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Delighting in Dinner |  |
A title like this might raise expectations about receiving advice on preparing a gourmet meal. Sorry, but you have the wrong author and this is the wrong venue for that.
Actually, we are addressing the value of the simple, but long forgotten, ritual of family dinners. Do you remember how it was with “Father Knows Best” and “Leave it to Beaver”? I personally have fond memories of family meals as one of five siblings on our small family farm. The main obstacle to the family meal was when Daylight Savings Time rolled around and we could spend another hour of daylight in the field. What has happened to the idyllic family gathered around the evening meal in the twenty first century? In a word- busyness! Most of you reading this have mixed feelings about this daily discipline. Many of you relish memories of your childhood where Mom, Dad, and the kids gathered around the table at the end of the day and everyone had their opportunity to talk about their particular stories. On the other hand, as overwhelmingly busy parents now, you are balancing after-school activities, work, church meetings, and a myriad of other commitments that make it so difficult to pull off this important family meeting time consistently. The tyranny of the urgent rules and these “life molding” important events suffer at the hands of the urgent events which cry out louder, but offer much less in the way of growing godly, communicative kids and reinforcing the family unit.
It is time for us to get back to the basics. Scripture tells us, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children… Deuteronomy 6:5-7a. What better time to be passing along our love of the Lord than to be telling of His guidance through each day during the evening meal.
On the good news side, awareness of the benefits is growing. A book by Miriam Weinstein has hit the shelves, “The Surprising Power of Family Meals: How Eating Together Makes Us Smarter, Stronger, Healthier, and Happier”. The author notes, “There is definitely an awareness that wasn’t there a few years ago. All the factors working against family dinners are still there in full force, but it is very much a subject on people’s minds.”
Listen to the benefits touted by social scientists for years:
• Less drug and alcohol abuse
• Better grades
• Less stress exhibited
• The tendency to eat better and healthier
A recent study by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse affirms that first benefit. It compared teens that have at least 5 family dinners per week with those having 2 or less. This second group (2 or less meals) is three times more likely to experiment with marijuana, 2 ½ times more likely to smoke, and 1 ½ times likely to drink. We must keep in mind, however, that in families not eating together, there would likely be many other negative factors at work also. This same study showed that in 1998, 47% of children aged 12 to 17 reported eating dinner with the family five times a week. By 2005, that figure had grown to 58%. Parents are starting to get the picture that the evening meal is vital to being engaged with your children and keeping the line of communication open.
Another sign of a gathering movement is corporate and community involvement. J.M. Smucker Company, the maker of Crisco, recently sponsored a Family Dinner Challenge, offering $10,000 for the best home video of a family meal. In Bergen County, N.J., parents are working with school officials to set aside one night with no activities to allow for an evening of family downtime and a meal together.
My prayer for each of you is that you will begin marshalling your best household administrative skills to make this happen consistently, with your goal being the raising to responsible adulthood the children God has entrusted to you.
Comments:
As always, I love your post. I have a little bit of a different perspective on this than the social scientists, though, and I thought I'd share it. I think that we shouldn't isolate dinner from the rest of the lifestyle. Doing this reminds me of how researchers will say the Amish don't have autism in their community (save one case) because they don't immunize. But they also don't have TV, pesticides, automobiles, etc. It is an entire lifestyle.
Now, granted, slowing down for dinner is better than not slowing down for dinner. But I experience tell me that the families that naturally have dinner together have an entire lifestyle that is slower and allows for relationships to be fostered not only at mealtime, but throughout the day.
I love that you mentioned Deuteronomy 6. It is my belief that our lives would be much more peaceful if we filtered every parenting decision through this lense. In other words, asking the question, "If we incorporate x (some new activity) into the family life, will it contribute or detract from our ability as parents to pass on the faith? Will it separate me from my child and therefore make it impossible to teach the child 'when I rise up and when I lie down,' etc.?"
I love that you gave a goal that transcends having dinner together. Dinner is a wonderful starting point, but the goal for our family is not dinner (or even fewer activities, per se). The goal is obeying the Lord and following His suggested pattern of how to best pass on the faith to our children.
Thank you again for such a wonderful posting!
04/15/06 @ 13:30 Comments are closed for this post.
