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Husband watches educational TV. Those shows where someone’s always talking at you, trying to teach you something.
Me, I only like the mindless. Give me pure entertainment. Don’t try to teach me a damn thing when I‘m watching TV.
Husband loves to run, sometimes six to eight miles a day. Me, I like to walk. To my car, to get the paper in the morning. If I’m feeling adventurous maybe to the park down the road with the kids.
He lets said kids watch Family Guy. Me? Uh… no
These differences are no big deal. He does his thing. I do mine. Never a problem. He gives. I give. We meet in the middle.
But we’ve got a little trouble brewing this time. Neither one of us willing to give.
I want us -- me, both kids, my mother and husband -- at the table during dinner. He wants to eat in front of the TV. (“But we’re all eating together,” he says. “Just in a different room.” Yeah. Whatever.)
To be fair, I’m rather insane about this, and maybe a little unreasonable. I’ve read too many articles with experts preaching about the importance of nightly dinners at the table. Eat together and kids stay out of trouble. Eat together and marriages last. Eat together and basically a rainbow surrounds your house and never a bad thing happens.
And also to be fair, this is how husband has always been. While we were dating, we sat on the couch, plates on our laps, and ate dinner. (And yes, we often watched educational shows.) He didn’t even have a table at the time and when we were at my house I think I remember eating at the table once when we had company over.
He’s just not a dinner table guy.
I’m all about the family being gathered and taking time out to share and talk and laugh.
My husband's all for that too, he says. Just not at the dinner table. Every night.
What about the conversation? I ask my husband. Family members talking about their day and connecting over dinner? What about giving teens a time to share with family, a routine that never changes?
He says much of the family is together all day - he works from home, and also watches our toddler most of the day. And as for me and oldest child, we can catch up at other times. (In all fairness husband and I do cook together most of the time.)
He’s not giving. I’m not giving. We’ve not meeting in the middle any time soon, I fear.
Anybody else as crazy about the family dinners as I am? Or know someone who can’t give up the TV dinner?
I’ve given in a few nights and we all sit together watching a little TV. Sometimes Monday night football. Maybe a little Simpsons.
But no educational TV. I gotta stand my ground sometime.
We eat dinner at the table every night. Every so often we'll have a special dinner out in the living room in front of the TV with a movie or something. But not very often. I like my carpet too much. :DWe too do in front of the tv most meals. I'd love to have dinner at the table but Hubby and Baby Daughter both prefer the sofa. ARGH!! I just go with it though. But still, ARGH!We eat all of our meals at the table together. The kids are small enough and make enough messes that they are only allowed to eat in the dining room. DH since he works from home a lot is home for most meals and they are always around the dinner table. Even when the kids are gone DH and I still eat at the table for meals.I've never been one to eat at the table... I grew up eating at the coffee table in front of the tv while my dad watched "Married with Children"...then when I got older I'd go to my room and eat while I studied... when I'd go to friend's houses and sit there and eat at the table it felt too stiff for me, like the family was soooo serious about dinner time... I always wondered why they didn't loosen up. Today, we all eat wherever... Bo at the table, me standing in the kitchen scarfing down my food over the sink... Luke in front of the computer looking up football stats.... eh... every family has their own thing you know?I'm with you 100%! Because I'm in exactly the same boat. DH wants to eat in front of the TV every freakin' night, especially if we're having "finger food" like pizza or sandwiches of some sort. I really want us all at the table together. We don't have a lot of family time together; both kids are teens and are much less interested in us (and each other) than they are in running amok. But lately I've been putting my little size 5 foot down and DEMANDING dinner at the table. I expect everyone there at mealtime, and you know what? As much complaining as goes on, they never regret having dinner together at the table. Go figure.With all our crazy schedules we have set aside and agreed upon Tuesday as Family Dinner Night. We really cook a big meal-everyone is home-boyfriends are allowed-kids clean up with nary a quarrel. My kids REALLY look forward to this night. I dared broach the subject of another night but nobody could commit-lol. My SD18 has night school-DD15 has piano lessons, youth group, then there is the WEEKEND where someone elses Mom must be feeding them because they are not here eating! I often find 4-5 extra kids milling around Tuesdays and try to have enough. One friend tells my SD18 that they never eat together. Same from my SD's boyfriend. They like it!!One of my favorite memories as a kid was eating at the table every night with the family. The only time we ate in front of the tv was on the weekends where anything goes. Now looking back, I think I enjoyed the structure. It was the one time of the day when we all sat down together and relaxed.I'm with you, Laura. I like having my family at the table every night for dinner. Nothing formal -- no dining room, no linen napkins, no dessert forks -- just dinner together, where we're all sitting down. I've read the same studies you have, too! Plus, my mom worked and still managed to have a meal on the table every night. So it's what I do. But here's an idea for a compromise: Put a TV in the kitchen. We have a small one there because I like to watch TV while I cook. I like to listen to Brian Williams while I fix dinner. And in the mornings, the Today show. If you had a small TV near your kitchen table, then your husband could watch TV and still interact with the family.I, too, think it's very important to eat together. Don't get me wrong -- at the end of a long day with the kids, then fixing dinner, I love the idea of letting them veg in front of the tv to eat. But we grew up at the table as much as possible and I think it strengthened our large family. Here's a link to Time magazine's article on "The Magie of the Family Meal" and how beneficial it is: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1200760,00.html Compromise-- some tv nights, some not. Dinner together gets better with practice. It doesn't have to be so structured, just together.Maybe you can ween him slowly. Here are a few suggestions. 1. Maybe eat in front of the TV 3 nights and eat at the table for 4 nights. 2. Or watch TV from the table for a few weeks and then only watch it from the table a few nights a week. 3. Give in on something else if he conceeds to eat at the table with out TV like maybe he can get some expensive gadget he wants or maybe he can spend a few hours playing golf on the weekends if he eats as a family. 4. Or what we do is we all eat together at the table and as soon as DH is done then he goes back to watching TV while the rest of us finish. DD takes an hour to eat so he doesn't have to stay for the whole hour. We may only be eating together for 5 minutes but it's better than nothing. Good luck try to find a good compromise.
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