Dinner 'Round the Table

Growing up, we always had dinner at the table, as a family, at 5pm. I always felt it important to gather as a family each day. We started each meal with grace --- but uninspired grace; it was a recitation of "God is great, God is good .... " which works if you're 3. But we said it until the day I moved out.  She still says it at 88 yrs old.

But dinner rarely lasted more than 15-20 minutes. Then my sis and I were jumping up to clear, wash and dry, in order to get back outside -- until the streetlight came on. 

When I became the wife and mother, I held on to having dinner at the table. But meals were different than when I was growing up.  As my kids were growing, I knew that I couldn't ask "how was school" because all I got was "fine". That's kids for you, very normal. But that is NOT a conversation. So we learned to ask better questions: what did you learn in history today?  And if that didn't generate enough convo, I always had a box filled with miscellaneous questions to generate convos.

I recently started recalling dinners with my mom. While the table was properly set, the food was in serving dishes, and we passed things around, I also recalled occasions when my siblings and I would get the giggles and mom would put a stop to it. And if we didn't or couldn't stop, were sent to our rooms.

I got to thinking about this because mom wanted me to stay, eat Easter dinner with her. But it was like growing up: we didnt talk or anything else meaningful.  

I don't know how she "got this way " and maybe thats how it was when she was growing up. But learning how to have conversations starts in the home, at the dinner table, in my opinion.  And if a kid brings up a topic or says something disagreeable, as parents we have an obligation to explain if we object.  And then discuss the reasons as well, allowing kids to explain their own side. They learn to be better humans that way.

I was raised with the old fashioned attitude that kids should be seen and not heard. Which left me flailing in the verbal communication dept as an adult. Even to this day.  (Which is why I write!!)

Sometimes I wonder why I write these things out, and other times I realize that its a way for me to make sense of things, of coming to grips with the reality that while I may have been raised in a Leave it to Beaver type happy family mode, it was just surface stuff.