A Consideration of Family Dinner

My mom in 1986 as photographed by me in our very of an era kitchen. I could spend hours getting lost in the details.

Social scientists have been promoting family meal times as supportive to healthy childhood development since the mid-twentieth century. Growing up in the 1980s and 90s, I ate dinner with my family at the dining table. My memories of the dinners we had before my parents were divorced in 1987 are fond — just thinking about them causes the corners of my lips to turn up and eyes to brighten. I remember lively conversations, lots of jokes, and ample food. My parents are fun and funny and they also enjoy a good meal. I attribute my love of cooking and eating in part to those dinners.

From 1987 until I left for college in 1996, depending on divorces, marriages, and whose house I was in, the participants, tables, and main courses varied but the rules didn’t. Watching television was not allowed and we ate together at the dining table. Phone calls were returned after dinner and we stayed at the table until everyone was done. Family dinner continued to be the primary way for all members of the household to connect with one another daily. It was, in theory, a good idea, and enforced with loving intentions. Unfortunately in practice, family dinner is where some of my disordered eating habits took root. I began to habitually dissociate at the dinner table, eating without noticing how food tasted, without honoring what I actually wanted, eating very fast, and becoming unable to recognize when I was…