Thursday, January 12, 2012

The Family Dinner

Following is a fairly accurate recollection of the conversation between the cash register guy (checker) and the fella who put my groceries (bagger) into my earth-friendly re-usable bags this afternoon at the Kroger not too far from my house:

Bagger - What happened to the days when you used to go to the store with your mom and you helped her sack the groceries then she went home and made you dinner?
Checker - Man, those days are gone. They went out in the '90s.

Which, by the way, is fairly hilarious considering it is highly likely that both of those fellas were born in the 90s. Possibly getting close to the mid-90s at that. It is a sad commentary on our culture, however. Really, whatever happened to the family dinner?

We don't take the family dinner for granted at the Dickerson house. I don't know how many times Johnny and I looked around the table during the Christmas break, when all 5 of us were sitting around the table, and said how thankful we were for it. With the college kids gone most of the time we relish, crave the times we are all together - and, especially when we have our kids selfishly to ourselves.

The beginning of the school year was a little tough on all of us but maybe especially for the high school boy that got left behind. We recounted that to the 2 college kids over the break. We laughed about it particularly when the high school boy said, "Yeah, you 2 went off to DBU and teamed up together and left me alone with Thelma and Louise." I laughed hysterically! None of us admitted to ever seeing a movie by that title and don't know anything about the characters. Jacob even said he didn't know why he said it but, if you know Jacob at all, he is just a funny, funny person. Our family tradition going around the table and saying "one good thing about your day" at dinner is missing something when 2 people that make up the circle are gone.

But, the college kids did go back and there will be just 3 of us at dinner tonight. I have to go to a meeting at 5:30 but I'll be back in time to whip up a simple dinner for those of us left behind. Because, afterall, I don't want Jacob to miss out on telling us that all-important one-good-thing-about-his-day even though it irritates him at times. Oh, you know, it's just a conversation starter.

But, as for you, don't let the family dinner become extinct! Don't let your kids think it's a thing of the past or something people did decades ago.

Long live the family dinner!

Serving the King,

Jeanette

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I agree.....I miss having the kids in the house and the family dinner time...I love it when they and our grandkids are all around the table sharing a meal and just listening to the conversation....families need to get back to that very important time of the day....
K. Woodland