The "Family Dinner" question.

[Freestep]

When I was a kid, we sat down and ate dinner together as a family.

I HATED it.

We don't have kids, so we hardly ever sit down and eat meals unless we go out, or go to my Dad's house for dinner. Usually, DH and I will browse for whatever food is at hand and we eat it in front of the TV. It's like heaven. I know that must sound strange to some, but it's very liberating to eat what you want, whenever you're hungry, and not be tied down to a schedule.

I do cook occasionally, and there are times DH and I will sit at the table and eat, but mostly our dinner table is covered with stuff, so it has to be a major event.

[Chicagocanine]

When I was a kid/teen my family did eat at the table 99% of the time...
Now I hardly ever eat at the table, but there are no kids in the house. Sometimes we're all eating different food at different times anyway. When everyone else is eating dinner I might be at work or in class.

[elisabeth_00117]

As a kid and still when I visit my parents, we eat as a family at the table.

My sister lives with me away from our parents and we usually eat wherever whenever but do still try to eat together when we can.

[selzer]

Currently, I eat with my parents at the table about three times a week, at my sister's at the table, once a week, and the rest of the time, at my parents where we land, or in my car, never at home these days.

When I was a kid, we stuffed two adults, and six children from 0-16 around a small table in the kitchen. Christmas and Thanksgiving we at at the dining room table. When I was ten we moved to a small town, and soon my oldest brother started moving out and in, and when he was in, he used to work at nursing homes, usually second shift. Second shift around here starts anywhere between 2-4 and people get off between 10:30 and 12:30. And then he would have to hitch hike home. So he was never around, even if he did live there.

When I was fourteen my second oldest brother who did the cooking from age eleven (when I was seven, I always helped him), well he started playing football, and I took over all the cooking for the family. Brian and Lynn were in College, at 16 and 18, and Mom and Dad were going evenings, so I would cook dinner for 5:00 sharp so they could eat as soon as they got in the door, and be out the door and at school half an hour away by six. They would be there until ten, and I babysat my younger brother and sister until they got home. Lynn and Brian would be there if they were not already at school. And after his first year and a half, Brian joined the Air Force.

The next few years were really jumbled because of who and where we were all going to school.

I do not think my younger sister or brother benefited as much from family meals. Everything was so fragmented then. Mom often worked until ten or later, working in the public sector.

My older sister and her two little girls live in the same house with her two business partners. In some ways this is great, she was able to pay her part of the house off, and student loans, and car before she went through the process and cost of adopting the girls. But in other ways it is hard. My sister has the kids off to school early every day and picks them up from school at closing time around six - six thirty. If she brings them home and tries to have some quality time with them, the president of the company asks her this, and that, and this and that about business. So my sister packs a light supper for the kids each night -- PB&J and celery/carrot sticks and an apple, and they eat in the park, or before going to swimming lessons, or at the zoo -- they have a membership, or at the museum, they have a membership. She has the kids from six thirty to eight thirty bed time, and wants to make the best of the time. One day a week they go out to dinner with the business partners -- the aunties they call them. I think Lynn would rather have the kids call them Aunt Irene and Aunt Rhadika, than just use their first names. I am Aunt Susie. On Sundays we all sit down to a dinner together and the girls love it.

I sometimes have them help me make desert. We made Jello cake last week on the fourth of July, and Strawberry shortcake on the Saturday the second -- I was there all three days.

So I guess we fall in both categories, wherever we land, and together as a family.

[King James]

Being single, I eat wherever. When I have family over or when I visit them, we eat at one or both tables depending on how many people there are. We may also eat outside if it nice.