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Nadège Väänänen
Instructor: Lorraine Argatoff
BENG 052
10 Dec. 2014
Family Dinner Time and Table Talk
Studies have shown that the average British family spends only 49 minutes a day
together, which makes just 5 hours and 43 minutes a week. Many parents admitted that “the
only 'real' time they get to spend together is when they go on holiday away from the distractions
at home” (Mccann). Also, less than two thirds of American families said to have dinner with
their fifteen-years-old children compared to over 90% of Italians, French, Dutch, and Swiss
(Feiler 36). Bruce Feiler also says: “the most head-shaking statistic I saw came from the Center
on Everyday Lives of Families at UCLA [...]. The families in their study dined together only 17
percent of the time, even when everybody was home”. Families who spend less time together can
have a harder time getting to know each other which can result in inter-generational conflicts that
stay unsolved, putting the family’s happiness at stake. Dinnertime is one of the best moments for
families to connect to each other as long as other distractions such as electronics are left out.
Family table talk benefits the family in many ways and though some may find it stressful, there
are many ways of making it possible.
Family table talk has a lot of benefits for the children and the parents. First of all, “family
table talk is an essential part of the process whereby the family inducts the child into the life of
society” (Bossard 295). Researchers from Harvard University have found that “Kids who have

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regular family dinners have better grades, better vocabularies and better behavior. They are less
likely to smoke, drink, do drugs, have eating disorders, become depressed or to have sex.”
(Wolf). Dinner talk is the time when young children are civilized. They learn how to ask for
what they want and thank afterwards using what some parents call the “magic words”: please
and thank you, they learn to not talk with their mouths full and learn to be patient. Sitting at a
table regularly gives them a sense of organization or routine and teaches them how follow a
schedule and be in time. Also kids who have a regular table talk with their parents are exposed to
a bigger variety of vocabulary in many domains which explains why they have more vocabulary.
A person who received enough attention from their parents and developed enough endorphins
are less likely to drink, smoke or do drugs which would would give them similar substances
which would take the place of endorphins in the brain (Mate) and since children who have family
dinners receive more attention they are less likely to be affected by this.
A lot of traditions are transmitted during dinner time too. Thanksgiving and Christmas
are two example of when the whole family including the grand-parents and sometimes the
cousins come together around the table to share a big meal and have a long talk about their own
lives, what happened, and what will happen in the future. There are also family birthday dinners
and even if they are not celebrated every year, the traditions of how birthdays are celebrated in
the family can be transmitted then.
Dinner talk is also the moment when trust is built amongst the family. The members of
the family, supposedly, know that they can talk to each other. For some people, parents or
siblings can become a sort of counsellor with who it is possible to share problems and try to
solve these. Moreover since dinner time is one of the only times when people take time to slow
down and put work and studies aside, it is also one of the only times when having a real

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conversation with the other members of the family is made possible. It is also the moment when
parents can connect with their teenagers enabling them to know them better.
Parents too can benefit from having family dinners. After spending the whole day at
work, driving through the rush hour, coming back home, and making sure they weren’t late
picking up the kids at their afternoon activities or at school, they can finally take some time to sit
calmly, eat, and share stories about their day. According to counselors, making an inventory of
the good and bad things that happened in a day and sharing it with the people close is a good way
for people to understand their own lives to be able to improve them and avoid making mistakes
several times.
Despite all the benefits family dinner time and table talk can bring to families, many
people find it too stressful and do not dine as a family. There are many reason to why families
might not have dinner together: some say it is because there is not enough time to cook
homemade meals, “Middle-class mothers reported being torn between their desire to spend
quality time with their children and the expectation that they needed to provide the children with
a home-cooked meal” (Bowen et all). Abby Langer, a dietitian, also states that “many of my
clients feel that meals need to be a big production and are so overwhelmed by the thought that
they don't even try to cook”.
The financial situation can also affect their decisions in regards to the ‘perfect home
cooked meal’ people feel like having the obligation to provide to their children. They are
“concerned that they [aren’t] able to give their kids the best possible meals because they [can’t]
afford to buy all organic foods” (Bowen et all). Being overwhelmed by the image of how a

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family dinner should be like, some people abandon the idea of having dinner as a family
altogether.
A third reason why family dinners can get stressful is that a children will not always want
the food that is given to them and it can challenge some parents: “ ‘Coaxing picky eaters to ear
[sic] well-balanced meals isn't as easy as some might think’ ” says Susan McLean, mother of
three kids, who was interviewed by an anonymous Mailonline reporter.
Even though having a family dinner can be really stressful for some people or even seem
impossible, there are always ways to make it happen. First of all, one of the most important
things to remember is that “what you talk about matters even more than what you eat” (Feiler
44). With this in mind, people should not be overwhelmed by the idea that they have to make a
sophisticated home cooked meal. In his book, Bruce Feiler offers a serie of “Hunger Games” that
allow families to communicate, have fun, and teach many things to the children such as the
“Word of the Day” on one day enlarging the kids’ vocabulary, the “Autobiography Night” the
next day teaching how tell a simple story about themselves, “Word game Night” another day,
etc…
For thoses who find there is not enough time to cook, there are simple ways to still
manage to have a nice dinner. For instance, cooking several things on the weekend to cover the
first few days of the week, cooking double portions and having leftovers for the next day or
doing take-out once a week.
Moreover, dinner does not have to be at 6 o’clock. In France dinner time is between 7:30
and 8:30 and for those scared to be hungry before, there is the 4:00 o’clock snack. Spanish
people rarely dine before 10 but the also have late lunches. So is no ‘good time’ for dinner. Even

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if the parents finish work later than the kids finish school or if they finish before the kids come
back from their afternoon activities, there will always be a time when dinner together is possible.
Even if the idea of family dinners can be stressful, there are ways to make it possible and
enjoyable for the whole family and benefit from it. Children will learn more, parents and
teenages may be able to connect to eachother in better way and everyone can use this time to
release some stress built during the day at work or school. In the end, families having dinner time
and table talk together will more likely be happier and less stressed. So people should consider
coming back around the table for a nice but simple dinner and good talk.

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Works Cited
Anonymous reporter. “Take-out for dinner again? Family meals are the most stressful time of the
day
for American parents - with a third ordering in to save time.” Mailonline. The Daily Mail.
4 Dec. 2014. Web. 9 Dec. 2014
Bossard, James H.S. “Family Table talk – an area for sociological study.” American Sociology
Review. (1943) Vol. 8. No. 3. Web. 10 Dec. 2014.
Bowen, Sarah. Elliott, Sinikka. Matt Shipman. ‘Family Meal’ Ideal Is Stressful, Impossible for
Many
Families. NC State news. NC state University. Web. 3 Sept. 2014. - 9 Dec. 2014.
Feiler, Bruce. The Secret of Happy Families: Improve your mornings, rethink family dinner,
fight smarter, go out and play, and much more. New York: William Morrow, 2013. Print
Langer, Abby. “Family dinners don’t have to be perfect.” Huffpost Living. AOL Lifestyle. Web
log
entry. 6 Oct. 2014. Web. 9 Dec 2014.
Mate, Gabor. “Embraced by the Needle” The Globe and Mail 27. (2001). Print.
Mccann, Jaymi. “No time for the family? You are not alone: Parents and children spend less than
an hour with each other every day because of modern demands.” Mailonline. The Daily
Mail. 15 July 2013. Web. 8 Dec. 2014
Wolf, Bonny. “The Value of Family meals Together.” NPR. 11 Dec. 2005. Web. 10 Dec. 2014