner together as a family nearly every night (excluding when Sprog is at his Dad's of course) but that's because he is an eye-rolling teenager that wants to spend a lot of time in his room.

When he was little, he had his own table and chairs (from Ikea) and he would have his dinner, lunch, breakfast there. I would sit with him while he ate, but he always was the only one eating at the time.

It's been so long now that I don't even remember when we made the transition of all eating together but I do know that we've been doing it a long time. We also try to incorporate a family game night one night a week and we watch certain shows together as a family as well. This weekend we are leaving on our annual family vacation and it's one of my favorite times of the year.

[Katy]

My husband works very long hours, which makes family dinner almost impossible. I keep myself sane knowing that my child goes out to eat on a regular basis, so at least he knows what civilized eting is supposed to look like.

[Arina]

When we brought D home (he's adopted), my husband was all about the family dinners. But we quickly realized that D's simply too tired at the end of the day to stick it out through our dinnertime without (a) making it seriously unfun for all of us and/or (b) a meltdown. (He'll be two next week.)

So, I don't feel a bit guilty for getting D fed, bathed, and down for the night before having a nice dinner together. It's the only meal of the day where I'm not riding herd to prevent food from landing on the floor or to help with fork- or spoon-use, and I have to say that I'm ready for it at the end of the day.

When D is older, able to stay up later, and more independent at the table, we'll gladly incorporate family dinners - and like Emily said, we'll demand them! For now, though, I love grownup time.

[Leah]

THANK YOU!! I am one of those moms who can't completly get it together after a full day of work and we rarely have family dinners. I can count on 1 hand the number of family dinners we have had at the Wood household. Do I feel guilty? TERRIBLY! Thanks so much for this post, loved it!

[Deanna]

I second Leah's thanks for this post. Sometimes I do feel the guilt creeping in that we don't get to sit down for dinner together very often, or that I'm not eating with my girls at night. Oh, but wait, I have 14-month old twins and a husband who is at work four nights a week...plus I work a full-time job outside the home. My girls want to eat at 5:30, so when exactly am I supposed to make that family dinner? I do good to get their meal fixed, then sit down to help them get at least half the food into their mouths.

Occasionally on the weekends, we do all get to sit down and eat at the same time. We also eat out at least once a week, so they know how to sit at the table with us. I wouldn't exactly call those meals relaxing, quality time though. Thanks for reminding me I'm not the only one fighting this battle! I do look forward to those meals a few years in the future when we can all sit down and talk about our days while we have dinner together...it's just not gonna happen this year.

[Jen]

I'm on the other side of the fence. Family dinners are extremely important to us, and we do everything we can, even with Ro still at such a young age, to make sure we all sit down to eat dinner together. It can be a struggle, for sure, when faced with all that needs to be done in the few hours leading up to bedtime, and I'm sure it will get harder as Rowan gets older, with homework and after-school activities added to the mix. But it just feels good to us, to gather around a common area, to share a meal and share our day, especially since we get such little time all together.

[Jen L.]

I love Emily's post. I think there is a lot of pressure on modern moms to do things exactly like OUR moms did them. My family sat down together for dinner each night while I was growing up. I was also an only child with a stay-at-home mom and a dad who was home by 5:30 every night. My son is 2 and we do our best to eat together every night, but then we're lucky--he's a great eater! He loves mealtime and is excited to sit at the table now that we've ditched the highchair. (I'm sure the "new" will wear off soon enough.) Sometimes, however, we run late with dinner. My husband and I both work odd hours from time to time, so dinner isn't always ready at 6 sharp or whenever Dean is ready to eat. We also eat a lot of spicy food, which isn't particularly toddler-friendly. So sometimes Dean eats while one of us cooks. The other parent sits with him while he dines, then he gets to play in the dining room or watch a tv show while we eat our dinner. We have stopped eating in the living room,though, because he tends to wander over and pick things off our plates--things we later find under couch cushions. So I guess my take is that we do it when we can and that it will be something we keep doing in the future, but it's more because we are total foodies who enjoy eating together than because we think it's our moral duty.

[She Likes Purple]

Jen L., I like your point that it's important to you because of how important food and dining is, not because you think all families should. Thanks for that.

[Ginger]

We don't even try right now. My son is 9 months and I've felt the pressure to start the family dinners, but it's just not possible with the way our schedules work, especially on weekdays. When the kid gets older, we'll work on family dinners, but until then, we'll just try to foster a love of food and dining in other ways, and have our "family time" be something other than dinner.

[Elsha]

We do family dinners pretty much every night, for a couple of reasons. I HATE late dinners, (with the possible exception of an evening out) so I just plan on dinner being ready (or nearly ready) when my husband comes home. Our two year old is a great eater, and on the rare evening when she says no to coming to dinner we don't fight it. Nine times out of ten she'll come a few minutes after dinner has started anyway. And the baby isn't getting solids yet, so he sits in a highchair of bumbo while we eat.

I will say that I'm SURE I have it easier than most people though, because we're currently living with my parents. That means there are two helping adults in addition to my husband and I. So usually there are enough people to do things that nobody's food gets cold.

For us, family dinners are very enjoyable. I'm sure we wouldn't do them if they weren't.

[Miranda]

We've pretty much had some version of family dinners since my daughter started solids at 5 months- she's 15 months old now. I work full time while my husband is a SAHD and I'm responsible for making dinner. I get home about 545, we hang out all together on the bed and then at 6 I start making dinner. By 6:30 or so we all are sitting around the table having dinner. On Wed nights we have family dinner at my mom's house and it's the same deal. Of course it helps that I work pretty regular hours, I don't have a picky eater (yet!) and she goes to bed later than a lot of kids her age.
For us, I think the regularity of the situation came about for two reasons: my husband and I always sat down to eat dinner together prior to becoming parents so we never thought twice about it and, also, I can't take it when we sit for dinner and my daughter is running around trying to climb in my lap/steal my fork/knock my cup over, etc. If she's not in her seat eating then I'm so not enjoying my own meal.

[hillary]

Growing up, my family had a proper sit down dinner every night. And there's 4 kids in my family. My mom didn't work (because childcare for 4 children was more expensive than her salary) so she was a stay at home and I honestly think that she felt pressure to be the Perfect Stay at Home Mom. So family meals, salad with every dinner, not a single processed food (seriously - I didn't know that there was such a thing as prepared salad dressing until I reached school age.) I honestly don't know how she did it without having a complete mental breakdown. She's a bit of a rockstar, my mom. Either that or completely batshit crazy.

[Sarah]

Our little guy is 5 months old, so right now my husband and I eat dinner after he's in bed. As many others said, I really enjoy the time for just the two of us to catch up on our days, enjoy our meal and linger over a glass of wine (or more). But, down the road I hope we can have family dinners as I had them with my family Every. Single. Night. when I was growing up. Problem is, husband doesn't get home from work until after seven, and I can't see our son being able to stay up that late until he's a few years older. So for now, I'm going to enjoy putting him down early and having dinners and nights alone with my husband!

[Kate]

We've pretty much always had family dinners, even before there were kids. I love cooking and feeding my family. When my son was a baby, we'd put him in his bouncy seat near us while we ate, then later his high chair. He was always a great eater and by 10 months was eating whatever we were having. Same routine with my daughter when she was a baby, although she was a pickier eater. However, I've worked evening shift (3-11pm) since the kids were 5 & 2 so the family dinners aren't as regular anymore. Hubby does make dinner when I'm at work but they usually just eat at the kitchen counter. So on the nights that I'm home I really make an effort to make a dinner that we can all sit down and enjoy together. The kids are almost 8 & 5 now and I'm hoping that they'll have good memories of our time around the table. It gives us a chance to connect and chat, although there is still plenty of "sit down and eat" and such that goes on right now. And they learn that momma is not a short order cook and that they have to eat what's prepared.

[jonniker]

Family dinners are, in theory, important to us, too. But HA HA, oh come on, my kid goes to bed at 7, is a screeching mess by 6 and must eat by 5:30 or bust. This does not mesh well with a husband who doesn't get home until 7. I'm home with her, and Adam is involved on the times he IS home, so I agree with Emily in that it will be MORE important to us when she's older and we're away from her more. Now, we're the center of her world, so dinner isn't as key. If I worked outside the home, I might feel differently, but on the other hand ... maybe not.

[Heather]

We do family dinners when the kids are here...but often times, Bill stands by the counter to eat. I am trying to get him to learn what a potholder is, and start bringing the food to the table, so that one of us isn't getting up every three minutes to get more of something or another. When he sits down, we have fun. The kids tell jokes, and talk about school, and make fun of Bill's accent. (They also exhibit atrocious table manners, but I am working on that!)