I notice that it seems to be an ongoing joke in movies and tv shows that eating supper at 5:00 or 6:00 is terribly gauche. I guess I don’t get the joke because that’s when I have always eaten supper… since I was a kid! My dad came home from work at 4:45 and we were sitting down to eat by 5:00. It’s been the same since I’ve been an adult with my own home. We normally eat supper no later than 6:00. Everyone else that I know is pretty much on the same schedule. I understand that most families have 2 working parents these days and kids are more involved in after-school activities so having supper on the table at 5:00 would be tough most days. But I don’t know anyone that eats supper at 8:00. When does everyone else eat supper on an average, normal day? Are we people in the upper midwest just a bunch of uncivilized weirdos?
I think ours has gotten later from 6 to 6:30-7:00 now that my son’s bedtime is getting later.
Given that a lot of people work until 5, and then have to travel home, eating before 6 is pretty unlikely.
I know lots of people (some in my family) who eat “late” (including 8:00 p.m. or later) I try to be flexible, but I usually want to have dinner before 7:00. I’d rather eat a sandwich at 6:00 then a full prepared meal at 7:30. We usually eat between 6:00 and 7:00, but there are exceptions in both directions. Unless we skip lunch, I don’t think we ever eat as early as 5:00
When I was a kid, we ate at 5:30 sharp every evening.
I forget what the “rule” was when my kids were young, but we were careful to have them not schedule dinnertime activities. I imagine we generally ate between 5-5:30. I was the only one working fulltime, and by going in early, I was always home by then.
Now, with just the 2 of us, it is rare that we DON’T start eating before 5:30. Yesterday I had the meal on the table around 5:10. My wife has some digestive issues which seem to be exacerbated if she eats later/closer to bedtime. On weekends, or when I’m working at home, we’ll often have our biggest meal of the day early - anytime betw 10-2, and then only have salad or something in the eve.
It can be a bit of a social issue, as even our closest friends seem to resist eating early enough for my wife to avoid discomfort. By the time 6-7 rolls around, I’m STARVING. And if I eat a big meal that late, I am mildly uncomfortable when I go to bed (which is generally pretty early as well.) When we have guests over, we often aim at late afternoon, w/ dinner around 4-5.
When I was a kid we always started dinner at 6pm exactly. Now I usually aim to have dinner around 6pm to 7pm. Sometime’s it’s a little later because cooking took longer than expected. 5pm seems a little early to me, but not terribly so.
A comprehensive answer to this could be long and depends on one’s working day schedule and whether the meal in question is supper, dinner, or tea. The prevailing conditions also vary from country to country and also within, so “people” might sit down to dinner or supper at 7:30 in Sweden but in Spain it might be more like 10. If you are eating at 5-5:30, that is often (in English) “tea”, but of course you can eat whatever you want whenever you want, so if you want to have supper or even dinner at 5:30, go for it.
Personally, I wouldn’t be able to work up an appetite before 8 or 9, unless I skipped lunch, in which case high tea it is!
You should make this a poll, with half-hour increments.
During the week between 6:30 and 7 if there aren’t any extra activities going on. On Saturday night we often eat late, more like 8. We’ll make something easy for the kid to eat earlier and then have a more elaborate, romantic dinner for just the two of us.
I get off work at 3, spousal unit works from home. We’ll generally eat between 5-5:30 unless whatever I decided to fix takes longer than I’d planned. Then again, I have breakfast around 6:30 and lunch around 11, so I’m pretty much starving at 5.
I’m a morning person, in case you haven’t guessed. 
When I was young, my father would usually work till 6 (well, wait till 6 to punch the time clock). Then he was changed from hourly to salaried and used to work from 7:30 to 4:30 (to avoid rush hours, which in those bygone days didn’t start till 8AM and 5PM) and after that we ate around 5 every day.
Now I usually eat supper around 7, sometimes later. But we are both retired and have taken to dinner at 1. I think we sleep better. So supper is a pickup affair, not a formal meal.
I couldn’t eat at 5 or even 6 if I tried - my working day officially ends at 5.30, more often 6 and then I need to get home.
And then we still need to cook, plus we like cooking nice things so fast food is out.
Dinner is typically 7.30-8pm. Supper, to me, is a late night snack - but not something I’d ever have. I’m British, so the term is laden with class warfare.
Growing up dinner was at 1700 on the dot every single day. My parents still do.
I eat around 2000-2100 now, usually closer to 2100.
My gf gets home from work sometime between 6:30 and 8 pm. I’m done with work at 2. Most evenings we relax and eat dinner around 8. When we eat out we usually aim for 8ish.
works for us.
As a kid, my dad went to work early and got home early so dinner was 5:00 on the dot for us. I get home from work at 3:30 and usually eat between 5:30 and 6:30.
At my house it’s always been 6-ish. Before 5 or after 7 would be extreme variations. Not unacceptable, just farther from the norm than 98% of suppers.
My family ate at around 5, 5:30 the latest when I was a kid and I don’t think I ever ate dinner that early after moving out. But eating that early required a number of circumstances that don’t exist in my life today. My parents both worked within 15 minutes of home. They also both had the sort of jobs that allowed a set departure time. Quitting time was quitting time. My husband and I have never had that. The earliest my husband has ever reliably gotten home was at 6 pm - and there were plenty of times he got home later than that. I know work 15 minutes from home, but I almost never get to leave on time as something invariably happens to delay me. If we get home at 6, we probably aren’t eating dinner until at least 7. Sitting down to eat by 5 when Dad gets home at 4:45 means that someone had to be home substantially earlier to cook or that dinner is usually something that can be thrown together in 15 minutes or less. It’s more likely to be the former than the latter.
On weeknights, when I’m communting home from work, I often don’t get home until between 5:30 and 6. Depending on what we wind up doing for dinner, we eat sometime between 6 and 7.
The impression I’ve always had (which may or may not be accurate) is that many Europeans traditionally eat their evening meal later in the evening, compared to Americans.
I always fed my kids around 6pm. Until they were in high school and afterschool activities got in the way. Then was catch a meal when you could. The lil’wrekker had digestive issues. Whatever she was doing in the way of extracurricular activities I would push pause and make her eat. I embarrassed her more than once at a play practice or cheerleading. Of course my eating schedule was regimented.
Now, we get to Mr.Wrekker, that man! He worked very odd hours and often was away. Many’s the time I was cooking at 10pm for him. Thankfully he would just about eat anything.
When I was growing up, dinnertime was at 7pm in our family. I think Dad wanted time to relax, change clothes, and maybe have a drink before supper.
Now that my wife and I are the ‘grownups,’ it has varied. When the Firebug was young enough that he had before/aftercare on either side of his school day, we’d get home about 5:30pm, and usually have dinner about 6:30pm, perhaps a little earlier if we had leftovers.
But now that he’s in middle school, he’s really too big for that, but too flaky to be left on his own for much of the afternoon. So I leave while he’s asleep, so I can start my day early and be home when he gets off the bus. And my wife makes sure he gets out the door to catch the bus in the morning, gets to work later, and doesn’t get home until ~6:30. But even though I’m usually cooking supper (I’m the one that’s home, after all), my wife wants some time to decompress before supper, so we usually sit down to eat sometime between 7 and 7:30.
Dinner at eight is a leftover from the ancient days where Father worked, mother was home full time, and children were seen and not heard, socially speaking. Even in single income homes today Mom is busier, and children’s activities cover more hours than “school hours.” If you can put together a regular time when your family can be together for the evening meal you are fortunate. Add another full or part time job, and the kids get fed when they need to, and the parents eat when they can. It’s one of the biggest losses to family unity there is. But paying the mortgage, and the monthly bills regularly enough to avoid homelessness is a lot more of a challenge than it once was.
Tris
I have no idea how I got to where I am. It’s okay, though, I don’t know where I was going, either.