Survey Says: What do you Think About Family Dinner?

Click here to take The Family Dinner Survey

One of the goals of eatdinner.org is to understand the challenges of families coming together at the table and to provide resources to help and support them. Our Family Dinner Survey has just been launched and is designed to collect information from parents, and anyone else who takes the time to sit down at the table for dinner, about the biggest challenges they face to making dinner happen. The survey also collects information on why family dinner is important and the best strategies that people use to accomplish it night after night. We know, family dinner is an accomplishment!

The survey is available online and I'm also collecting data at several family workshops held in New York City. Thanks to friends like Time at the Table, we are able to gather information from workshops being held throughout the country. Please let me know if you'd like a copy of the Family Dinner survey to share at your own workshop or meetings. Since the survey brings up topics of healthy eating, daily family challenges and positive strategies like menu planning and cooking, it's a great starting off point to get people thinking about issues that might be relevant to your workshop.

Please feel free to share this survey widely (share this link http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GBR78C5) or contact me offline to discuss using a paper survey in your work (Email me: grace [at] eatdinner [dot] org). Thank you!

The survey is completely confidential and the data will be aggregated to show trends in opinions, not any one person's opinion or experience. 

Dear Pete Wells ("Cooking with Dexter"): Family Dinner Is Worth It.

Pete Wells has written a great column for the New York Times called "Cooking With Dexter" that I loved mainly because he seemed like a real Dad investigating the world of the kitchen with his son Dexter. He wrote warmly of the new discoveries that father and son would make in the kitchen, about food, about themselves. Wells wrote his last column this week and is off to other projects. I'm sad to see the column go, but his last missive really hit home for other reasons.


Wells talks to the real and true challenges of getting dinner on the table every night as a dual working parent family, and then, kind of shrugs it off as too damn hard. ARGH! I understand his struggles, I do. But I also want to shout: "No, no, no!" Family dinner can be admittedly damned hard, but it is worth it. 


One of the messages of eatdinner.org is not to expect perfection and not to be so hard on yourself, but to make a commitment to family dinner. You have to find the right balance for your family, and that balance is going to change over time, as work demands change and as your kids grow. When your kids are little, it is honestly the hardest time to get dinner on the table in a timely fashion before they unravel. The strategy in our family is to have healthy snacks available and to have many 20-minute dinners under our belts. As the kids get older, the routine and expectation of family dinner, be it with both parents or only one, will be the touchstone of their lives, and yours. Don't give that up. Cut yourself some slack, but keep plugging away.

I was encouraged, though, by the numerous commenters on the NYT site (well over 100), many who call Wells to task. The sentiments were, basically, "Hey, Pete, family dinner is well worth it and here are some things we do in our family that can help." I love that so many people wanted to help Wells and his family with practical strategies and advice. This is the conversation that we need to be having: what can busy parents do to help make this thing work. I also think we need a national conversation about a life-work balance that allows enough flexibility for parents to make a dinner commitment with their families. But that's another story.

Thanks to The Lunch Tray who wrote a blog post (2.21.11) that paralleled many of my feelings and spurred me to write my own response here. (Through the time shifting force of the Internet, I actually read the Wells' Sunday piece on Friday, and tweeted about it, but hadn't gotten my thoughts together enough to respond. And of course the kids are off school this week!)

Finding Joy in the Family Meal

I’m not going to lie. There are many nights that it’s a frazzled rush to get a meal on the table. It’s after work, after homework help, after the littlest one has been bathed and put to bed (maybe), it’s pushing 8 o’clock and you wonder why make such a big deal about this eating together. Give the kids a bagel, a frozen pizza, or some french fries (which they seem to want every night) and call it a day.

Well, it is a rush, and it takes four trips back to the kitchen to remember everything. (And sometimes cross words are spoken..."Get off the computer, now!") But once we all finally get to the table, we take a deep breath and we begin. This is our time together. Almost everyday we have this time together to enjoy what we have and the company of our family. We eat, we ask “how was your day,” we pass the peas, and we have our time together. Sometimes we talk about big stuff, but usually it’s small stuff. Sometimes the kids fight over who gets the last of the juice, but they work it out. Things get spilled. And then frantically mopped up. Sometimes there are tears. More often, we laugh and enjoy each other. The kids finish first and have to be reminded to clear their plates. My husband and I linger, if we can, for a few more minutes. It is the best time of day.

More thoughts on Finding Joy, Bliss and Inspiration in everyday events.

The Family Meal--The Challenge

If your family doesn’t regularly eat together, the task may seem overwhelming. There are so many reasons that make the family dinner a challenge. Parents working late. Kids have afterschool activities and homework. It's well-known that just being in the same place at the same time is a challenge for most busy families. Lisa W. Foderaro from the NYT wrote an interesting article on this. (It seems to be a perennial topic.)

Then, there are the emotional issues at work, as well as the practical ones. The common laments: No one likes the same food, or maybe no one feels like playing "the short-order chef." One person may be overburdened with the lions' share of the meal-making and clean-up, the infamous second shift for working moms. Or a mom or dad may feel inadequate in the kitchen or may be angry if "forced" into a traditional role, be it the chef or the clean-up crew. To top it off, "togetherness" can sometimes mean fighting among the kids or between parents and kids.

Well, no one said it would be easy. But family dinners ARE important. The challenge of setting a meal on the table can be a way to work through some of the emotional and practical burdens of parenthood and partnership. No one's helping you to get dinner on the table? Well, maybe you need to find ways to enlist or insist on help. This is not easy, and it may not be quick, but having everyone contribute to the group is an important life lesson.

Work together with your partner and your kids to identify why you've been missing out on a family dinner time. If that is something you want to change in your life, think constructively about ways to bring about that change. Rather than "opting out," do the work that's needed, be it an attitude adjustment or a schedule change.

This isn’t about guilt. If it’s important to you, make the family meal a priority and a goal to work towards. You can do it!