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 eat together at the table every day for our evening meal. We use the time to chat and spend time together. It works for us, but I get that other families do things differently and ultimately if everyone is happy, or at least as happy as you can ever be, it doesn’t matter what you do.

We’re the same - DS wants to eat as soon as he gets home from school (so about 4pm), I don’t get back from work until 6-7pm so eat once DS is in bed, and DH usually has a big lunch then just a snack at teatime.

We also don’t have a dining table, so “eating together” means sitting on the sofa together anyway (small flat, it was a choice between dining table or sofa, not enough room for both).

We try to eat out each weekend, so DS is getting some “proper” meals at the table with us.

(And it isn’t inefficient or unhealthy - I batch cook, and DS and DH’s meals are either something I made earlier in the week and put in the fridge, or DH makes pasta for DS and I eat my portion when I get home).

It is the same here. My DH typically works too late to eat with us although I often leave him a plate of what I have had in the warming drawer. I eat with my 2 year old and my 10 year old who has autism and likes to eat on his own eats separately in another room. He eats the same thing every day.

Sort of. This is a shift working household so not everyone’s always home to eat tea together but if we are we do. It’s fairly common to be microwaving leftovers at work I and eating it in the car. Kids too. We’re not financially in a position to be making separate meals though. You eat what’s there and you finish it. I don’t mop floors and shovel manure all day to watch you Chuck it in the bin. Eat it or starve.

The kids eat the same thing, usually together around 6:30 and I sit with them when they eat it. Increasingly though with sports commitments moving later in the evening, they eat when they want/need to- might be 4:30 or might be 7:30. DH eats Nutrition Kitchen as he finds it easier to control his weight and eat a balanced diet like that. I eat around 8 and either have the same as the kids or make something for myself. I do a lot of batch cooking so would rarely cook from scratch in the week anyway so not really a problem if people want different things. I freeze everything in individual portion sizes.

We eat together every evening. If I allowed DC to choose his own meals he'd eat nothing but fish fingers and cheese sandwiches. No doubt mealtimes would be easier but he wouldn't eat a balanced diet!

Maybe it depends how you were brought up? As a child we always ate tea together during the week and Saturday and Sunday lunch. Saturday tea was eating on your knee in front of the telly. It was a treat.
With my own we carried on similar. I never cooked different things - I don't run a cafe! We all ate the same and neither of them could be fussy eaters, although they had things they didn't like which we avoided. Wherever we were, we came home from school and work, ate together and then went out to do any activities. Of course, if you work shifts that's a bit different.

My mother used to make such a big thing of us eating together, woe betide anyone who didn't make it to the table on time. And she'd sit there eating and making nasty comments about everyone's appearance, table manners, etc, every meal was miserable . Consequently I decided that when I had my own family, we'd eat wherever we liked. And that has always happened. I still cooked for everyone, but we eat anywhere and everywhere.

We are about 50/50. I work a few evenings at weird times so DH would eat later with me but generally we would aim to eat with the kids (5 and 2) but not always resting exactly the same meal.

If I let my kids eat what they want they would have fish fingers every day so not a very balanced diet!

However I find your method very strange. Don't you have 4 times as much washing up and 4x electricity/gas usage. What if 2 people want to eat at similar times but require different oven temperatures, or both want to use the hob at the same time. How on earth do you plan what to shop for without having loads of food waste?

We mostly eat together and enjoy the time together. There are a couple of days when we eat separately due to work/clubs but that's not the preference.

We never have arguments over food.

My friend does this, it just seems so chaotic. We forced our children to eat with us at the table, together, every evening. It was my very easy-going husband’s only request regarding child-rearing. I was fucking horrified, but it really was the most wonderful thing; spending time together and enjoying food.

We don't eat together and have survived. When I do a shop I make sure that the cupboards, fridge and freezer are full and everyone just does their own thing.

My youngest is home first at 3 o'clock and I might not get home until 7 so I don't expect her to wait and she's 16 so more than capable of feeding herself. With 3 of us working plus dd in school and shift work involved there's no way we can eat together every night but it doesn't mean we neglect each other and don't talk about our day, it's just not around a dining table.

Bottom line is different things work for different people and if you are lucky enough to all be home at the same time to eat then good for you but no everyone has that lifestyle.

I really hated the enforced family meal times we had growing up - having to eat at a set time every day and sitting round the table. I don't have kids now but DP and I rarely eat tea together - we'll just grab whatever we want, when we want it. It feels so much more relaxed.

@MorrisZapp

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.

Same here, except we don't have DC.

It was a bit of a lightbulb moment when I realised that I was thinking 'I'll make X for tea, oh DP won't eat that' and I'd try and think of something else, so now I tell him, 'I'm making X, do you want some' and he'll either eat it or make something else for himself.

I too always wonder about the women who only seem to eat what they want when they aren't catering for other people as there seems to be an awful lot of women making 'big man and teenage boy meat heavy meals' that they don't want for men who often don't give them the same consideration.

When we make separate meals we still eat properly, DD will typically do something like stir fry vegetables and chicken with rice and a sauce, sometimes I'll do some prep like chopping veg or making a sauce earlier in the day, if I'm on a work call where I don't need my camera on, then we both cook when we're ready. We eat together more often than not but schedules don't always allow.

The alternative is someone having a meal that's been reheated or kept warm is that what those of you who only cook one meal do? I'll do that with something like a chilli or a casserole but lots of meals aren't nice reheated. I also think dc need to learn to cook a meal before they leave home.

We're in the groups where sports and extra classes mean the kids usually eat early. My DH and I like variety and spicy food and kids don't, DS is still beige in his food too so often we eat at different times because of all the above.
We do try to eat together a few times a week though

In theory I would like us to eat together but we only manage it at weekend. Week days we’re all to busy. Gym, clubs, swimming etc. the kids usually eat together and me and DH just grab food whenever.

Same here. Ish.

I cook one thing for DD and DH, DS eats the same 4 things on rotation. (terrible diet, refuses to eat at the table, often doesnt eat with us on Xmas day) and I eat a big lunch and then snack for tea while I am cooking for the others/doing school runs/sorting out uniforms and bathing DS for the next day.

I can't think of a single meal where all of us would eat the same food.

It does wear me down sometimes, I'm the only cook. But equally I'd hate to have to eat a 'dinner' every night as I go to bed at the same time as DS and so I hate the food making me feel too full.

That said, when we go on holiday the DC are wonderful company at the table and we always have such a laugh chatting, so i know they do have the requisite table manners.

We have the cottage pies, lasagnes, roast dinners etc at the weekend. Or if we have them during the week perhaps two or three people will have that meal and the other will have eg beans on toast later. It's not a huge waste of ingredients, we are all adept at looking at what's in the fridge and using it and we make good use of leftovers, the freezer etc. We don't tend to have two lots of oven use in the same evening either. If anything we have a more varied diet this way because we aren't restricted to meals that all four of us would like and no one has to wait till everyone gets back from their sports to eat (after 9.30 some nights).

We generally all eat together although when the DC were younger we would make theirs first and have ours after bedtime.

Now they are teens the only exception is when DH works a late shift or when DD1 is on a late at college. Or if one person doesn't like what's being made eg today it is a joint of gammon which DD1 doesn't like so she will make herself something different.

We are the same, I work late evenings a couple of times a week and just grab a sandwich at work. It's never 4 different meals, there will always be 2 or 3 having the same. The person eating separately might just boil a couple of eggs, or have a meat and cheese platter with crackers or a decent ready meal or dip into the slow cooker at a different time or throw some pasta in a pan. It's not like there are 4 roasts being separately prepared every day.

@LaCerbiatta

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?

And less efficient shopping wise. Each to their own but I cannot imagine 4 people cooking 4 different healthy meals each night without spending a fortune/living off ready meals/tripping over each other in the kitchen.

We eat together, most of the time. If we did what OP does I can only imagine the mess and chaos. It must be much more expensive, and energy inefficient, and there must be more ready meals/convenience food. It also seems a little entitled "I want to eat what I want." It's sad. We are becoming such an individualistic society.