Anyone else have a family that don't eat 'tea' together?

[Pileonsally]

Our friends think we are strange but we are a family of 4 and only eat tea together on Sundays.
The rest of the week everyone makes their own tea. If 2 people want the same thing they have it together. Otherwise everyone fends for themselves.
Kids are teenagers now so fine but when they were younger either me or DH made them what they wanted..or sometimes the same thing, sometimes not.

When I chat to my friends there seems to be an awful lot of 'tea tension in houses. Who makes tea, who thinks of tea, who shops for tea, what time we hsve tea..it seems trivial but endless.

We have zero rows or arguments about tea in our house and never have.

Surely we can't be only house who doesn't have tea together?

Before anyone says it..we are close family, lots of laughs together, we spend time together in other ways. Both kids have said they like the fact that they not tied to a 'teatime'

We're the same. We all go out a lot on weeknights (sports clubs, gym, etc) and its almost impossible to all eat together most nights, DH has irregular working hours too. Its still pretty sociable, one person might be cooking while another is eating or working at the kitchen table and we're a pretty close family in other ways.

Yes, same here. We are a family of 2 omnivores, 1 vegi & 1 vegi coeliac. We very very rarely all eat the same thing at the same time. Zero stress.

We only eat/ate together as a family at weekends.

My husband has an atrocious diet, and is extremely fussy. He also used to get back from work too late to eat with the children when they were young. We therefore got into a routine during the week where I ate with them and he did his own thing when he got home.

Even though we are now both retired and they are both young adults we still do the same thing now. When neither of the children is here, my husband and I eat separately (again except at weekends). It's a bit odd, but it works for us as we both get to eat what we want.

Monday to Friday doesn’t work for us all to eat together due to work/school/clubs etc. I cook for everyone but different things at different times. Sunday we have family lunch together. We’re very close as a family but during the week it’s about what’s practical.

Isn't it really inefficient to cook 4 separate meals for 1? 4x pans, 4x cooker on? just can't imagine how it would work... Or are you talking about ready meals?

Yes it is inefficient but I feel same about people who eat together.
Other than roast dinner i genuinely can't think of another meal that all 4 of us like!
I have no idea how people do it.
My friends say well you just eat stuff you not keen on and suck it up.
I dont want to eat stuff I don't like so wouldn't make my kids eat stuff they dont like.
Trying to think of and make a tea every single night would tip me over!
No wonder people row about it

I wouldn’t like it - we eat breakfast and dinner together if we are in. But if it works for you - fab. You do you.

It's usually just me and DD here and we often make our own evening meals because we want something different or we want to eat at different times, I'd say I make dinner for us both maybe 4/5 nights and we make our own 2/3 nights.

How old are the kids?

I can't imagine them individually cooking a cottage pie or something?? So what are they living off?

I skip breakfast and eat lunch around 11 and supper (tea) around 6:30.
My grandson skips breakfast and has lunch (free at work) around 4-5pm
and comes home for a hot dinner (tea) at midnight. I stay up to sit with him while he eats and sometimes have hot cocoa or something while we chat.

Three sons and I've always made different meals for everybody unless a roast (but even then one has veggie option). I'm quite a fussy eater and if I don't like something I can't eat it so, same as op, I wouldn't make my kids eat it. Unlike my parents who used to give me 'the starving kids in Africa' speech. Didn't help that my mother was a dreadful cook, I still remember the marrow stuffed with mincemeat, to this day I can't eat mincemeat🤢 I do batch cook though and freeze individual curries, bolognese ect so it's really not that much effort to give everybody what they fancy to eat. Personally I can't understand how someone could just have a meal put in front of them without choosing what they felt like.

Pretty much the same here. Three kids eat around 5. Husband gets in from work around 6 and eats then; leftovers or something fresh. I prefer to eat something light around 8 once the youngest has gone to bed. We usually eat together at the weekend.

And yes, there are days when I'll make three different things for the kids.

Same. I've never really cooked for DP, we take turns cooking for DS.

I like to make my own, DP eats terrible food. I'm always baffled by threads on here like 'DH is out tonight, I can eat whatever I like!'. I eat whatever I like at every meal. Couldn't bear not to.

I think that is strange, and as a pp said, 'inefficient' and expensive.

Plus, if I were just getting something for one, (as I do, when we have the odd night when that happens) I would be inclined to have a beans on toast type meal - which is absolutely fine now and then, but over the course of a week, I like to have mostly cooked dinners.
If only one person were eating, I'd never make a lasagne, or casserole, or chicken dish or chilli or curry or cottage pie or fish pie or sausage and mash or roast dinner etc etc etc. - it is just impractical for one.
Then you'd be in each other's way, surely ?
Then putting the oven on say for one jacket potato each time - the inefficiency would drive me spare.

I also am very glad we normally ate together from all the conversations that occurred at that one "meeting point" in the day, every day.

For me eating as a family is about more than just ‘feeding’ everyone.
I feel the benefits are:
Time to chat, away from electronics devices and other distractions
Modelling good table manners
Encouraging kids to try new foods and a range of foods.
Eating a wide range of foods - most people tend to choose the same few meals over and over if they are the ones getting total control over the menu. By having to think of meals to suit everyone you eat a wider range
Easier to keep track of overall nutrition intake and ensuring a variety of healthy foods are eaten.
Easier to meal plan and less waste
Less energey being used if oven etc is on for 1 meal Rather than 4 different meals being cooked at different times.

I have 1 veggie so do have to cook an alternative to any meal we have, strong dislikes are catered for eg DS1 doesn’t like noodles so I do him spaghetti instead, another doesn’t like broccoli so I make sure we have a couple of veg to choose from, chillis are added at the table for those that like thing spicier. There’s not any stress over tea time - I would actually find it more stressful keeping track of what everyone is eating and what needs stocking up on if doing it separately !!

When I was small(er), our family simply didn't have the money for different ingredients, or money for the fuel to cook separately.

On the downside, that sometimes meant we had to eat things that weren't our favourites. On the upside, I did grow to actively enjoy most of those things, and I can't think of a food I hate or would refuse to try/eat as an adult.

I don't think what you do is wrong, but I do think there's a lot to miss out on t if everyone only sticks to their same old, same old.

@Mossstitch

Three sons and I've always made different meals for everybody unless a roast (but even then one has veggie option). I'm quite a fussy eater and if I don't like something I can't eat it so, same as op, I wouldn't make my kids eat it. Unlike my parents who used to give me 'the starving kids in Africa' speech. Didn't help that my mother was a dreadful cook, I still remember the marrow stuffed with mincemeat, to this day I can't eat mincemeat🤢 I do batch cook though and freeze individual curries, bolognese ect so it's really not that much effort to give everybody what they fancy to eat. Personally I can't understand how someone could just have a meal put in front of them without choosing what they felt like.

Blimey.. I hate to say it but your future DILs will be cursing you..

We all eat the same and all eat together.

It wouldn’t work any other way because of the food we eat. If we all had ready meals or simple stuff like beans on toast or chicken nuggets every night it would be ok I guess but like the PP stated, I’m not going to make a spaghetti bolognese for me, a curry for my husband, Swedish meatballs for my son, pork gyozas for my daughter etc.

It would take hours to cook, hours to wash up and ridiculous amounts of wasted food.

What kind of food do you all eat?

Totally agree with @BrieAndChilli and @TheNestedIf 's posts.

Meals are about so much more than 'fixing hunger'.

I’ve been married 25 years and I don’t think we’ve ever had a row about food!

I eat soup! It helps me to control my weight. My current fave is Sainsbury's lentil dahl soup.

DP has traditional Scottish man's food, heavy on meat etc. I just don't want to eat like that.

We enjoy meals out and the occasional family meal at home, I don't only eat soup. But mostly it's separate.

It’s been a long time since I’ve spent each evening cooking the same meal for everybody.
Didn’t see why I should dictate what everybody in the house should eat just because I fancy something.
Also been a long time since we’ve all sat down to eat at the same time.
We still manage to talk to each other and find out what’s going on in each other’s lives.