S/O: Family dinners growing up

[Anonymous]

The thread on family dinners growing up made me start thinking. Some of the posters mentioned having bad experiences and not enjoying them. What were yours like growing up? What about now? I'm wondering what we're doing that may make our kids like/not like the experience. We try to all talk about our day, what's going on, upcoming activities, that sort of thing. But there is also plenty of "elbows off the table, don't talk with food in your mouth, stop kicking your brother". Maybe too much...hard to tell, right?

Did you have a balance at your meal times? Do you now?

[Anonymous]

Mine were pretty typical, and nice. We couldn't do it every single night, as swim practice and work schedules sometimes got in the way. But we did make time for it the majority of the time.

When we got older, my siblings and I pitched in--either making part of the meal, or the whole meal. Or just setting the table. My dad wasn't much of a "cook," but he still participated--sometimes grilling, sometimes doings spaghetti, or maybe mashed potatoes. My mom did the majority of the cooking and meal planning; dad did most of the clean-up.

It was good time together for our family. But I can remember being a teenager and hating the sound of my mom chewing! HA! We really enjoy meals together now as part of family visits.

[Anonymous]

We had them, but honestly I recall watching a lot of Cosby and Family ties during them. Not sure there were too many deep discussions.

[Anonymous]

I liked my family dinners and enjoyed conversations. I liked hearing about my parents' jobs, and telling the about school.

I did fight with my brother at times. But the bad part was the empty plate rule. I had to finish everything and some of it I loathed. My mom made me sit once til almost midnight to make me eat liver. I refused and finally fed it to the dog. Who promptly threw it up. I do not force clean plates in my house and I think my kids have a much healthier relationship with food than I do.

[Anonymous]

We almost always had family dinners. I have wonderful memories of them. We all talked about our day and other things going on, current events as we got older. It was a great way for my parents to model good table manners, how to be a good conversationalist, and how to pitch in and help make dinner and clean up afterward. My kids are very young, but I'm hoping to set the same example and have it be a time that everyone looks forward to to spend time together.

[Anonymous]

I'm one of three and both my parents worked but we always had family meals. We would take turns setting the table and cleaning up. My mom is a great cook. When I got older we would cook sometimes to help out.

We all got along so it was normal and fun.

[Anonymous]

The PP from the other thread describing nightly 2 hour dinners is so atypical and dysfunctional that I can't believe others even bothered to reply to the comment.
More disconcerting were the number of people who pointed to it as "see, family dinners are bad."

[Anonymous]

Up until high school, we had dinner together 5-6 nights a week. Sometimes with wheel of fortune on or the news, but most of the time no TV. Once high school hit, it probably dropped down to 3-4 times a week because of sports and other activities that ran later.

We have a 3.5 year old now. 5-6 nights out of the week we do dinner together. The other 1-2 nights DH and I either go out on our own or eat in the living room with the TV on. If DH or I are away or not home for dinner, we tend to be more lax about eating at teh table with no TV on.

[Anonymous]

I had family dinners growing up, but as an only child it was always adults--sometimes w/grandparents + parents and sometimes just parents. So jprobably slightly different. I don't remember any instructions on manners particularly, but I wonder if they did it when I was younger and I just can't really remember.

Anyway, with my kids I am definitely more vocal about some of the dos and don'ts, but try not to do it too much. Try to keep the focus on the food and conversations.

[Anonymous]

My sister and I always ate together at the kitchen table and watched TV--we fought over whether we watched MASH or Welcome Back Kotter. My dad came home late from work every night and ate on his own. My mother cooked for all of us but I don't remember when she ate! She didn't sit down with my sister and me or my dad. Weird. Anyway, we had plenty of dinners together so I don't feel like I missed out at all. Now that I'm married and have kids we've tried to do family dinner but the kids are hungry before I get home from work, so it's been tough. They're still little so my husband and I have talked about getting better organized to eat together at least a few times a week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The PP from the other thread describing nightly 2 hour dinners is so atypical and dysfunctional that I can't believe others even bothered to reply to the comment.
More disconcerting were the number of people who pointed to it as "see, family dinners are bad."

OP here. I think there was one other poster on that thread who hated family dinners, which was really why I posted this--kind of to see if a lot of people really didn't enjoy family dinners.

And hopefully to find out what made the dinners unenjoyable. Now I'm a little paranoid that we're "teaching" too much and not enjoying enough. But maybe not, the kids aren't cooking or clearing, and they are definitely old enough for both. (Teens/tween)

[Anonymous]

I had family dinners growing up, every night. As my kids are so young we don't do this every night because they eat early (at 5) and we don't eat until around 8. We have family lunches on weekends though. I do include dos and don't like sitting properly, but they are very young so we're not really at the "use the correct fork" stage, more like "use your fork not your fingers". Also we all chat about anything and I don't make a concerted effort to discuss specific things, and I did not have this as a child either - everyone has to discuss their day, etc. We just talked about anything.

[Anonymous]

Growing up we had family dinners every night with no TV. They weren't good or bad, just normal-what we did. The only really bad thing was my dad also had a clean plate rule and I remember sitting at the table for hours after everyone had left fr not completely cleaning off my drum stick (chicken bone). To this day I can't stand meat of the bone, and like pp have had issues with food.

With my own kids/family, we have dinner together most nights, and with no TV because our tv is in the basement. Even if one parent is working late or is otherwise not there for dinner, the other parent has dinner with the kids. It wasn't always like that though. When DC was really young (under 2) she would go to bed for the night around 5:30-6pm. So we would feed her dinner, put her down for the night and then have dinner ourselves.

[Anonymous]

I disliked many family dinners.

- I hated being forced to eat something. I didn't like lima beans as a five year old, and I don't like them now. Keeping me at a table for hours didn't change that.

- I disliked being compared to my siblings. Look at Tim, he ate all of his chili dog, so he gets a treat/to go to grandmas/ gets to pick the tv show. It made me and my siblings resent each other over stupid preferences and differences.

- The worst was going to my cousin's house and having to listen to my Uncle spend the whole dinner correcting everyone. "Sit up!" "You're talking too much." "Chew quieter."

Family dinners can be fine if they are low pressure dinners, with everyone respecting that even children have preferences, and are in fact children, therefore behave like children. We eat together a few times a week, but I still cringe during dinners where there is a dictator at the table (MIL, above mentioned Uncle, childless sister, etc).

[Anonymous]

We had them, and there were fights/yelling every night. My kids are youngish teenagers, and so far, we've avoided this.

My dad in particular was just filled with rage.

What I like about our family dinners (with my spouse and kids) is that there is reasonably healthy food, no tv, reasonable amount of stories from our days, and yes, elbows off the table/ hair out of eyes.