Once upon a time, I was a little girl who grew up in a house where Mom and Dad sat in recliners in front of the television while they ate dinner. All four of us children ate at the dining room table, which had just enough seats for all of us. Our living room and kitchen were open concept, so we could see and hear the television while we ate. We weren’t necessarily invested in what was on (most often Wheel of Fortune), but we paid attention to whatever was playing in the background, and talked quietly among us kids, careful not to be louder than the television show or else reap the wrath of our parents’ dismay.
On weekends, my little sister and I would go to our grandparents’ house, where we often pulled out the table leaf to make room for more people. Our extended family piled in every day around dinner time and sometimes there were so many people under the same roof that, once every seat at the table was taken, people would end up sitting around the television with trays holding their food.
When I grew up and left home, I realized that just about any table was a place where my happy meter went up. It was where I felt my soul tank fill up. I gravitated toward meeting friends around tables, and eventually, I developed a deep love and desire for daily table time and knew that I wanted to incorporate it in my own family when I became a mother.
For years, the table has become a meeting place for me and my people. As our family has grown, I have intentionally created an environment where the table is a daily part of our lives. Only on special (read: rare) occasions do you find us in front of a television while we eat, because I wanted table time to be a point of connection for our family.
The table is where we touch base. We check in. We talk about anything and everything; much like it was at my grandparents’ house. And because of that, I have had one pretty firm rule: no screens at the table.
Our kids are 16, 15 and four years old.
And recently, table time has become a point of chaos. It has become a source of stressful parenting as we teach our four-year-old to sit for the entirety of dinner, even though dinner is often smack in the middle of his “witching hour.” There is so much correction around the table some nights that no one actually connects at all. Not all days are bad. In fact, some days, conversation is funny and we all get a good laugh. Other days, it is insufferable, and we can’t finish a conversation to save our lives.
Now, let me clarify: our youngest’s behavior at the dinner table is very much like every other four-year-old I have ever been around. His behavior is normal. His energy is normal. His inability to sit still for an entire dinner is normal. But even when something is normal, it doesn’t necessarily mean it is enjoyable for your family in a particular season.
Last week, after walking away from yet another stressful dinner at the dining table, I found myself wondering, What more could we possibly do to make this better?
And then I had an idea.
What if, instead of forcing ourselves through exhausting dinners six or seven nights a week, we just gave ourselves a break? What if didn’t sit at the table every single night?
It seems like such a simple thought, and yet there was nothing simple about it. I wrestled with the thought for a solid hour before I even proposed it to my husband.
Here’s my case: I am big on consistency. I am big on table time. I am big on no screens at the table.
So, was I compromising my values by suggesting that we sit around the table a few fewer nights a week? Was I avoiding a problem, or was I finding a solution to one? Would our kids still have a point of connection with us? (An opportunity I feel like you have to intentionally create with teenagers, or it just won’t happen.) Would we still be connecting if we had a few “casual” dinners around the kitchen island instead of sitting formally around the table?
Here’s the conclusion I came to: We get to be in charge.
We are the adults. We get to decide, at any point and in any season, if something just isn’t working anymore. We don’t have to wait until the train comes completely off the tracks to pivot our plans. We can decide at ANY point to pivot.
For our family right now, dinner seems like it would be less dreadful if we changed our expectation of a sit-down dinner every night and cut that expectation in half. And you know what? That doesn’t change our family values. It doesn’t mean we stop teaching our four-year-old table manners. It doesn’t mean we stop prioritizing connection. It doesn’t mean we have failed at the family culture we have worked so hard to create. It simply means we are in a season where something that once worked beautifully for us isn’t working quite as beautifully anymore.
So, we’re going to mix it up. And from one parent to another, if you are in a season of parenting where something just isn’t working the way you thought it would, I want to give you permission to pivot, too. You can change the plan right in the middle of it if you decide this season needs something different. Changing the plan doesn’t mean abandoning the value behind the plan.
At the end of the day, I don’t actually care whether every single one of our dinners happens around the dining room table. I care that my kids want to come to the table when they grow up. I care that they look back on their childhood and remember good things around a table. So, if giving ourselves a little more breathing room in this season helps us create more joy, more laughter and more connection along the way, then I think that might be a table worth sitting at.
-by Destini McPherson
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