Tell me about your dinner rituals. Are you driven by treasured memories of the way you grew up or by a determination to compensate for what you never had? Or do work schedules dictate a barely-make-it-to-the-table-and-it’s-witching-hour-so-I’ll-just-eat-cereal-at-9-pm practice in your household?
My role in the kitchen has changed radically since I’ve had kids. My husband and I ate out a lot as DINKs and when we ate in, it was tortellini from a package with jarred red sauce. Extra credit for a side vegetable was rarely earned.
Now, we sit down as a family at least four nights each week. There are always veggies — and I am the chef! (How did this happen?)
I hopped on the phone recently with Christine Koh of Boston Mamas and Kim Tracy Prince to discuss. Although I know both of these women, it was a Momversation production that brought us together for this promotional video which involved a whole lot of microphone check 1-2‘s and technical difficulties. But in the end, it worked out so smoothly!
Thanks to Ragú and Momversation for including me on this panel as part of their Mom’s The Word on Dinner programming. I adore Christine and Kim and would love to talk to them more often. Check out the full conversation between moms on the Ragú® Facebook page.
I desperately wish we all ate together, even 4 nights a week but it rarely happens. My husband works late almost every night, my kids go to bed early (primarily a routine started because I was always alone and the sooner the day was done, the better for me) and I usually end up making two meals.
I am really trying to do less of the two meal making, but sometimes it just works that way with the kids eating at 5 or 5:30 and my husband I usually not eating until 8, at least.
I would like to get better about me eating with them at least, but with a baby that requires feeding and a multitude of requests I just haven’t found the peace in it…I prefer to wait to enjoy my adult food and sip a glass of wine with it, in lieu of all the whine at 5:00.
We have dinner together almost every night of the week! I love it. We eat around 6 usually and one of our favorite things to do is called Best, Funniest, Worst. We go around the table and each of us shares something about our day that falls into each catergory. It’s great to hear about the kids’ day. And my 3 yo doesn’t totally get the concept of “worst” since she’ll say something like, “My Worst is I got to make dinner with mom.” ha!
I’m mostly commenting to say that I love that your sponsorship disclosure is so clear and upfront–right in title. I’d much rather proceed knowing this than feel like I was tricked into reading an advertorial.
I also like Christine and Kim (and you), so I was happy to listen in on your chat. As a veteran mom, I have to day, my teen and tween boy still need to be reminded to stay in their seats, but with older kids the bigger challenge is coordinating after school lessons, sports, etc. so that we can all share a meal together.
While the idea of all having a family meal every night is lovely, it’s not realistic for many families today and I personally think mom’s need to relax a little about the whole sit down dinner thing. I grew up where we all sat down to dinner every night at 6:00 but that was also the ONLY time we all sat down together. Times have changed. Parents I know now have very different schedules from when I was young and the all moms in my neighborhood stayed home and all the dads worked until 5:00. But lots of today’s parents spend more active and chill time with their kids then when we were young. In the end, the most important thing is for families to make time to be together and to relax together. If it doesn’t happen at the dinner table, I think that’s okay as long as that special connection and open communication is maintained.
We eat as a family as often as we can (which is actually most nights of the week). While there is a lot of research expressing the benefits of this, that’s not why we do it. Habit is probably number 1. Then comes the fact that it is our one time to sit and enjoy each others’ company. Food is always a plus. My kids are still young, so I also do it on purpose to encourage good eating habits while introducing new (healthy) foods. I hate cooking. Hate it. Always have, always will. But I do it because I care about what goes into my family’s bellies. I want to teach them now so that when life is 100 times more hectic for all of us, they will at least have a good foundation of what is healthy for their bodies and (hopefully) will treasure eating dinner with the rest of their family.
[...] Dinner together – do you do it? [...]