There is further evidence of the decline of the family meal with one in three mothers cooking “double dinners”.
How many of you parents out there eat with your children every night?
Apparently we mostly cook two meals now. One for the children around 5pm and one for ourselves and our partner around 8pm. I used to do that until I got divorced. Now we all eat together every night. Quite late admittedly for the kids BUT it has meant that we have a lot of time to chat (argue) about life.
My drastic approach is not a good reason to encourage valuable quality time with the children – but it’s a little ironic I suppose that I’ve ended up spending much more time with the kids.
September 2nd, 2010 at 6:25 pm
we eat breakfast and lunch and dinner together….hectic….but who on earth could be fagged to do TWO meals everyday??? except when we have guests over…even then sometimes we just do it all together…xxx j
September 2nd, 2010 at 10:55 pm
Even now, with guests (unless it’s my book group which is sacrosanct adult time) it seems we get teenagers hanging out with us or all of the kids eating together – love it actually – that chaotic mess – just so alive Lx
September 2nd, 2010 at 7:22 pm
I’m the same as you – I eat with the kids now, but pre-divorce it was always two separate dinners. But ex was the fancy-shmancy cook, and meal #2 was sometimes so late that I couldn’t stay up for it. Today, I’m much happier sharing the mac & cheese with my children – though hoping to expand the palate as we go. (As far as I can tell, ex still does the two meals thing and usually enjoys his private haute cuisine later in the evening.)
September 2nd, 2010 at 8:14 pm
Given that my Little Guy isn’t enrolled in many after school activities, we manage to eat a family dinner almost every night. With teens, as you know, it’s really valuable. When the older two were little, my husband was either out of town or came home late, so I did the two dinner thing. You end up making kid food and then they won’t eat proper dinners. My sister had the right idea. She just cooked large casserole type meals which everyone ate, even when not sitting down together.
September 2nd, 2010 at 8:59 pm
yup, I do the 5 o’clock and 8 o’clock meals – hate it
September 2nd, 2010 at 9:11 pm
How people can be bothered to cook two dinner is completely beyond me, and I really enjoy cooking.
I’ve always eaten with my children and always will. From what I’ve seen, the people that cook separate meals are often the ones who’s children eat chicken dippers and potato smilies. Yummy… Does that even count as cooking? Saying that, mother’s that can cook two nutritious meals from scratch, every evening, now that’s impressive!
September 2nd, 2010 at 9:56 pm
I’d love to eat with mine each night but they’re small so eating at 6 and I’m not home until 7 and Mr until much later – on a good night Mr and I eat at 9 but otherwise we’re more of a three sitting household… which I guess doesn’t sound that good on paper
September 4th, 2010 at 8:55 pm
We eat together weekends but during the week DH feeds DD and I make our tea when I get home – temping at moment so early but usually about 8.30 -9