Recently the twins, my dad, and I have decided to start a family dinner tradition. Everyone will be home at 6:30 (including me when I'm not at Smith) and we will sit down at the table to share a meal. At first I was skeptical, it seems a bit restricting to have to be home every night at the same time, but after a few trial runs it is really starting to grow on me. I may be biased though; I am a sucker for routine.
So how do you all feel about family dinner? Should it be mandatory or optional? Is it possible to have family dinners without the cultural stigma of a 50's nuclear family attached? What constitutes a "family dinner"? Who does it involve? I know lunch at Gillette with my friends often has the same feel as these last few dinners did. We even have a chosen table we always sit at. Is family dinner making a comeback, and should it?
I think it should, as long as it's flexible! I love our "family" dinners at Gillette, I feel like it enhances the quality of the food, or our own enjoyment of the food.
ReplyDeleteWhen I studied abroad in Copenhagen, family dinners were a huge part of their culture. Often times dinner did not start until 7pm and everyone had to be there - being late is one of the biggest no-no's in danish culture. I loved it! Dinners were long, sometimes lasting 5 hours, but you never realized the time passing! While I wouldn't want every weekday dinner to last that long, I think the idea that you can come together at the end of the day to share your day and touch base with your family is extremely relaxing and so cozy. I miss those family dinners I had with my host family!
ReplyDeleteWe try our best in our family. It's hard, with soccer and orchestra and archery and swimming and circus lessons and...is there anything my kids don't do? But even if we sit down together at 8:30 pm, we're still sitting down together. And sometimes we have "reading dinners," where we allow ourselves to read or do homework, but companionably, over dinner.
ReplyDeleteWhen I studied abroad I would have a family sit-down dinner most nights with my host and it quickly became a tradition that I anticipated each night. It was also one I wanted to bring back with me to my home where we haven't sat together for dinner regularly since I was in middle school. Unfortunately, it never happened! It something I would still love to do, but it's nearly impossible with our different schedules and eating habits.
ReplyDeleteFamily dinners are a really important part of Chinese culture. Before I came to college, I had dinner with my family everyday. During the dinner, I would share my day at school and my parents would also talk about interesting things happened at work. The length of the dinner depends on whether we are busy or not. But no matter it was a three-hour long dinner or a quick dinner that costed no more than twenty minutes, I always feel relaxed during the dinner time. I really miss those family dinners and can't wait to go back home and have dinners with my parents.
ReplyDeleteMy mother and step-dad always made me eat dinner with them. It wasn't at a fixed time, but once dinner was served, we would sit there until everyone was done and then some. Then I'd have to clean the kitchen. The conversation was usually not that great if existent at all so I didn't understand why it was mandated. Plus, it seriously cut into homework time or, less importantly, Facebook time. I bred resentment on my part. Meanwhile, at my father's house, I fixed dinner for myself and ate it wherever I wanted, but that usually happened to be watching TV with him. So, in my experience, family dinner shows no correlation with familial bonding. It's a manifestation of the principal (that at least holds up in my life) that, the more compulsory it is to share someone's company, the less enjoyable.
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