Family Meals Are Important, Make Them Fun & Memorable

I have been asked a couple of times where do I get my ideas for what I write about? Sometimes a Bible verse will spark an idea. I read a lot of devotionals, periodicals, and books and something will resonate with me and the Spirit will move me to look into that idea further. In the area of “Parenting” though, mostly I try think about different aspects of my family life, consider what lessons I have learned that could be of value to others, and then do my best to bring those ideas into semi-cogent existence.

One of those things, (a pretty big thing for me personally) for our family is the evening meal.

While I was in the Navy, I missed many a meal with my wife (and my kids too, after they came along) due to the demands of Naval service. I spent time on 3 ships and even if the ship was in home port, a certain section of the crew always stays onboard overnight, every night, to ensure the safety and security of the ship. This includes holidays such as Christmas, Easter, and the 4th of July as well as personally significant events such as wedding anniversaries, birthdays, and even (gasp) the Super Bowl. Many shore installations also have such requirements, so even when you are “in between” ships, every 8 or 10 days you miss out on eating with your family.

As fair as they try to make it (the schedule does rotate) and as good as the food can be (on 2 of my ships they catered in big extravagant meals on Christmas and Thanksgiving), when you add up all those duty days and days deployed out at sea, the bottom line is that over a 20 year career there were many a day when I was not home eating and enjoying the company of family and friends. One calendar year in fact, I was at sea for 9 months out of 12 and then had duty 1 day in 4 for the 3 months when I was in home port.

Over time, that sort of seeped into my consciousness and family meal time, especially dinner time, has become very important to me. And now one of the challenges I am steeling myself to face as my boys get older revolves around the supper table.

The simple fact of the matter is, in today’s “GO! GO!! GO!!!” world, dinner time can be the only point in the day when the entire family actually gathers together at the same time. For instance on week days, I am personally up and out of the house and on my way to work before my wife and kids even have to get up. I am certainly no workaholic, but between me going to work and my boys going to school, during the school year dinner time is the only meal we can all get together for.

Plus our society stresses that “more is better” - more school sports or club commitments, more work to make more money, more hobbies, more “Me” time (self-help pundits tell us that “we deserve it”, right..?), and I say this very carefully, even more Church involvement. The outside (including good influences) pushes in very forcefully, implies that down-time is wasted time, and it seemingly demands that every minute of every day is fully utilized doing something (most of which cost $$ it seems). And this “push” becomes more pronounced as our kids get older and the opportunities to be out of the home become more frequent with the result being ever more complicated and convoluted schedules.

Please keep in mind that I AM NOT slamming involvement in activities like school sports, or being a part of worthwhile organizations in the community such as the VFW or the volunteer fire dept, or having other activities such as dance class or music lessons.  

• Through the experience of being part of a well coached school football, baseball, soccer, or lacrosse team, our children can learn some great life lessons such as the value of teamwork, sportsmanship, and humility.

• Discipline and the lessons and rewards that come from diligent practice are learned while taking part in dance classes, music instruction, and karate classes.

• Being engaged out in the community helping others as part of the local ambulance company & fire dept, or taking part in the fellowship available those with similar interests or backgrounds such as veterans being a part of the local VFW are great examples of service to others.

It is when such worthwhile activities start to consistently eat into family time, when over-commitment erodes the time where you should be regrouping as a family after a hectic day, that is where I personally take issue. In my ongoing efforts to be at least a halfway decent leader of my household, it is also where I personally draw the line. In our house, dinner time is a priority, and with the full concurrence and support of my wife, we make every effort to keep it that way. I very much feel that in the world we live in, there is simply too much to be gained and too much at risk of being lost by not breaking bread together, talking, laughing, sharing and working through our collective daily experiences, triumphs, and challenges.

Now as parents, I would like to think my wife and I are not ogres. Shrek and Fiona live in a swamp in Far Far Away, not in Blue Point. We have had our share of “Eat & Run” dinners so we can make a school or sporting event, of dinner times where one of us had to work unexpectedly, or where I was eating in my truck on the way to a rescheduled practice or early game. It happens, I get that. We make allowances and occasional sacrifices.

My point is that those are the exception, NOT the rule.

We even have purposeful one-on-one dinners with just one of our boys where I take one boy, my wife takes the other, and we do something special with them like take them to their favorite restaurant or go shopping just for them. When you have multiples (twins, triplets, etc), it is easy to think of them as a package deal but they are individuals and getting each away for some special exclusive Mommy or Daddy time is important too.

Now that you have learned why I value a good family dinner time, I want to discuss the idea that I actually had when I was heading into this posting (funny how the Spirit can take you to interesting places if you let him) – That Dinner Time Should Be Fun.

Some of the biggest, longest, and hardest laughs I have EVER had are with my family around my own kitchen table.

For instance, one time my one son started to laugh while he was drinking milk and then had the experience of milk shooting out of his nose all over the place. It looked hysterical but we were all trying so hard NOT to laugh because it had never happened to him before and we were not sure of how he was going to take it. When he started smiling as he was catching his breath we all gave in and had a big old laugh.

But that was a mere chuckle compared to the laugh we all got when I took a nice big bite of my biscuit and discovered that he had actually sprayed milk all over that too. Nothing like a nice soggy biscuit doused in “nose milk”… I thought my wife and sons were both going to fall out of their chairs because they were laughing so hard.

On another night, it was Meatloaf Night (yum, one of my favorites). And I love my wife’s meatloaf because she DOES NOT use a recipe when she makes it, EVER.

A little of this, a pinch of that, “Hmmm, I don’t have breadcrumbs, lets grind up some pretzels”, and “this can of stewed tomatoes is going to expire, lets try that…” is the mode of operation in making meatloaf in the our house.

AND I LOVE IT.

I have to say though that meatloaf is my other son’s very least favorite thing. On a scale of 1 to 10, he gives it a minus 50. If somehow chicken nuggets could fit into a vegetarian diet, he would sign up immediately just to avoid meatloaf. I cannot stress how much sheer and utter distaste for meatloaf the boy has. When it is the primary protein on the plate though, he needs to eat some just for the sake of good health and development and he has come to terms with that.

That son also has a very dry, very clever sense of humor and it is getting better and more subtle as he gets older.

Anyway, as we were partaking in the latest meatloaf offering, my wife apologized because she thought this one was not as good as one she had made last time. She said to us all, “I never remember what I used the last time so it is always different every time.”

Then my boy quietly but matter-of-factly stated “Sometimes that’s a good thing” and continued drowning his meatloaf in applesauce and choking it down.

At first what he said did not sink in. But when the light bulb went on over our heads and my wife & I got what he was implying, I just cracked up AND SO DID SHE. Crazy funny. (At least to us, maybe you had to be there...)

Now in some houses, those occurrences might be viewed a little differently than was the case in ours.

 A case could be made that one boy was fooling around and made a total mess at the table and then ruined another family member’s meal to boot. The other could have been seen as disrespecting his mom to her face as well as the hard efforts his mom put into making him dinner AND he did it in front of his brother and his dad.  The Bible has speaks directly to honoring and obeying your parents, right? It also clearly communicates how as parents we need to instill and enforce such respectful obedience as well. So stern words, punishment, cracks of the whip, “woe unto you wayward child” over such transgressions should have resulted, correct?

NEGATIVE GHOST RIDER (quick, what’s the reference?)

I find it very unfortunate that many parents can overemphasize such things as conduct, behavior, table manners or meal compliance at the expense of good family dynamics, parent-child intimacy, or a good laugh. Not that such things should be neglected mind you, they are extremely important. You do want smart, respectful, appreciative kids around your and anyone else’s dinner table, not little barbarians after all, but there is a time and a place to enforce that. In very rare cases it may even have to be the dinner table and we all have to have a bummer of a meal but I think “better one like that than many”. Most times if you can help it though, I would respectfully submit that as long as the behavior is promptly halted, table it until after dinner.

I also fully acknowledge that there can be challenges, a “diminishment to one’s calm” sometimes when you all sit down together. 

For instance, trying new foods has frequently been just such a challenge for my boys (especially when they were younger). So to alleviate some of the sting of introducing them to different things, we instituted “Pick Your Own Night”. During the course of the week, if they tried some new things at dinner with mostly good attitudes and without (too much) complaint, on Friday night (within reason) they could pick whatever they wanted to have for dinner. We had many a Friday dinner that looked something like:

• Toaster waffles with peanut butter

• Pretzel goldfish

• 3 chicken nuggets & 3 fish sticks

• A leftover pork chop

• 2 garlic knots from 3 nights ago

• 1 ear of corn on the cob

• Hotdogs on white bread

• Sour cream & onion potato chip crumbs from the bottom of the bag

What’s not to like?

The idea is to get them looking forward to coming together, not to dread it.

That said, I know the challenges will occur and things will crop up unexpectedly. At some point someone will inevitably have a bad day at school (and let’s be honest, or at work too) and there will be attitude issues. Someone without any intent to do so will say something in passing that tweaks someone else the wrong way and an argument will ensue. Someone will want the last non-nose milk biscuit that another had their eye on (when making biscuits, always take the number of people at the table and multiply it by 2 – ALWAYS) and then dad will have to become wise like Solomon to figure out if it was someone else’s that has not yet been eaten or it was an extra and divide it in two.  Someone might even dig in their heels and outright refuse to eat something.

It happens. It is how you deal with it that matters.

Always Always Always try to talk it out. My wife is so much better at that than me. Sometimes I just want to knock heads like coconuts and even though I think my way would be effective, her way is much less messy so we go with that.

So ask why they won’t eat whatever it is. Maybe it is not an attitude problem at all but that a fly landed on their food, took off, and now they are grossed out. I get that. Easy to fix and the drama is skipped.

If you see that a difficult day was had, maybe a test went poorly, a friend said something unkind, dad said “No” to playing that video game that EVERY OTHER KID IN EXISTENCE is allowed to play, before getting to the table maybe have a gentle word with them acknowledging that “We understand that they had a hard day” but also to remind them that part of their day is over, daddy is picking up pizza on the way home, and good behavior is expected.

Head things off before they get started. Attempt to make sure there are equal portions of known favorites there waiting for them. “Why do you cater so much to your kids Rich?” some would ask. I would reply that if I know for a fact that 99% of the time that making 7 biscuits for 4 people WILL cause a fuss, how hard is it to make 8 (or just 4) and not have any issues to begin with? (As you can probably guess, biscuits are a big deal in our house. The Comestible of Kings. All hail the biscuit!!)

Sometimes a well placed massive seltzer water belch breaks the bad mojo and defuses the situation. (That was all my idea!! Wait, what’d I say earlier about no barbarians at the table?!?!) In the right company a good belch can be hilarious. One of my boys once let fly with a spectacular one at Friendly’s that probably registered somewhere as a small seismic event. Before my stunned wife could make the expected exclamation of motherly disapproval, the cook actually came around from the kitchen and took bows while saying “Thank you”. I do understand it is a compliment in some cultures…

If things are looking to go totally out the window, before they cross the line maybe they need to be excused for a couple minutes to regroup. While that happens, you can have a word with the other party to the argument and maybe get a better idea for what is going on. And when the child returns and they are calmer, tell them this will be worked out after dinner when we have all had a chance to think it over. And by all means please let them reheat their plate. When you are in a bad mood to begin with, nothing is worse than a cold dinner so why add that to the equation? And as far as I am concerned, that’s what microwaves are for anyway. That and melting butter for popcorn, mmmmm melted butter….

I feel it important to acknowledge that not everyone likes to eat everything. I think we can all agree that there is food we simply do not care for no matter how it is prepared. I know there is stuff I just plain don’t like. Cauliflower? Blech! Liver? Nasty, not gonna happen.

The same is true for our kids.

MY WIFE IS GREAT because she tries to make absolutely sure there is at least something, if not a couple of somethings, that almost everyone likes on the table. Someone sees the asparagus and sadly says “But I don’t like asparagus…” We say, “We know you don’t like asparagus but Daddy and I do, so I made some. I do know you love green beans though and they will be coming off the stove in just a sec.” 

Now I know that idea is not going to be universally agreed with. I hear the resounding cries of “This ain’t Burger King buddy.”  “Old School” parenting lays down the My-Way or Highway law: “It is on the table and you will eat it now or eat it for breakfast, your choice.” But in my view, our time together is more important than making some point about how dinners went when you were a wee lad in the olden days.

Lecturing your kids about how you had to walk uphill in 2 foot deep snow the whole way to kill the mastodon and because there were no Ziploc bags or Tupperware then in 1953 you had to eat the entire beast in one sitting including the tusks so nothing was wasted and the whole time were fighting off saber tooth cave bears, pterodactyls, and mosquitoes the size of sea gulls does not really translate over to finishing those 2 cold smushed peas on their plate, at least not in my opinion.

In general, I like “Old School” a lot, but only so long as it is still relevant.

Aside from the protein serving that is absolutely critical for rapidly growing children (hence the applesauce bath for the meatloaf I mentioned earlier), I simply think that forcing a kid to eat a giant helping of something you know for certain they just can’t stand is a sure way to derail a dinner and my time with them is to important for that. As long as it is not being wantonly wasted, why not make the asparagus and the green beans if that is all it takes for dinner to be enjoyable for all? (If you disagree, I am certainly open for discussion and would enjoy hearing from you in a comment to this posting.)

And I am just as guilty as anyone of bringing the occasional bad day with me to the table. One time at dinner when my boys were much younger, I was short-tempered over something. My boys were fussing, and I had banged the table with my hand for silence and I was about to “let them have it.” That was when my one son looked right at me, cocked his head to the side, and then crossed his eyes with the dopiest expression on his face I have ever seen. I wanted SO BADLY to stay mad and not give in to his obvious efforts at getting out of trouble but in my battle not to laugh I ended up drooling and eventually gave in to the chuckles. Crisis averted, check “1” for kids. Afterwards I told him that was pretty funny BUT it would only play one time so don’t expect it to work again (yea right Rich, who are you kidding…) but at the time it was good.

Another thing that really enhances our dinner time is when my wife & I tell them stories. My boys absolutely LOVE to hear stories, especially “family” stories.

• Stories from when I was in the Navy and out at sea… (I have good ones about sharks munching on dead whales, scary ones about real fires in the middle of the night, and funny ones about having to “go” in soda cans during 6 hour long damage control drills and not being able to take a shower for 9 days because the fresh water evaporators were busted…).

• Stories from when we were dating or newly married… (How she said yes to the first date pretty much because I had a cool car (a 2 seater Mazda RX-7, it was cool !!) and how the first meal I ever cooked for us was the ABSOLUTE WORST thing ever to hit our table, maybe even ANY table, to date.).

• Stories about when they were babies… (How after their first “explosion” the nurses made me and NOT mommy change their first diapers is a favorite. Another is how I was so honestly scared to bring them home I started crying in the van as we left the hospital. Those doctors were cuckoo for cocoa puffs, I knew nuthin’ bout no babies!!!).

• Stories about the places we used to live… (Like the ones from living in Washington State about the “JaMonkey” scooter and “anno choo choo”, very often requested, feel free to ask…).

• Stories from my childhood or my own teenage years... (One of their favorites is when my dad chucked a rake at me. They love it and want to hear it over & over & over, again you can ask me about it sometime if you like.)

There is nothing quite like the rapt attention of your kids when you share some of your experiences or your own lessons learned and they are truly interested & really listening. Makes a dad feel wise.

It also brings them a sense that “family” is an ongoing gig that they are a special and integral part of. Your family traditions and history help ground them to your home and its values. I also think that sense of family continuity makes them feel more secure about own their place in the world.

Children learn so much good stuff from our stories and there is no better place to share them than at the dinner table over some fine food and drink. I would love to hear about some of your own fun meal time stories or activities.

Plus, you can always use these times to springboard into sharing how you have applied God's Word in these situations by explaining the way you thought, felt, or acted when those stories were taking place.

This might be the place to introduce how fortunate we are to be living where we do. After their bellies are full, ask them to consider how hungry they said they were before dinner and then ask them to imagine how it would feel if they had to go bed THAT hungry because there just was no food to eat.

Provoke thought, not guilt, and let them draw their own conclusions and then talk it out.

Works WAY better than a stern finger-pointing lectures about snowy treks to hunt mastodons.

So there you have it. I really think that being silly, having fun, and laughing at shared experiences around the table will contribute to a positive sense of family life and that is something worth making the time for.

As always, have a blessed day :-)