How was family dinner for you growing up? Is it any different now?

[letuswaltzforthedead]

It honestly seems like a lot of people like eating together with family at the table but that isn't always the case. How was it for you?

[SnowedIn]

This was such a great question. Family dinner growing up was okay. Sort of. I have two older brothers and they monopolized what conversation was had. My dad talked a lot (where I get it from) so there was even less time. Mom smoked, so she was quiet. But we were all together and it was shared time. I remember it fondly though it has its frustrating memories.

Dinner now with my family is together when we have the chance. Maybe three or four times a week? But we always cook the meal together or they keep me and my youngest son company while we cook. Chance to talk and catch up, etc. The one lesson I took from family dinners as a kid is that everyone talks and gets a chance to have an opinion and have the opinion respected.

[letuswaltzforthedead]

Was there ever arguing during dinner time for you guys or was that not really allowed?

[SnowedIn]

That's a really great question too! :) There was arguing but it was more along the lines of spirited debate than just plain meanness. My mom and dad really never got along, but their arguments and disagreements were done in private (for better or for worse). At the table is was disagreements about clothes (crazy, right, in a family of mostly boys?) or politics, or school, or food, or my brothers picking on me (and, I confess, me being a petulant brat back to them) or even petty stuff like whose TV show was better. Nothing ever that led to shouting or hurtful words.

What could cause a kerfluffle? If we didn't put our napkins in our lap or had elbows on the table in which case mom would lose it. smh. Dad was the one big on the right utensil.

[letuswaltzforthedead]

lol ok, at least you guys ate dinner mostly in peace without anything too serious happening then. It's kind of funny that your parents would get annoyed over how you guys ate over the table, even if it wasn't so much so as a kid.

[SnowedIn]

Yeah, it was never acrimonious. I sense that's your situation and, if so, I'm really sorry about that. Families are such tough organisms. Always happy to message if you need. Best wishes with this.

[letuswaltzforthedead]

Thank you for your kind words, and yeah, families are complicated just like the people that they involve. I appreciate your post :)

[musicbrain5]

Growing up, we always had dinner together. That was non-negotiable and the only way you could skip it was if you had a prior obligation outside the house, like work or something. I quite enjoyed everyone coming together at the end of the day to talk about what happened that day, or make plans for the weekend, and just enjoy a family eat together.

It’s different now that it’s just my husband and I, but we eat together every night, unless one of us again has an obligation outside of the house. This will continue when we have children. Every Saturday, we head over to my parents’ house for a big family dinner - everyone is there except for my older brother and his wife and kids, because they live in Alberta. But once in awhile they join us over Zoom, lol.

[letuswaltzforthedead]

That sounds pretty sweet, hopefully you guys usually don't have issues with zoom when it needs to be used. Was there anything you didn't like about dinner time growing up?

[Msputiton]

We ate at the table together and still do when i return from college

[Sixgunsound]

My voluntarily single mother resented the fact that she had sons instead of daughters because we were less likely to embrace her feminist teachings, and resented having to feed us or take care of us. I remember period of a couple of years when she found a way to get overtime at work during the evening that she would drop us off at a grocery store café with money to go buy pizza so she could go hang out with her friends for a few more hours.

[Sixgunsound]

Thanks for MHO

[AmandaYVR]

Tense. I was only 4 when my parents split up and the new stepfather made things really difficult. He and my older sister talked a lot during dinner, apparently, and me and my mother were quiet and had to endure them. We had a lot of animals and multiple cats were allowed to walk on the dining table and it was bizarrely animalistic. Even when we had guests over (family, never friends), the cats were allowed, and my stepfather would put on a show of sticking meat and bones in his teeth and have the cats feed from him. It disgusted many of us.

It was never a warm, happy time. The dynamic between the four of us was strained, with two dominant personalities basically running the show.

My husband and I eat dinner together most days and it's fine, nice, easy.

[GoodGuyBreakingBad]

Growing up in the 70s-80s- my late maternal grandma would cook Sunday dinners and we went over to their house at 12:00 noon to eat we would spend the day and eat again at about 5:00 unless my parents had other plans.

[eagle1951]

they were find, don't have them now a days

[Agape93]

Awkward, quiet

[EaterPeter]

Great. Very much.

[EaterPeter]

Thanks for like!