Growing up, my family had very structured eating habits.
Breakfast was eaten together. After we finished, we’d read the Bible and a little devotional, pray together (we had a list of different people and situations to pray for on a rotating basis each day of the week), and then sing—usually a Sunday School song with actions.
It was quite the morning routine!
If we were home mid-day, lunch was what my family called the “main meal.” Translation: meat, potatoes, and vegetables. (Basically without fail.).
Supper—or what lots of you would call dinner—was also eaten together and was usually “light”: sandwiches, soup, or things of that ilk.
It was rare for us not to be sitting around the table as a family at every single mealtime. And if everyone was home, we were always at the table together (in other words, the only way we weren’t eating together was if someone was away).
When our kids were little, I think we defaulted to eating together most of the time too. But lately, I’ve been noticing a very real shift.
Our family meals are much less predictable.
We usually eat lunch together every Sunday after church, and we still eat most suppers together. Beyond that, it’s a bit of a toss-up.
We do host a lot of kids, and in those cases, we tend to be managing the food rather than actively sitting down and eating with everyone.
Sometimes one of our kids is away. Sometimes a subset of the family is rushing out the door for an extracurricular activity. Sometimes we just aren’t hungry at the same time!
I’m not usually ready to eat breakfast first thing in the morning, so I tend to drink coffee at the table while Indy eats. During the summer, Belle usually gets up and eats breakfast hours later.
Whenever John’s free, he usually shows up at the table with a cup of coffee. Other mornings, he’s already downstairs in the office on a work call. (His days start at wildly different times depending on his meeting schedule, which varies from day to day and week to week.)
He’s also away a significant portion of the time, which automatically changes the family dynamic around meals.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the shift. It’s just… different, and as the kids get older and their schedules fluctuate, I notice more and more how much our habits have departed from those of my family growing up.
There are still plenty of meals eaten together, but we’re no longer in the stage of parenting where everyone is home, awake, hungry, and available at the same time. Getting four people around the table seems to require a surprising amount of coordination!!
Your turn:
- How did your family of origin handle mealtimes?
- How does your household handle meals now?
- And for those of you with older children (or an empty nest) how has that changed your mealtime habits?
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