Home Cooked Family Dinner

The home cooked family dinner is a tradition and fundamental part of many cultures. A recent Slate article calls it tyrannical. The September 3 article written by Amanda Marcotte called “Let’s Stop Idealizing the Home Cooked Family Dinner” uses a recent study from NC State University as ammunition. The main argument is that the stress and time it takes to cook a home cooked dinner, especially for busy women, may not be worth the price. Many disagree with Ms. Marcotte, especially Mollie Hemingway, writing in The Federalist.

Home Cooked Family Dinner

[Tweet “The family dinner is the best place to build a loving and happy marriage.”]

Amanda Marcotte’s Slate article quotes the study with the following:

“that time pressures, tradeoffs to save money, and the burden of pleasing others make it difficult for mothers to enact the idealized vision of home-cooked meals advocated by foodies and public health officials.”
Ms. Marcotte adds these gems:
“Money is also a problem. Low-income women often don’t have the money for fresh produce…”
“Beyond just the time and money constraints, women find that their very own families present a major obstacle to their desire to provide diverse, home-cooked meals. The women interviewed faced not just children but grown adults who are whiny, picky, and ungrateful for their efforts.”
“It’s expensive and time-consuming and often done for a bunch of ingrates who would rather just be eating fast food anyway.”

That pretty much sums up her article. There’s no counter research offered. There’s no pro family dinner opinion represented. There’s not even a solution offered, just the complaint that it hard, time consuming and your family has no gratitude for your slaving away by a hot stove.

Seven Things Missed While Attacking the Family Dinner

Mollie Hemingway wrote an excellent piece countering the Slate article. She cites these 7 important factors of the family dinner:

  1. Benefits of home cooked meals – Ms. Hemingway agrees that putting food on the table can be hard and time consuming. However, there are so many benefits from the family gathering around the table and eating a family dinner, which she says her family does almost every single day. The key point she makes is this: “One of the main reasons we do it is for the integrity of our family and the discipline of time together.”
  2. Home cooked family meals are cheaper than eating out – She agrees that some meal items at McDonald’s may be cheaper, but on a regular basis, store bought and prepared food is cheaper than paying someone else to prepare it for you.
  3. Home cooked family dinners are healthier than fast food. One has no control over the quality of restaurant food. Interestingly, she cites a resource on the benefits of eating food you prepare at home, which happens to be Amanda Marcotte, the writer of the Slate article in question.
  4. The breakdown of the family unit. Ms. Hemingway points to the feminism of Ms. Marcotte and the struggle for women in society to break the glass ceiling and have meaningful careers over staying at home and tending to children and home. Such views diminish the house wife as secondary citizens. That struggle has unfortunate side effects that include the time crunch to prepare wholesome meals for the family.
  5. It’s a parent’s job to feed the children. Meals don’t have to be home cooked and fancy. It is the responsibility, however, of the parents to acquire food and feed the family, however it is done.
  6. Feed the ingrates anyway. The argument that since family members may not like what you cook is grounds not to cook, is laughable. Children need to be taught gratitude and the family dinner is an excellent place to do it. We shouldn’t serve others because those others will like us for it. We should serve others because it’s the right thing to do.
  7. Cooking is a labor of love. It is labor and it can be hard at times. The entire convenience industry was born from such need. We do it anyway and we do it in love for ourselves and our family.

Ms. Hemingway writes an excellent article and spells out many of the problems in the Slate article. As for me, I hope her article gets plenty of readership and people are not swayed by the Slate article.

My Response to the Attack on the Family Dinner

The family dinner is the best place to build a loving and happy marriage. Period. I agree that it can be difficult at times. That is the price we pay for the many benefits of eating home cooked family dinners. These days some find it vogue to attack the traditions and cultures that brought us here. Slate is a website full of such articles. I do find it funny though that the comments are full of people who disagree and laugh at Ms. Marcotte’s article. Plain and simple, it’s a pretty bad article. I do like that she wrote it though because it did stir up some people and had some defending the very traditions and culture they usually attack.

There is so much more that needs to be said.

Family Dinner Health Benefits

To advance the notion that it is better to eat fast food rather than making meals is dangerous. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released their latest findings, for 2010, and indicates 34.9% of adults and 17% of children are considered obese. Obesity is a leading cause of diabetes. The health care costs for obesity and diabetes is skyrocketing.

A study that is part of the US Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARIA) indicates the following:

“Fast-food consumption has strong positive associations with weight gain and insulin resistance, suggesting that fast food increases the risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes.”

When one plans, prepares, cooks, eats and cleans up their own meals, they take control of their diet and health. New studies are coming out all the time about ingredients in processed foods that are now considered unsafe. This is in the food we normally buy. We have less control over what a restaurant uses in their food.

Family Dinner as a Marriage Builder

The family dinner is a place where family can talk and share. So few of us know how to use the family meal properly. That is one of the objectives of this site, 38 Minutes to Happiness. During a family meal, whether children are present or just the spouses, topics can be discussed that builds respect, empathy, friendships and so much more. The techniques from the top marriage experts, as featured here, can be performed during the meal.

We all probably know, or even have intimate experiences, of family meals gone awry. I’ve seen on message boards where folks declare they never have family meals together because of past bad experiences. That is a shame. It’s a shame because what they experienced was a family meal done improperly. Saying such things is like being in a car accident as a child where the car was driven by your mom or dad, and saying you’ll never drive a car because of it. No, we learn how to do it properly.

There are so many studies where the results show the fantastic benefits of having family meals together.

  • Parents are happier
  • Children are happier
  • Children are less likely to get into drugs and alcohol
  • Children do better in school
  • Parents and children are healthier

Family Dinner Tips

Here’s a few family dinner tips that will improve your time together as a family and help each family member want to spend more time around the dinner table.

  1. No electronics. No TV. No phones. No tablets. No laptops. Background music is good.
  2. Assign responsibilities for family members for the planning, preparing, cooking and cleaning up of the meal.
  3. Have family dinner 5 or more times per week.
  4. No arguing. Keep conflict to a minimum by making it one of the family dinner rules.
  5. Parents should plan for certain conversations on certain days. Discuss vacations, food, school, good movies, good books, etc.
  6. Discussions should go deep – get to the feelings or emotions of characters or people discussed.
  7. Make a list of family dinner rules.
  8. Use this as a time to expand culinary experiences. Try new things.

That’s it for now. Leave a comment below. I’d like to hear your thoughts.

About the author

Mark Jala is a certified marriage coach, researcher, and consumer advocate. Certified in Strategic Interventions, Mark bases all of his services and advice on verifiable research. With nearly 40 years of problem solving experience, Mark has developed a holistic approach to marriage coaching which provides a context and execution plan not seen in ordinary marriage services.

{"email":"Email address invalid","url":"Website address invalid","required":"Required field missing"}

Subscribe to My FREE Newsletter

HMC does not sell, rent, or share any provided information. We value your privacy. 
Your information is safe.

>