I am wondering how many people eat supper at home with their family every night. The lack of family sit-down meals has been decried in the media, and in one of my children’s classes, their “assignment” was to have dinner with their entire family “one day this week.” :eek:
Now, I do love to cook and do it often. But I was raised in a family that ate together every night and it just seems right to me. I cook some on the weekends to have enough for every night (I work full-time), but frequently I arrive home, open the fridge, stare, and come up with a dinner for my husband, three children and I. The only night I don’t cook is one night a week when my older children are with their dad, and hubby and I pick up pizza on the way home.
Tonight I’m fixing pork loin roast, green beans, mashed potatoes or rice (a once-a-week occurence; normally I fix two veggies) and a green salad.
I made the pork roast yesterday and put it in the fridge for slicing. For lunch all week, my husband I will eat on the big pot of split-pea soup I also made this weekend (with cornbread).
So, the poll:
1. How many days a week do you eat a home-cooked meal?
2. Do you live alone, or are you part of a family with kids?
3. If kids, do they play sports or have other activities which interfere with dinner?
If you’re in college, feel free to tell us about your family meals at home.
It’s just my husband and I at home. I feel the same way you do about eating meals with family. We usually eat supper at home 4-5 nights a week. I have class one night a week, and we’ll often go out to eat on Friday or Saturday nights. I definitely notice a shift in atmosphere when we can’t manage to sit down for a home-cooked meal together most nights. Things get much more tense.
It is just the three of us and our kid is six years old so eating meals together is very much the norm. I’d imagine there’s only one dinner every couple of weeks where we’re not all together. We think that’s important, a chance to catch up and share and plan. Usually TV is off and we’ve just got background music on, although during football season this of course can’t always be observed.
Our girl is very much involved with sports and other extra-curriculars and I imagine as she gets older, following this custom will meet with increasing difficulty.
I eat a home-cooked meal (usually cooked by me) 6-7 days/week. This usually includes at least one meal (if not several) on both Saturday and Sunday. I also make my own lunches which I bring to work. I generally only eat out if I’m seeing a movie after work.
I have a wife. She doesn’t eat at home nearly as often as I do. We’ll eat together on the weekends, but she’s more likely to stay late and eat dinner out, and she always eats out for lunch during the work week, too.
My husband, my dad and I eat at home every night. I love to cook, and I plan meals and grocery shop on Sunday. We don’t exactly sit down and eat, Dad is usually at the kitchen table, and we are in front of the TV. It’s open though, so we’re really all together. Sometimes if there’s a football game on, he will eat in the den with us.
Tonight I’m making Parmesan Tilapia - a very simple dish - with fresh broccoli and baked fries.
(I work full time, as does my husband. Dad is 83 and retired, but in great health.)
I cook dinner usually twice a week, and what I cook will generate leftovers. So a third night of the week we’ll sit down together and eat leftovers. Let’s see, that’s 3 days. Then a fourth I’ll reheat leftovers again for myself, and that’s on a night we both have classes/commitments that don’t allow us to dine together. Depending on the week, there might be a fifth night where I do the same thing. On those nights I’m reheating leftovers for myself, he’s grabbing dinner on the go somewhere.
Once we hit the weekends (Friday and Saturday nights) we dine out almost 100% of the time.
Family dinners were strictly enforced in my house growing up. I’ve maintained the tradition. I insisted on eating together when we were newlyweds, which my new husband thought was a little odd. He suggested we wait until we had an actual family. I told him we were a family of two. He’s come around to the idea as it’s often the only time we get to sit down with each other and talk without distractions.
How many days a week do you eat a home-cooked meal? Seven with the occasional meal out or take-out (once or twice a month).
Do you live alone, or are you part of a family with kids?
Family with two small kids
If kids, do they play sports or have other activities which interfere with dinner?
The girls are too little to interfere, but twice a month my husband has a Lions dinner meeting. Occasionally I’ll get home from work late and tell them to go ahead and eat without me.
1. How many days a week do you eat a home-cooked meal?
My boyfriend and I eat a home-cooked meal togther approximately five nights a week. We don’t live together but I’ve got him on a diet and it’s worth it to me to cook for both of us knowing that he’s eating well. He’s lost ten pounds and is going for ten more. The cooking is a pain sometimes but I keep it simple. On weekends he’s allowed some latitude.
2. Do you live alone, or are you part of a family with kids?
I live alone.
3. If kids, do they play sports or have other activities which interfere with dinner?
N/A
I have a husband and two small kids (no major activities, yet). We eat a homecooked dinner together every night. We also eat homecooked breakfasts together on the weekends. Tonight, we’re having fajitas! Every once in awhile (every few months), we’ll get carryout or we’ll eat out together.
As the kids get older, we’ll have to see how it goes. I’d like to limit their activities, though, so that they’re not missing out on too much family time. When I was growing up, we very rarely missed dinner together, even though my brother and I had a lot of things we were involved in (and my parents did, too). I’m hoping we can work activities around our family, rather than the other way around, but I don’t know how possible that will be by the time my kids are older.
It’s just my wife and me, no kids. We eat together every day, unless it’s one of those days where one of us doesn’t feel like eating, then we will each forage. Normally, we take turns cooking, and have dinner together every day, even if it’s at 10:30.
We try to eat dinner as a family every night. It doesn’t always happen. Hubby is in Tae Kwon Do twice a week, and I’m a Mary Kay consultant who sees a therapist every two weeks. We try eat together before or after these events if at all possible. On Fridays, we go to my in-laws’ for dinner, so that’s a BIG family dinner - MIL, FIL, me, Hubby, Spencer, BIL, SIL, their three kids, and often other friends/relatives. The weekens vary. We try to see friends at least one night, but that’s usually for a home-cooked meal at someone’s house.
I feel the same as you, C3. I hope to always plan our events around our family and not have our lives running us.
Your mention of fajitas reminded me how kids love little traditions. In no time flat, my unplanned tacos on Tuesday became ~ Taco Tuesday! ~ which they love dearly.
Most of the time I don’t make anything all that fancy or time-consuming, which is why it puzzles me when people say they have no time to cook. Chicken breasts on the George Forman, frozen peas in the microwave, how long does that take? Not long, and very little effort.
On average, we eat a home-cooked meal (at home) 6 days out of 7. Some weeks we might go out more than once, but on average, less than that.
I am married, with 2 kids (15 year old girl, 7 year old boy)
My daughter has a lot of activities, but the only time they interfere is during football season – she has to play at the games, and then on Saturdays, she has competitions which sometimes last all evening. Of course, I didn’t average those into the answer for #1, since it’s only like 3 months out of the year.
I have always been a big enforcer of the family meal. Not only do we sit down to dinner together every night (unless circumstances won’t permit) but I also make breakfast every morning. Real breakfast, not cereal or muffins – this morning I made Spam and egg biscuit sandwiches. (yeh, my family likes the occasional spam chop – ick!)
For dinner tonight, we will be having spaghetti with meat marinara, cheesy garlic bread and probably meatballs – depending on whether or not LitHubby will pick up ground turkey.
FTR, no subject is verboten at our dinner table – it’s the time I use to get to know my kids and find out about their lives. Funny thing is, I probably know more about all their friends’ lives than said friends’ parents do! We enjoy dinner time and even when we go out to eat, we have discussions over dinner.
FWIW, I did not grow up in a household with family dinners. My mother stopped cooking (except for if/when company came over) completely when I was tall enough to reach the knobs on the stove, so I could cook for myself. I was 7, I believe. One of my brothers and I are fabulous cooks, but oddly my other brother and my sister are horrible, funny that.
Probably 4-5 times a week. We usually eat out on Friday, and a lot of times we’ll be running around somewhere on Saturday. We probably order in or get takeout on a weeknight once every couple of weeks.
I go to college but I’m home about a month a year.
When I was in high school I never had activities that interferred. I’m not sure why. Sometimes dinner would be later because I had an activity that went until 7 or something.
I live with two roommates and we try and coordinate when we eat dinner so we eat together, even though we cook seperately.
1. How many days a week do you eat a home-cooked meal?
Well that’s a little different than how many days we eat at home together, innit? I cook 5-6 days a week and order in 1 or 2. I’m trying to cut down on the ordering, but I admit it - after a full day with three toddlers and helping four teenagers with their homework (only one of each cohort is my own!), I’m really just too tired and frazzled to cook on top of it, so order we shall. We eat out maybe twice a month, and that’s usually a Sunday breakfast, rarely a dinner.
We do eat in front of the television, usually watching The Daily Show and The Colbert Report on DVR. Even the toddler loves them; she calls Colbert “The Funny Guy!” I threw myself a guilt fest once over this until I really observed us one day - we frequently pause and discuss and talk over the show, then rewind it to watch what we missed. It’s seriously as if we had these wacky other family members with us at the table breaking the ice and spurring conversation. So I got over it, since I really do enjoy it, and so do the kids and my husband. When she starts understanding more of what they’re saying, we’ll stick The Muppet Show back in our queue for dinnertime theater.
2. Do you live alone, or are you part of a family with kids?
I live with my husband and two kids, 14 and 2. And two cats, who perch on the sofa while we eat and try to look like they belong.
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3. If kids, do they play sports or have other activities which interfere with dinner?**
Nope. We’ve all made a conscious an concerted effort to end all outside activities by 6:30, after which is “family time.” This is hardest for me, actually, since my two best friends live only steps away, and I want to go hang out after all those children have left. But it’s really important to my husband, and I feel like it “should” be important for me. And if I’m honest I do notice that we all relate better when we’ve had that time, television “guests” to dinner or no.
I suppose that may change when WhyKid gets a job in a couple of years, but I hope he’ll be home for dinner at least a few nights a week.