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Something Light: Dinner table traditions
Today’s Something Light is courtesy of Lynn, in her own words:
I once read that Joseph Kennedy required his children to come to the dinner table prepared to share about at least one story they’d read in the newspaper that day. One dinner table tradition we’ve observed at our house is having our boys share about one thing they learned that day and one nice thing they did for someone else. What are your dinner table traditions?
Topic: Just for Fun, WorldMagBlog
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“Get your elbows off the table!”
“Stop whining!”
“Don’t wipe on your sleeve!”
“Use your knife!”
“No you can’t have fourths!”
“Say thank you!”
something along those lines…8*)
Have a wonderful day everyone!
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When my kids were in high school, my daughter was surprised to hear that of all her classmates in a particular class, she was the only one who actually sat down to dinner with her family. The rest of her classmates had various activities that caused everyone to fend for themselves at dinnertime. If they ate as a family it happened no more frequently than once a month, if at all. This came as quite a shock to her, and she realized that we were not the norm.
Sometimes we ate fast food on the way to a wrestling match or whatever it was, and sometimes we didn’t eat until 8 PM, but, the bottom line is, we all ate together at dinner with very few exceptions. we never allowed our kids to have so many activities after school that we couldn’t accomodate family dinner. We made it a priority.
Having said that, every evening, the kids could always count on Dad asking, “What’d you learn in school today?” They each had to come up with something. Often that would be a springboard for many topics of discussion. If there were any of my kids’ friends over for dinner, there were not exempt from the question. Over the years, those usually turned to discussions of history and current events, and the now adult kids say they have fond memories of “dad’s dinner table social studies class.” I guess it paid off. Our Daughter was a History and International Relations major in college and has put that degree to good use here in the DC area as a curriculum developer, and my son is in grad school majoring in history. He wants to be a college professor. And he’s about as conservative as they come. We can look forward to one more conservative prof in academia.
And, of course, whether out somewhere or at home, we always say grace before dinner. Each evening it was someone else’s turn to say the prayer.
Now that my children are grown, we still have lively dinnertime conversation and linger sometimes hours at the table after dinner, still enjoying one another’s company. Of course now that’s when they’re home for a visit.
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Good question.
We tell each other our high point of the day, and our low point.
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Dinner table traditions:
1. Mom always gets to be served first.
2. Everybody home at dinner time
3. After dinner, we read the Proverbs chapters of the day.
4. Share something funny that happened to you (no body noises humor)
5. Share a prayer request
6. Say grace after dinner and work our way around the table praying for the needs shared.
7. We all helped to clear table and wash dishes.
Actually in later years we cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher.
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momoffour beat me to it, except we try to arrange for a tantrum of some sort.
We do try to have a meal together once a day when my husband in in town. When he worked 11-9 that meal was usually breakfast, but at the moment he is at the age where dinner conversation involve a lot of begging him to try one bite of spinach or broccoli.
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Growing up, dinner was at 6:00 and you were expected to be there on time unless you were excused by my father for some after school activity.
Dinner conversation was the usual how-was-your-day affair, but we were a large family, five kids, so that took some time. After dinner, we debated for dessert. My atheist father would throw out some current political or social conundrum and we’d all jump in.
Dad’s rules were, stick to the subject. Attack ideas, never attack the person. When you walk away from the table you can’t take away any hurt feelings.
My dad raised five articulate, critically thinking kids. And you shoulda been there for the debates after three of us became, as he would say, “Born Agains.”
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It’s funny, when I saw the title of this thread, I heard my father’s voice: “No singing at the table,” and remembered his glare at me.
We don’t have that rule at my house.
We always say grace, I usually have to bolt up to find the vegetables and then we eat. We talk about our day and the children usually thank me for the meal.
Adios’ story is interesting. Bill Gates’ birth family played a game after dinner–maybe a card game–and the loser had to do the dishes. Now that’s a way to foster competition . . .
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We had dinner together when the boys were younger, but I never figured out how to make dinner conversations work. My husband would often bring a book to the table with him, and he had little interest in trying to carry on a conversation with a toddler. I’m not much of a conversationalist myself unless the other person wants to talk. By the time our first son was old enough for real conversations, we had another little one, and his autism made any kind of family conversations difficult.
After a while the guys got in the habit of eating in front of the TV, which was at least something all three could enjoy together, so I gave up. These days with my husband working nights we hardly ever all eat at the same time, let alone in the same room. We invited friends for Thanksgiving last year, and I thought for sure the guys would join us at least for a special occasion like that. But my husband preferred to stay downstairs in front of the TV with my friend’s husband, so they ate down there with the boys and my friend and I ate together in the kitchen.
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I was thinking that I wouldn’t have anything to add to this subject; but I noticed that momoffour’s family had almost the same tradiditons as ours, except we also had “Don’t talk with your mouth full”. It never worked.
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We eat dinner 5 times a week together.
Each night a different girl helps me prepare, cook and clean up after the meal. Their night they are allowed to light the dinner candle, read the daily scripture and pray before dinner.
I like to change our conversation traditions, though. (so, can they really be traditions- hmmm?)
For one season we did the highs and lows of the day and share something silly. For another, we did scripture memory. Another, I would tell them all the miraculous stories that God has done in my life (that took a while), Another, they were allowed to ask my husband and I questions about our lives, knowing that we would not boast about our sin. We are currently doing riddles at the table. We bring 5 riddles to the table. The girls are only allowed to ask yes or no questions to arrive at the answer. It use to take the whole dinner hour to get the answers, now they can arrive at the answers in just a few minutes.
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One more thing-
I have 3 sayings at the dinner table:
1) You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit.
2) I don’t ask that you like it I just ask that you eat it.
3) No, you do not have to eat your dinner. Just remember that you do not get a snack or a treat if you don’t eat your dinner.
My children are great eaters and minimal complainers. They fight for the last pieces of broccoli, etc.
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Our favourite dinnertime tradition is–very rarely, of course!–to annoy my mother, usually by picking up the last few pieces of food with our fingers or staring at each other through our fork tines (”You’re in jail!”).
Can’t believe I just admitted that ….
In Germany staying with the missionaries, we always waited until every one was served before eating. While there, I tended to forget and start in too early. Back in the States, I sat there waiting for “Guten Appetit” while my family forked in.
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From the time we were first married, my husband and I never ate in front of a television set. That was a time for us to give each other our full attention. When we had children they also ate with us and talked about whatever was on their minds. Now as empty-nesters we will sometimes eat in front of the tv. I think one reason my husband so enjoys eating out is that everyone is in a position to pay attention to one another instead of having a million distractions. Of course, little ones must be taught to be polite and quiet.
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We do the seasons thing, depends on where we are. With this group we are currently focusing on letting adults have a few minutes of conversation without interruption so hub and I try to look at each other and speak for about three to five minutes, then go back to letting the young ones be involved. They are learning quickly so that may end soon.
KBells, interesting that you must beg your husband to eat his spinach and broc, one might think he had outgrown that by now.
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Mumsee, and then he has the nerve to think he’s going to get an after dinner drink. I don’t think so.
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Until we moved here, we never lived in a place where the TV could be seen from a table. And we never took our food to the TV, not even snacks. But we do (snack) now.
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We never ate in front of a TV, mostly because there was no TV and we loved the conversation.
When our daughter brought her boyfriend (now husband) home from college his first comment was about how much he enjoyed a peaceful family dinner and conversation.
As empty nesters now we always have at least two meals together every day and we eat at the table. We still don’t have a TV. I must admit that we are guilty of reading the daily paper during breakfast. DW just loves my interpretation of the news!! (NOT!) It usually is in the line of ” I can’t believe those idiots would pass a law that stupid”!! I’m sure you get my drift.
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Our tradition is to um, EAT at the dinner table, lol. No madeup traditions other than enjoy each other’s company, eat what’s put on the table, and help clean up afterward. Works for us!
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I eat breakfast with you all, and sometimes other meals (when they aren’t wet or messy).
When I had foster kids, we sat at the table, and I worked on their learning table manners. (Everything was finger food if I wasn’t watching carefully.) But they were good eaters, and even directly told me several times I’m a good cook (which I’m not, particularly).
My family never had any particular “traditions,” just that we ate dinner together, and then the kids washed dishes. (The kids often did a good deal of the cooking as well. On Sunday, Dad did most of the cooking…and he washed the dinner dishes, our only meal off.)
But my family as adults cannot get together without heated “debates”–politics, anything. Several in the family are strong libertarians, all are conservative (several members of the family have called me a liberal to my face!), and it’s just an incredibly noisy bunch when we’re together. My brother-in-law got a migraine the first time he joined our family for a gathering, but now he joins in heartily.
And everyone is expected to eat everything on their plate, a practice I’d moderate for children since it made mealtimes so very unpleasant for me as a child with little appetite and different tastes from my family. (They like strong and spicy; I prefer food as close to the way God made it as possible–unsalted, plain vegetables served with butter, for instance, or chicken cooked with two or three spices but not “hot.”)
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I hated dinner when I was a child. I was a picky eater and we had to eat everything on our plates. My mother allowed me an exemption from tuna and other fishy fish when I literally threw up in my plate. I just could not force myself to eat it. I still don’t like fishy fish, but can eat it for politeness sake. I just do not understand people who put a whole pile of something on a child’s plate and then insist they eat it. A small amount is understandable. I especially find this hypocritical when the adult only gets to eat what he likes.
A friend once commented that his children once got back at my mom for just this. They used to go to a mutual event together and she always lectured them about eating whatever was on their plates. One day she went to throw away what she had on her plate as she didn’t like it and one of the boys piped up to remind her the rule she had. Children notice hypocrisy and it makes everything else you say questionable when they see it.
My main reason for hating dinner was that it was such a negative time. Whatever any child had done wrong was pointed out or there was arguing. My stomach was usually in knots. It took me years as a grown-up to find out why anyone would enjoy a potluck or getting together to eat. I still hate fighting at the table.
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I never have liked onions, raw or cooked. My mother always made a dish without onions for me. She always made something for my sister when we had fish. I don’t eat onions for any reason, especially to be polite. When we have our family get togethers, someone usually say’s, “This is Charlie’s dressing.”, or “Charlie, this is your potato salad.” Elvera says I am spoiled, but I’m not. At our church in Va., when we had a dinner, the ladies would warn me if something contained onions.
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KI,
When I was in college, I went through a period when the last bite of anything–even foods I liked, say chocolate cake–was uniquely unattractive. I tried to be discreet, but for a few months I finished my dinner with one bite left of everything. I had someone on my dorm floor who started fussing at people who didn’t eat everything, and she and I got into it a little once or twice. I was 22 when I went to college, and I’d lived with my mother’s clean-plate club for 20 of those years. I did NOT need someone my age telling me to clean my plate!
To this day, at potlucks I usually have more food left on my plate than anyone else at the table does. I eat all of anything that I can, and some of everything else. I take a generous portion of whatever I took, knowing I like it. But 20 years of being forced to eat every bite didn’t get me over coming close to vomiting when I try to gag down something I don’t like. My suspicion is that I’d have an easier time eating today if the rules had been a little more relaxed when I was a child.
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Oh yes…and now, when I visit my sister, I have to eat everything on my plate, in spite of how different our tastes are, because her kids have to eat every bite and it seems unfair to me not to eat everything. But one drawback of the clean-plate club is that it forces adult guests into this forced eating, which seems like poor hospitality to me! (Yes, a good guest will try to eat all the food on his plate–but at other people’s homes I feel free to say “no thanks” to a dish. At my sister’s house it feels necessary to take a little bit of everything, even things with onions and other yucky things in them.)
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As a child we always had dinner at noon and supper at six. I think the most interesting tradition of eating meals together is the seating arrangement. Growing up I sat by Dad, sister sat by Mom. With our own children we had a seating arrangement. Mom on the side of the table closest to the kitchen and Dad at the other end. What it looks like is as the family grows the spot by Mom gets taken by the newest member.
When we were back to just one child at the table, he declared that with him in the middle, he had to alway “pass the food”. I moved so he wouldn’t have to do that anymore.
I did not have picky eaters. I cooked food all the children liked. But, I was not part of the “clean plate club”.
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Cheryl D, I think you are right. I ended up with a few eating issues that I don’t think I would have had. I have friends who are big into the kids eating everything off their plates. I have watched those poor kids doing their best and clearly already full or hating it. I don’t think we should waste food if possible, but I just don’t see the point of over-eating if it is not necessary. I will leave food on my plate in a restuarant because it is usually too much. Sometimes I can divide it with my spouse. Many people just keep on eating even after they are full and we wonder why they are over-weight! Most restaurant portions are huge, especially for women.
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Our seating arrangement was practical. My mom sat closest to where she could get up if necessary. Two of my brothers were left handed so they sat one on each corner so they wouldn’t be bumping their arms into the other children. I can’t remember the seating arrangement being an issue when my own children were home.
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The seating arrangement was never an issue, it just fell into place and that is how it always was. That is just always where they sat–kinda like at church.
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Our habits change from time to time. We always eat dinner together, except for the night I go out with a friend. At our dinner table, we’ve followed several scenarios, including doing Scripture memory and “what are you doing in school?”
Lately I’ve realized that I’ve picked up a lot in my Bible morning times which has changed my thinking about things – but I have not passed on the knowledge to my family so that they could fall in line with understanding when I want make changes.
So now at dinnertime I try to recount what I’ve learned in my morning times and explain what we need to do differently as a family. After dinner I go over a Bible chapter with my son and ask numerous questions to help him think critically and remember the passage. We pray as a family after dinner, while we are all still together.
Sometimes my son and I help clean the dishes together while my wife puts the food away. Sometimes I have my child clear the table, throw out the litter, rinse all plates and silverware, and put them in the dishwasher – the whole nine yards. He’s doing well at obedience – no complaints.
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I don’t know what my wife and daughter do when I am not there, adn really do not care, but when I am at home with them they sit down, shut up and pay close attention to even the most slightest of things that my be reveald to them at my whim or pleasure
At least this is how it should be if i was half a llama. Instead, we pretty much poke fun at each other and just enjoy being together. Then I sneak scraps to ‘the mommas baby’ our Doxie as my wife and Daughter scold me for doing so. Who ever cooked doesn’t have to do dishes but if my daughter is doing them I help her so I get in a little extra time with her.
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I never understood the “no singing at the table” rule.
I do understand why one should not read at the table, as it is rude to our dining companions.
Our family table traditions have changed so much over the years, depending on our situation.
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