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 never row about food, how odd that people are so fussy.

I feel sad for people who don’t eat together as a family, it’s such a wonderful warm memory I have of growing up.

@gogohm

Seems very odd to me. We eat together, when the kids are home (university) they eat with us, non negotiable. Obviously if they are out doing something they can reheat in the microwave but 99% of meals are eaten together

This sounds so bizarre. Enforced, compulsory shared meal times whether your teenage children like it or not???

What if they want to eat out with friends? Or with their boyfriend/girlfriend? What if they've eaten a large, late lunch and just don't want another full meal and would rather a quick snack later in the evening? What if they really don't fancy what you're cooking but are perfectly happy to get something for themselves at a time that suits them? What if their plans change last minute and they need to be elsewhere at 'tea time'?

I know very well my older teen DDs would look at me like this if I tried to enforce compulsory meal attendance on them.

It's a very different scenario when you have teenagers with their own lives

Quite. While at junior school our DDs would eat with us every evening, but once they went to grammar school their routines were much more fluid and they were much busier. They acquired lots of new friends, got part time jobs and joined several school clubs/societies etc. So our evening meal became, very much, a moveable feast.

It's a very different scenario when you have teenagers with their own lives

Agree- potentially younger - as an example on Wednesdays DD(9) has swimming training at 7 so she'll eat at 4:30 as she doesn't feel like eating after. but needs time to digest. DS (12) isn't home from rugby training till 6 and I have yoga at 8. I'm not going to tell them they have to coordinate their activity schedules with me so we can play Waltons.

We all eat the same (maybe a slight variation for me as I eat less meat than the rest of my family). There’s usually 2 or 3 sittings depending on when people get in from work or are going out for the evening.
There’s never been any issues or rows to do with meals, I didn’t know it was a thing.

@blowtheroofoff

We always eat tea together with teen DCs. I cook, they clear up, no fuss, no fussiness. We usually have a bit of a laugh and banter, the evening news on in the background and we talk about topics of the day. Wouldn't want it any other way

Same here. But we're lucky that work pattern and stuff made it doable. I get home at 6pm 3 or 4 days a week, DH has usually got dinner nearly ready and we all eat together. I cook on the other days, unless I've done an early then DH will cook as I'm usually tired. He's not working at the moment though. Our DCs don't do many activities and the ones they do don't interfere with dinner times, so it works for us. There are only a few meals that not everyone will eat, when we have those the person who doesn't like it gets a ready meal or something homemade that I've frozen.

Dinner time is the only time I really see my DCs as they are all at secondary school and tend to be hiding in their rooms the rest of the time. We actually chat and it's lovely.

Having a dining table and eating dinner together was DH's only MUST DO, which he insisted on as soon as we moved in together - I grew up eating dinner on laps.

We all eat together - me, DH & primary DC.

I do get the 'rows' idea. It's mostly DC complaining that it's not what they want unless it is actually what they want. Not a 'row' per se, but I am irritated by the moaning.

I don't understand how it would be less work to cook 4 different meals though. DC couldn't manage with me helping. Instead of cooking for 30/40 mins, I would be in the kitchen for hours!

I always thought eating together was what distinguished a family from a group of people living in the same house. My parents also ate with us at the table but I lived by cooking my own as a student so I have experience of both.

How do you model dinner table conversation, table manners, cutlery use, napkin use, etc. without eating together?

Isn't character building to accept you don't always get what you want?

Isn't it the job of a parent to expand culinary tastes in their DC by exposing them to new flavours and cuisines?

DD1 has autism with lots of sensory issues around food so it has been challenging to adapt what DH & I instinctively do (from our own childhoods) to meet her needs. I wouldn't want to give up trying though.

I would never force my DC to eat something they disliked. I remember that from my own childhood all too clearly. They don't have to eat everything on their plates either. We model and encourage stopping when you feel full.

I can't get my head round this thread at all. Is it something that'll come as my children age? I think it feel like a real loss though despite the complaining!

We eat at different times right now because my youngest eats at 5pm and goes to bed with a bottle of milk at 7pm (she's a baby). My oldest is 2 and isn't hungry at 5pm but also goes to bed at 7pm. My partner and I can't eat at 5pm as we're not hungry. We can eat together at 6pm because one of us typically has to pacify the baby as she's getting tired. It does my nut in. The mess and palaver. I dream of the days when we can do just one meal and one clean up. The inefficiency of doing it separately drives me spare. Who has the time, energy or money for this?

I'm confused.

What @SpookyScarySkeletons describes is different from the OP. You sound like you all like similar meals but don't always eat them together.

OP is saying they never like anything the same so make loads of different meals.

We generally eat together, my children aren't fussy and we tend to write a meal plan at the start of the week with an idea of what we fancy. This isn't set in stone but it might be that one child says, I really fancy lasagne could we have that this week? We do have portions of chilli and bolognese in the freezer for a quick meal but the children seem to enjoy eating with us!

They love garlic bread but that would be a pain if eating individually, there are other meals that just don't seem to work got one but maybe that's because it seems like a whole lot more shopping and washing up.

If it works for your family fine!!

When do lived with my parents there was one meal at 6.30pm which you ate or went hungry. A plate was put aside for you if you needed to eat later. I couldn't handle anyone too fussy to eat what's put in front of them. I hate mushrooms so they were always cut large enough to pick out.

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?
Occasionally.

I'll do that with something like a chilli or a casserole but lots of meals aren't nice reheated.

I agree, and, particularly during the Winter, we tend to have meals that are easily reheated - chilli / curry / bolognaise / casserole / cottage pie etc, and then those that aren't so good at being reheated, we'll allocate to a day when people are there, or aren't eating with us for some reason, or they might say, 'don't cook for me today, I'll grab something when I get in'. It isn't rigid, for 100% of our meals, but it is the default setting.

I also think dc need to learn to cook a meal before they leave home.

I totally agree with this.
Mine have been cooking for the family, on a rota basis, each week from when eldest was 14 (youngest was 9 and obviously got a lot of support at that stage, but in her mind was still part of the rota). One bonus of this, that I hadn't anticipated, was that it cut out a lot of the moans about food that was put before them. They knew it wasn't always easy and that things sometimes didn't come out as nice as it might, and became a lot more understanding of that and a lot more accepting of everything not being cordon bleu.

It's a very different scenario when you have teenagers with their own lives

Not really. I've raised 3 to adulthood. All had commitments (sports, music, drama, Scouts, Volunteering). Youngest is 20 now. All also worked shifts during 6th form. As WalkingonSonshine say, , just like my siblings and I did growing up, my dc have learned that , no, you don't always get your 'favourite', but over the week you will. When it isn't your turn, you just get on with it, or offer help to substitute something in a meal.

We try to eat together as a family, however dd is only 2. We do often have different meals as dd is extremely fussy (asd food aversions) but since I'm the one cooking anyway, it makes no difference if I cook two meals at the same time or at different times.
When I was a teen I rarely ate with my mum and just fended for myself, we were never bothered for food at the same time usually.

I don't really enjoy eating with the DC as I find it too stressful.

I don't want to eat my meal at 5pm either.

As other posters have said this is far different when eating out at a restaurant with the DC which I thoroughly enjoy, and also enjoy weekend pizza in the front room nights together/snacky tea.

I couldn't be bothered to worry about it or what other people's ideas may be 🤷🏼‍♀️

We only do on high days and holidays and even then meals can end abruptly

Both DC late teens have diagnosed Misophonia, I have if too but am more in control and everyone triggers someone else, it’s sad but hilarious

DD is triggered by everyone but especially DS, DS is triggered by DH and sometimes me, DS triggers me sometimes because he’s such a slow eater and noisy that I reach my length of tolerance and he’s still talking and eating

I have to be very careful how I position people at the dinner table at Christmas and even then DD lasts about 10 minutes

Lord how depressing this thread is - share food and talk. Seriously it’s not just fuel. Plus I don’t like to eat ultra processed nor feed my children that kind of crap. Plus I don’t understand this middle class cliche of I’m so busy. Manage your time better.

If it works for you then why not. We all eat together, same meal for everyone, the kids are 5/3/7 months. I just purée what we eat for the baby

I feel as though it would require iron discipline to make it work without the kitchen constantly being a mess, wasted food or fights over available food. Who buys the teenage children’s food? Talking specifically about OP. I don’t expect everyone always eats together but it seems an extreme.

DD likes to eat about 5pm still (aged 13), actually earlier given the choice. DH doesn’t get home from work until after 6pm and doesn’t like to eat until he’s been home a while so we eat later.
DD also has food allergies and so it does make it easier.

How does the shopping work? It sounds like a right faff.
We have a sort yourself out day here and there and on those days it feels like the kitchens always messy and the house never feels settled.

We never have any arguments about tea though. I cook and people eat, now we don't have toddlers nobody is especially picky except me so it's not hard to think of what to cook.

Apart from absolutely inefficiant with buying small portions of food, using the hob several times, huge amount of pots/pans in use on one day, I think a shared meal is vital for communication and a family life. Otherwise you are just a group of lodgers.

There are days where we don't eat togehter and it's planned so the person not at home gets leftovers or a fast meal like beans on toast, eggs, ready meal if really necessary.

For us mealtimes are a lot more than just eating

We cook things all of us like. We do have things one 2 of us enjoy and we do these on days where the third person is not in. That can be once a week or once a month.

No-one's said anything about buying small portions of food or cooking more often, or food being wasted for that matter.

If I cook, I cook for 4, even if it's just me eating it, because that's how packs of food and recipes generally work. The rest is eaten as leftovers or frozen for another day. It also means that I don't need to cook every day, I might only cook a proper meal 2-3 times a week.

I agree that a shared meal is desirable, but when you can rarely agree on what to cook, there has to be some compromise, and for me, it's not going to be me eating something that isn't my first choice of food, when I'm the one that's doing the cooking.

We don't, but we (well me and the kids) do have lunch together. We're not in the UK and primary school finishes at 2 pm and high school at 240 so I have lunch with the kids every day at about 3.
Then in the evening I make them something, maybe different things, for tea. So our main meal is lunch.

I think family life is about sharing and compromise. So as our DC got older they have become Involved in planning what we eat. Everyone has a role to play, yes I do most of the cooking, but DC and DH help with shopping clearing up etc.. I find it strange that families don't eat together and that people are so fussy they can't find a meal they all like to share. I absolutely I am not meaning people with any form of disability or sensory issues in my comments though.

We've always sat together at the table to eat since the kids were in high chairs.
Evening meal was at 6pm sharp and they ate what I cooked.
We used to discuss anything and everything while eating.
The kids, now married with their own kids, have continued this in their own households.

Same here op, it’s like Piccadilly Circus in here, people coming and going so the rule is, if your here your here and if you want food at dinner time then that fine, if you don’t want what’s on the menu, it’s fend for yourself.