Is it me or do people/families not eat dinner anymore?? VENT

[dakcp2001]

If you can dish it out, you need to be able to take it. You judge, but when it is you who are judged it is time to close the thread. Whatevs

 

[jaminmd]

Interesting old post from the OP:

09-06-2010, 08:53 PM #1
ilovediznee
Always planning our next trip home to Disney!!!

Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: lexington, sc
Posts: 726

How many of you, like me, work FT and PT and get criticized by friends and family?
I work both FT and PT (as many of you know from my other posts). My DH and I decided that because he might have to travel, that it would be best for me to get another job. I work 3-4 days a week either during the week or a combo by working one day over the weekend. Is it ideal, no, but one of us needs to be home with your 10 year old DD.

I know I am not the only person who works two jobs, yet I have both coworkers and family asking me "so how long are you going to keep doing this?" or "why do you work both FT and PT?" I'm not trying to be rude, but MY INCOME DOESN"T PAY THE BILLS AND I HAVE BOTH MEDICAL AND CC DEBT."

I already feel guilty enough as it is by working an evening or two during the week, but I make sure my DD's lunch gets made every night, I take her to and from her GS meetings and attend them and work my schedule around her activities.

This is what I have to do right now and I'm doing the best I can, and millions of others are having to do the same things, yet I get criticized!

I am doing the right thing by taking responsibility for my bills and my DH is able to spend time with our DD that he might not ordinarily get too, yet I'm sad....

I'm not looking to get flamed, but support for our decision knowing it is the right one!

Diane

Yep, I played DIS detective when I could have been doing something productive. I'm full of shame. I just find preachiness so incredibly annoying.

See OP, you came out all preachy in your OP yet you don't like to be criticized either. That's how lots of people here felt when you "vented" about dinner times/family time. Looks like you aren't home when you want to be either having the entire family eating together.

 

[mjkacmom]

3. I didn't say kids were starving or didn't eat breakfast. Just said I sent thes boys off with full stomachs to golf. Studies have shown that eating breakfast helps in test scores, etc. I think it is wonderful schools are offering breakfasts to kids who might not get it at home.
.

Trust me, if ds12 played 18 holes of golf on an empty stomach, because he forgot to eat, that's a mistake he wouldn't make twice! That is HIS job. He makes himself a fried egg sandwich and a cup of coffee/hot chocolate (mixed) every morning.

 

[RitaE]

June Cleaver managed it because she was a housewife on a half-hour tv show.

and in real life she was a working Mother named Barbara Billingsley - with 2 kids and a time intensive career.

 

[Vijoge]

June Cleaver managed it because she was a housewife on a half-hour tv show.

LOL

I'm a grandma raising two granddaughters. The older one is a cheerleader and takes tumbling classes. The younger is in swimming, gymnastics, and girl scouts. My youngest son (he's not the father of any of these children) lives at home and goes to school part time and works. Both DH and myself work full time, and on my weekends off we babysit our three youngest granddaughters, who are 5, 3, and three months.

We make breakfast on the weekends-the little kids want pancakes. The girls make their own breakfast on school days as DH and I are both at work by 6 AM. We cook dinner (well DH does) most nights, but with the kid's schedules getting everyone at the table at the same time is almost always impossible.

We do try to eat together on all major holidays. Even that is hard sometimes.

 

[C.Ann]

I don't think the OP was hung up on the timeframe so much as the idea of not having dinner together with the family. It's a time-honored tradition, a time for family to come together at the end of the day, and LOTS of research shows that it's one of the single best things you can do for your kids / your family. Dinner is more than nutrition. It's about family.

It doesn't take much looking around to see that many families are not connected as strongly as families were in the past. Certainly plenty of things are to blame for this: Busy schedules, technology that separates rather than uniting . . . but making dinner a priority is a way to overcome these problems. Eat early, eat late, eat take-out, cook it in a crock pot, bring a picnic and have dad meet you just after soccer practice -- you can manage dinner together in many different ways.

Very well said! (Bolding mine..)

 

[crisi]

Very well said! (Bolding mine..)

Research also shows that kids who participate in sports are more successful. But sports participation isn't necessarily condusive to everyone sitting down for meals together.

Girls who have mothers that work outside the home in careers that they find satisfying have statistically better outcomes than girls with SAHMs or girls whose mothers work in unsatisfying jobs. Less drug use, less pregnancy, higher high school and college graduation rates. (The data for boys seems to indicate that it doesn't make a difference whether you stay at home or work outside the home). But again, working outside the home doesn't make it easy to get dinner on the table every day and eat as a family.

If you are going to try and run your life by "the best thing you can do for your kids" you are going to find that you have a contradictory set of information - and a life that is impossible to live.

 

[andymattmom]

People post, people respond, people vent, people judge others, people claim they don't others, people then judge these people some more.

We are not all June Cleavers. We are not all sit down to dinner at a specific time with our family people. Some people are SAHM some work. Some kids participate in sports, some don't. As long as our families and kids are happy and we are who the heck cares what other people do. People here are being nasty, rude, offensive. Some are acting like they are on high horses and better than everyone. Be happy we all have kids who are not getting in serious trouble, are well adjusted. This all seems kind of petty compared to what is going on all over this world.

Think everyone should stop and think even though you don't think you are judging someone by making the snarky comments on someone elses lifestyle you are judging. People are acting like kids on the playground dishing it out but can't take it. Saying we are better than you cause we eat together, we are better than you cause we have kids who do XYZ, etc. Think people need to grow up and think before making other stupid, idiotic comments.

 

[Planogirl]

I think that eating together is a nice things to do and we try to do so occasionally. DH works long hours though and we weren't going to wait for him.

I have a roast in the oven now and it won't be done until 8. Frankly I'm not sure who will eat it at that time.

 

[Disneylover79]

It is just DH and I and we have dinner every night and we sit at the dining room table. We used to sit at the coffee table to eat but we realized that we need to break that habit.

 

[Marionnette]

I find it amazing in our lunchroom the number of people and families who don't eat dinner or eat together at all. I work both FT and PT so I'm not home two days a week, but I fix dinner for my DD and DH otherwise it defeats the purpose of me working if they go out.

All meeting seem to be starting at 6pm and go to 7:30 - soccer, church, associations...

I can't tell you the number of times I get phone calls between 6 and 7:30 with friends just wanting to chat and I say, "are you eating" and they say no.

Maybe it's just me, but I find it very odd.

Anyone else notice this too?

 

[njmom47]

Above poster ^



Sort of untradtional family here.
DH works 3rd shift (11 pm - 730 am) plus a pt job from 830 am till 230 pm...sleeps from 3 or 330 till 10 pm. No dinner for him during the week.
DD #1 lives mostly with bf's family and their baby, but when she's home, I will cook. DD #2 works anywhere from 2-6 till 4-8...if she's not working she's out with friends...doesn't eat much anyway. DS has baseball almost every day (playing on 3 teams this spring) plus a pt job and homework! I eat a big lunch so really couldn't care less about dinner. By the time I get home, if ds is home, he's starving and has eaten almost everything in sight and doesn't usually want dinner. However, I always cook a good dinner Sat and Sun, and we sit down together. dh, ds and myself, and if either dds are around, they will eat with us.
I think it's just the way life is these days.

 

[lmgaddis]

It is 8:30pm here. My oldest is still at his baseball game and has been there since 5:30 for warmups. He should be home around 9. I have a sick one at home and a husband who is working out of town this week. We are lucky that 3 of us got to eat together tonight. My oldest will probably get a frozen pizza and salad for dinner. He doesn't like reheated burgers ( what the rest of us had ) and there is NO way I was making the rest of the kids wait until 9 for dinner. Once again, you don't know everyones situation!

 

[mumto3girls]

When I was growing up we always had family dinners that were eaten around the table. My own family does it now, but my girls are still fairly young (one preschooler and two in elementary school). DH does work some late nights and sometimes I will try to tide them over with a big snack after school, other times we just eat without him. I think it will get a lot more difficult after the kids are more involved in sports/jobs/activities. I will say that most of my neighbors seem to do it most nights as well--but again most of us have fairly young children and that may change as they get older. I do think it is a nice idea though and something I will continue to try to strive for most nights even when it becomes more difficult.

 

[Leajess99]

It is 8:30pm here. My oldest is still at his baseball game and has been there since 5:30 for warmups. He should be home around 9. I have a sick one at home and a husband who is working out of town this week. We are lucky that 3 of us got to eat together tonight. My oldest will probably get a frozen pizza and salad for dinner. He doesn't like reheated burgers ( what the rest of us had ) and there is NO way I was making the rest of the kids wait until 9 for dinner. Once again, you don't know everyones situation!

Hoping your sick one feels better quickly.

 

[Minnie]

I find it sad that families do not eat together and it fustrates me the number of activities that schools/sports/churches plan at 6:00-6:30. What is the point of being a family/having a family if you can't spend time together?

I'm not sad at all that we can't eat dinner together - sheesh we are still a family that spends time together and a happy one at that.... Judgmental much

 

[bwilcox]

Disclaimer: I'm not judging anyone; I just thought this article was interesting/relevant to the...um, discussion, if that's what this is:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1200760,00.html

"Studies show that the more often families eat together, the less likely kids are to smoke, drink, do drugs, get depressed, develop eating disorders and consider suicide, and the more likely they are to do well in school, delay having sex, eat their vegetables, learn big words and know which fork to use."

 

[hugastar]

We eat dinner together every night. I love to plan, prepare, cook and my husband makes sure he's home by dinner time, which is around 6 pm. Call us old fashioned, but that's very important to us. Playdates and activities are planned and scheduled before or after dinner, or mostly on the weekends. The kids never complain, it's just something that we do. Our oldest is 8 and is already asking when she can learn to cook real meals.

Since parents choose to be overworked, and to overshedule their kids with activities, there's no real quality time. As a result family members are forgetting how to relate to each other and eventually the family falls apart.

 

[mdsoccermom]

We eat dinner together every night. I love to plan, prepare, cook and my husband makes sure he's home by dinner time, which is around 6 pm. Call us old fashioned, but that's very important to us. Playdates and activities are planned and scheduled before or after dinner, or mostly on the weekends. The kids never complain, it's just something that we do. Our oldest is 8 and is already asking when she can learn to cook real meals.

Since parents choose to be overworked, and to overshedule their kids with activities, there's no real quality time. As a result family members are forgetting how to relate to each other and eventually the family falls apart.

So what happens when your kid wants to be a part of an activity where you have no control over the schedule? What if they want to play a sport?

The family falls apart? Right. Because there is no other time on earth to spend with your family other than dinner time.

 

[mhsjax]

We eat dinner together every night. I love to plan, prepare, cook and my husband makes sure he's home by dinner time, which is around 6 pm. Call us old fashioned, but that's very important to us. Playdates and activities are planned and scheduled before or after dinner, or mostly on the weekends. The kids never complain, it's just something that we do. Our oldest is 8 and is already asking when she can learn to cook real meals.

Since parents choose to be overworked, and to overshedule their kids with activities, there's no real quality time. As a result family members are forgetting how to relate to each other and eventually the family falls apart.

That is great,but good luck with that as your DD gets older. YOu can't schedule when practices are, they are determined by a higher power. Maybe you will get lucky, maybe you won't.

It is crazy when you have multiple kids at different times. Monday is my worst. Example. DS14. Tae Kwon Do 4:00 to 6:30. DS10 Soccer 5:50 to 7:30 and DD cheer, 4:30-6:00. One is going north, one is going east and the DD is going way south, 30 minutes south. It is nights like this that have most families not eating together.

NOt everyone has 3 kids, not everyone has kids that do activities. Mine aren't over scheduled, but as they get older practices become longer and more often, that is how they actually get better. For us, the benefit of having my kids in activities that they love out weight the benefit of eating together every night. They would be livid if I canceled their sports, it keeps them healthy and well rounded. And most importantly, it is actually where their friends are.

I remember when my kids were little, I said that there was no way that I would ever allow my kids to be involved in all of that, well I ate my words. Now I can't imagine having them home all the time. They are happy, we are happy, and we just find other ways to spend time together. And we do spend lots of time together. And you can't say that the family will fall apart, you obviously don't live where I do. WE are all doing this life style, none of us are falling apart. That is too easy, it takes more than a few dinners to make a family fall apart. WE are about as close as you can get, and my kids still want to hang out with us.

PS I know a faimly that ate together every night, they are getting divorced.