Friday Feature: Family Dinners

When I saw the photo at the top of this week's article, it reminded me of summer days when my daughter and I had picnics in the living room and watched a movie over lunch. Often those meals were takeout rather than a normal boring lunch, and she always thought it was fun (and so did I).

Throughout her life, family dinners have been the rule, not the exception. Times varied according to everyone's activities for the day, and, truth be told, sometimes the the table was cluttered with more than just food and dishes. Admittedly, scheduling these dinners got harder as she got older and, now that she is away from home for much of the year, my husband's and my dinners for two sometimes don't make it to the dinner table, where places must be set and the table must be cleared. But when my daughter comes home, she still looks forward to these meals (and so do I) so, whenever possible, we work our dinner plans around varied schedules so we can all eat together.

As an educator, I'm a big proponent of the family dinner, no matter what it looks like. I believe it keeps families connected and I think the fact that my daughter can demonstrate basic table manners and hold an intelligent conversation over a meal (to which electronic devices are not invited) has a lot to do with our informal discussions over dinner, most of which began with one simple question.

"How was your day?"

Bon appétit.