Thoughts on tablets, tv, etc for children...

Nomad

Well-Known Member
Staff member
It’s interesting to me about families not having family meals.
My mom worked full time and made a meal at least five nights a week, usually six. One night a week we would go out. Sometimes pizza and rarely Burger King. Sometimes, a nice restaurant.

I followed a very similar pattern with my family. However, my husband worked at night sometimes. So, I fudged a little and would make Mac and cheese a little too often. Or would buy a ready made chicken, but would make a homemade salad or potatoes to go with it to give myself a little break as Difficult Child was a handful without another adult helping. But I cooked often Perhaps once a week we got pizza. A fun treat. Once in awhile, we went to a relatively nice restaurant.

Both my parents for me and me and my husband for our kids made holiday meals extra extra nice.

BUT, I met a family recently, a nice family who I like. They seem fine. BUT, the mother and father hated cooking. Soooo even though they had two young children, I hear them tell stories that to me sound a bit nuts. Serving the kids granola bars and an apple for dinner. Burger King many nights. Peanut butter and jelly. Etc. No true meals like EVER! No nice holiday meals. It seems sad.

AND a friend told me her daughter in law ‘s family basically had no kitchen table. WTH? Similar to what I just described, but the kids just ate anywhere...standing up, in the living room etc.

I see where some memories, especially around meals can be VERY different.
 

Lil

Well-Known Member
I don't think Mom and Dad ever worked at the same time. If she was working, Dad cooked. Mom, however, WAS a cook - that was her job, a diner cook, and she was good. She'd been a cook most of her life. We had a small farm - not a commercial thing, but raised some livestock and grain that we sold, so there was always meat as we butchered our own beef, pigs, chickens and even rabbits.

Growing up nearly every one of our meals was eaten at the dining room table or the kitchen table. Breakfasts, at least on weekends, were huge - eggs, potatoes, meat of some sort, toast, fruit, etc. Now, during the week during school it was a bowl of cereal we fixed ourselves generally. But on the weekends and school breaks, Mom did the whole big thing. I remember a few sit-down lunches, but that was more relaxed.

Dinner was the same - there was always meat and potatoes and at least two types of veggies - hot and a salad or so. Always bread and butter and dessert. We had huge meals - there's a reason I'm fat! I grew up always sitting at the table, though there was a TV in the background at some point.

I had friends who just ate whenever. They always had food - their mom would cook, but there was no time when the family gathered around the table except maybe on holidays.

I tried to keep that going. When we first got married Jabber and I and our son ate around the dining table at least at night. Once Jabber got on a different shift though, and it was just DS and I, we just kind of stopped, except for holidays when I'd still make the whole big meal. These days we empty-nesters just eat in front of the TV.
 
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