Do you sit around the dinner table with your kids?

Do you and your kids sit at a table together for dinner?

  • Yes, 6-7 days a week

    Votes: 28 59.6%

  • Yes, 4-5 days a week

    Votes: 9 19.1%

  • Yes, 2-3 days a week

    Votes: 6 12.8%

  • Yes, 1 day a week

    Votes: 1 2.1%

  • No, we do not sit around a table together for dinner

    Votes: 3 6.4%
  • Total voters
    47
BigClay

BigClay

Knower of useless ZJ things
Joined
Sep 24, 2008
Location
Winston-Salem
Looking at the experts here to help settle a little discussion.

If you currently have kids at home do you all sit around the table and eat dinner (evening meal: as I know there is debate about supper vs dinner timing ;))? When you had kids at home did you? I am referring to away from the TV as the discussion I was having centered around if families sit around the dinner table like they did in 50s, 60s, 70s or before a TV was present in every home.

Let me know your thoughts and answer the poll.
 
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BigClay said:
Looking at the experts here to help settle a little discussion.

If you currently have kids at home do you all sit around the table and eat dinner (evening meal: as I know there is debate about supper vs dinner timing ;))? When you had kids at home did you?

The discussion I was having centered around if families sit around the dinner table like they did in 50s, 60s, 70s or before a television was present in every home.

Let me know your thoughts and answer the poll.
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Not 100% in your voting as our kids are not in the house but both the wife and I had supper at the table as a family. Instilled it in our kids. They are gone now. The wife and I usually grab dinner and sit on the couch unless it’s a property multi course meal. Regardless there are no electronic devices involved regardless of where we are sitting.
 
When the kids were home....

We made dinner at the table mandatory. It was the only time we saw them. Especially once middle school started.
In HS between sports, horse and jobs, we were lucky to get a dinner in once a week with them all in one place.
If I were you... I would 100% require dinner at the table while you can. Because it's about to get nuts and you won't have this chance ever again.
 
My wife is home 3-4 nights a week at dinner time, the other nights she doesn't get home until 730ish. Nights she's home for dinner, we usually eat at the table. The other nights me and the kids usually eat in the living room.

Duane
 
Almost any time when we are actually home for dinner, we eat at the table. Between sports and band, we usually have 4 nights at home to eat. There may not always be mind blowing conversation, but it's nice to sit with everyone at once.

When they were younger it was every night unless we went out to dinner. I'll echo what Troy said. Enjoy it while you can.
 
Just speaking for That Older generation, when I lived with my parents, It was just like the "Waltons". Everybody sat at the table, & we knew what time to be there! Even my grandmother after we built a "in-law" addition to the house. The TV was in, guess you'd call it the Family room. Naturally that was way before the wireless inventions like Dick Tracy's talky wrist watch!
 
When the kids were here and we were home every day. We had assigned seat and a rotating schedule of who blessed the meal
 
Growing up if it was a meal at home yes. Exceptions was sports, school, or dance class nights.
Dance class nights was actually a treat night as dad would meet us at a local cheap family seafood restaurant.
Sundays we didn't do the evening meal. 90 percent of the time was family dinner at grandparents and often included cousins and uncles.

TV wasn't anywhere near homes kitchen, the family dining at grandparents house was open to the TV. Like a few feet in the floor from the table. Grandmother wouldn't set the food on the table if it was on. It didn't come on until everyone was done and the meal cleared either. Even then I cherished all the grown up talk. Probably why I was always drawn to kids several years older and most adults at a very young age. Many Sundays we'd stay plum til youth or some other meeting back at church. The left overs got brought out and all the other uncles and cousins who didn't show for lunch rolled in. It was so consistent you could tell the time outside playing by who rolled in and who was leaving. The family was so predictable is was like shifts clocking in and out for work. Man I miss those Sundays.
 
Kids are 7, we eat virtually every meal together with no tv, only radio on either WETA or WCPE.

Kitchen table for breakfast and lunch (on the weekends), dining room for dinner.
 
This made me think. My mother worked a lot of third shift as a nurse. She also did all her school while we was in elementary.

How are the heck did that all get done and meals every night? I mean they weren't gourmet but damn my little ass never thought all that through. Dad left before 7 am and often got home at 7. Mom ate and ran.
 
We always sit together and eat. The kids like to play card games the wife has gotten that ask for convo but I usually just listen
 
Heck, I live alone and I sit at the table most of the time. When my son was here we did most of the time.
 
Yes, no screens alloyed & tv in the living room must be cut off. Only time I pull my phone out is if it’s getting blown up (emergency).
 
100% up until about a year or two ago. Now 2/3 kids are gone or almost gone and working evenings. One kid left doing sports and screwy screwy schedule. We’re down to about 50/50 depending on who’s home & what we’re eating.
 
My son and grand daughter live with us so we have a youngin in the house. When we are doing an actual evening meal it's eat at the table. If we are on a weird schedule, it's fend for yourself and eat wherever.
 
When we're home, we sit at the table and eat together. We're running around so much with sports stuff that a lot of times we eat out or eat at different times because one of us gets home with one of the boys late or something, but when we're all home we sit together and eat at the table.
 
We all eat together every night. Might be at the dinner table, might be at the little table in the living room, or when we go out to eat. My daughter loves TV, but she understands that when its dinner time, we talk and laugh and spend time together. Its something that I will not compromise on.
 
We don't have a kitchen table to sit around. We usually fix supper as a family and then me and wife eat wherever we land and the boys eat in their playroom. Our house doesn't have a dining room anymore, as it's the boys play room.


Growing up that was never something we worried about at my mom's. Everybody just grabbed a plate and found a place to crash. We might all land together in the living room, or there might not be two people in the same room at all.

Edit: guess we are the odd balls on this. But we spend a lot of time together as a family, so for us that time isn't as critical I guess. My wife is home all day and we homeschool. When we do something, it's almost always as a family unit as much as possible. Going to the store, sports practice, farm work, chores, cooking, ect are all a family affair most of the time. I guess that coupled with the whole no dining room for a table situation leads to us just all doing our own thing. Really, that's the only time we do our own thing. Guess we are backwards lol.
 
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