When I first began thinking about what it would be like to be a parent, part of my vision involved close family dinners. Laughter, passing second helpings around, maybe some classy-funky French music playing in the background. Charming. Delightful. Something that we would look forward to each night.

You can see where this is going, right?

I hate family dinners so much now that I’m a real parent with real children who, shockingly, SHOCKINGLY, do not engage in witty banter, who find more enjoyment in flinging second helpings to the floor, and whose idea of pleasant dinner music is either Baby Shark or Raffi (no hate to the Raff, but Baby Beluga on repeat is not my idea of a nice dinner playlist).

So I have done the thing everyone says you aren’t supposed to do: I have stopped trying to orchestrate close family dinners. I mean, I still feed my children. But gone are the attempts to make it a pleasant experience for everyone. You still have to have good manners, but I do not try to make it anything but what it is: an o r d e a l. An event to get through, rather than enjoy.

Studies show family dinner is so important and I believe them, but sanity is also important, and I found that in trying to enjoy my meal in the thirty-odd seconds that I had before things all went to heck was not making me a happy person. It made me snappish and annoyed through the whole meal because I went into each dinner with expectations that maybe this time, this time I could make us have the close family dinner I envisioned, and then the children would…not make that happen. I get it, they’re five and nearly-three, it’s not their fault they act like a five-year-old and a nearly-three-year-old. They are doing what the good Lord intended, I guess. But LORD, is it annoying. 

So now, we feed the kids their dinner. You have to have good manners, you don’t get to yuck other people’s yums, you don’t put your feet on the table, you don’t feed your meal to the dog. But I no longer stress about enjoying my meal because now, I get to sit at the table knowing that after the kids are in bed, my husband and I will sit down to our own meal, and slowly gosh darn enjoy the thing. We will talk! Sip wine! Listen to my classy-funky French music! Maybe even light a romantic candle! Nobody will yuck a yum, and there will be nary a foot on the table to be seen. And, best of all, we have more than thirty seconds to enjoy the food.

I know this isn’t the thing we’re supposed to do. But, it’s the thing that’s working for our family right now, and it’s saving our sanity. Maybe when the kids are older, we’ll go back to family dinners together. Hopefully, there will be fewer tantrums, fewer feet on the table, fewer food scraps thrown on the floor in toddler revolt. Sure, I’ll probably still have to fight to listen to my classy-funky French music. Who knows what music they’ll fight to play. But as long as it’s not Baby Shark or Raffi, I think we’ll be able to make that work.

There are so many things in parenthood and life that come with a script. You’re supposed to do X, if you want to raise truly well-adjusted kids, do Y, if you want your kids to have a future as functional adults, you gotta do Z. If you want your family to survive the full-contact sport that is the early childhood years, you’ll do A, B, and C. You’ll do the lessons, the tutoring, the bedtime book, the family dinner. There’s nothing wrong with these things, but they simply don’t work for everyone. Sometimes you have to assess the impact of doing all the prescripted things is really having on you as a person. Because you are a person too; not simply the family manager.

So cheers to the ones who decide that the thing we’re all supposed to do isn’t working for us. Cheers, cheers, cheers.