Let Us Break Bread Together by Jayne Magee

By Jayne     
 I believe in eating dinner together as a family every night.  For thirty years, I put dinner on the table at 5 pm, and on Sundays we had an even bigger meal together at noon.  As a chiropractor, my husband had evening office hours; nevertheless, he took a break from 5--6 pm to come home and eat dinner with the kids and me. Oftentimes, we were joined by family or friends, but the routine never varied.  Rain or shine, summer or winter, we sat down together to break bread. 

     When I was a kid, I have fond memories of gathering around my Grandma Steiner's round walnut table for family dinners.  The table was always graced with homemade bread and doughnuts, oyster stew, rich roasts, mashed potatoes and gravy, and homemade pies.  No wonder I have battled my weight my entire life.  Food equaled love in my family of origin!  However, it was also the place that I had the opportunity to hear all of the family stories:  how our ancestors came from Germany to Ohio as Mennonites, how my grandfather rode his motorcycle to Detroit to work in the car factories, how my grandmother taught in the one-room schoolhouse, how my mother survived the kitchen fire that nearly killed my grandmother, and why Grandma Steiner had to wear elastic bandages to protect her legs that had been burned so badly.  It was also a great place, if you were very quiet and the adults forgot you were still at the table, to learn all of the juicy gossip about the neighbors:  who was having an affair, getting divorced, or having a child out of wedlock.  Commonsense wisdom and a love of tolerance and diversity were served up around the dining room table at Grandma Steiner's house, along with the chocolate chip cookies.

     My parents continued the tradition.  My father would arrive home after a full day at the office, and we would sit down together as a family for dinner.  The family dinner hour became a time to pass on values and beliefs. As I grew older, I asked my parents to explain political events like the Cuban Missile Crisis and the assassination of JFK and the race riots.  When I became a teenager, The Rules were debated:  why did we have curfews, why was drinking a bad idea, and why would boys talk about you in the locker room if you became of "those girls"?   For two years my family lived in Sweden, so those family dinners were times for us to hear letters written by my Grandma Steiner at home in the United States, to discuss how we should all pitch in and "do our part" to help my mother while she was experiencing a very unexpected pregnancy, and how to deal with all of the strange cultural differences between Sweden and America.   

     Because of my own experiences with family dinner hour, I decided to continue the tradition once I had children of my own.  For me, family dinners are a time to communicate in so many ways.  It was a time to learn what my kids had done in school that day, a time to find out what my husband believed about medicine and chiropractic, to explain our religious beliefs to our children, to explain the value of education, and to tell jokes and stories.  My husband loves a good joke and story, so every night he would share jokes he had heard that day from his patients and stories about events happening in our small Western Pennsylvania community.  When our youngest boy was being bullied or the teenage girls were being picked on at school, it was a time to reinforce how unique and special each child was.  

  The family dinner table is also a good place to teach people skills like the gentle art of negotiation and nonviolent conflict resolution.  When a child is complaining about his/her allowance or bedtimes or being grounded for some infraction, it is a good opportunity to demonstrate how to argue logically without relying on emotional appeals or logical fallacies.  When an older child is picking on a younger sibling mercilessly, it is a teachable moment in which to explain the long-term effects of bullying.  I remember one family dinner when my son was about ten years old.  As always, Gabe was disagreeing vehemently with us about something, and I turned to him and said, "You ought to be a lawyer because you can argue me in circles!"  Gabe is now the Assistant DA in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania!  

     I understand that we live in different times.  In most families, the mother works fulltime as does the father.  The kids are in all kinds of activities and sports.  I was lucky enough to be a stay-at-home mom, and we limited our children to only one or two afterschool activities.  However, if you can't have a family dinner every night, do it as often as you can and make sure to do so on Sunday.  The bonds that are formed during family dinners will help to keep the lines of communication open between parent and child when the rough times come--and we all know they will come!!!!  

     Yes, there will be years when the kids are teenagers and won't talk at the table.  They will keep their heads down and not make eye contact.  They will try to text on their cell phones or beg to eat by the TV or computer.  When you announce that the TV has to be turned off and phones have to be put away, you will not be popular.  There will be a lot of glares and rebellion.  However, if you stick to your guns as a parent, the kids will absorb the wisdom and love that are being served  up along with the hotdogs and mac and cheese.  The bible tells us that if you "train up a child in the way he should go, when he is old, he will not depart from it."  After  nearly 40 years of parenting four children, I have found  that promise to be true.   You don't have to be married to have family dinners.  It works just as well with single parents, too.  Perhaps it is even more important because all children, no matter how young or old, need our undivided attention if only for an hour.

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