The reality of family dinners

 

Our previous home didn’t have enough of a kitchen for us to sit around the table for proper family meals, so most nights we ended up in front of the telly, dinner on laps or the coffee table, hoovering up our food in a way that felt kind of wrong.

 

I would pause, fork half way to my mouth and survey this family scene: everyone focused on the bright rectangle in front of them, concentrating on flickering images - we looked like the family from Roald Dahl’s Matilda. This had to be poor parenting of the highest order.

 

So when we moved a few months ago, one of the things I most looked forward to was being able to have family dinners at a proper table. We would, I said to the man about the place, be civilised human beings once more.

 

Family dinners provoke powerful and evocative images. I fantasised about smiling families sitting around a laden table, dishes of brightly coloured vegetables being passed person to person; I pictured water jugs and pretty glasses; I pictured long, laughter filled conversations with my children. It was a comforting idyllic notion, and I clung to it.

 

I clung on for two months and then I slung that idea right out the door. Instead of light-hearted yet meaningful conversations with my offspring, the eldest openly yearned for the TV dinner days and the youngest refused to sit at the table for more than half a second.

 

 

We spent each dinner time futilely imploring, persuading, threatening and giving up on getting the three-year-old to sit still and behave in a family dinner appropriate fashion. For two stressful months we struggled to recreate that version of family dinner perfection. Until I realised that hey, this is not fun, this is not enjoyable for anyone. This is not working.

 

Fortunately Google came to the rescue, throwing up reams of advice about how to handle a three-year-old at the dinner table. It turns out you can’t, not really. They’re evolutionarily designed to be picky, they have small stomachs better suited to grazing, they are physically incapable of sitting still and they won’t really get the concept of table manners until they’re five.

 

Oh sweet relief.

 

Dinner is still served at the table, and the youngest is encouraged to join us. Most times she does but when she gets down we let her off.