Another thing I've just learned on Mumsnet....

[CurlewKate]

Families don't all have their own places at the dinner table-some people just sit anywhere. I am dumbstruck!

I know families like this and take guilty pleasure in sitting in one of 'their' seats when visiting. You can see they are annoyed, but they realise just how petty it would be to complain.

Ha! I have my grandmas kitchen table as my dining table and I sit where she used to sit and watch birds and write her letters.

Maybe we should mix it up though

I've got 4 children and we all have our own places at the table - 2 have moved out and 1 is at uni but when they are home they sit in the same seats. When I had a big car to transport them they had the same seats then. The reason for us was that it cut the arguments. I feel weird if I don't sit in the "correct" seat

On the sofa or in the kitchen on a stool at the worktop. Surely it's no surprise that people exist who a) can't afford a dining table or b) haven't got room for one? 🤨

Same here, but now I can't remember who couldn't sit next to who. But we still have 'our places' at the table, though when ds's gf is over for dinner he moves one seat over. The main reason we have our own places is my youngest has specific cutlery and my eldest has dietary needs, so we know where to put things when the table is set.

If there is just the three of us we have our own seats. If we have extra family over it's a free-for-all.

I was brought up in a dining table family- and eating on the sofa-or in my case on the floor leaning on the sofa feels like the best treat ever!

I think that's really rude of you, doing that on purpose.

I have a friend who doesn’t even have a side of the bed. Apparent she and her DH just “sleep where they land” 😂

Their kids also only nominally have their own rooms and regularly swap about, where one will go to bed to find one of their siblings already asleep there. (Teens, not toddlers)

@CurlewKate I haven't sat at a dining table since I was about 9 so eating on sofa is basically normal to me now😄 I'm 37 btw

We all had our own seats at the dining table, in the living room, and in the car! I still sit in the same place when visiting, anything else would just feel wrong!

As petty as deliberately sitting there, one might say.

People don't have a side of the bed?!!

I always sleep on the same side even when staying elsewhere. It just wouldn't feel right having DH on the wrong side of me 😆

Even if DH is away, or it's just me staying somewhere alone, I stick to my side of the bed.

@Seeline I've got a side of the bed but if DH wasn't there I'd just starfish it. DH has got very annoying habit of creeping over to my side so I'd enjoy the space whilst I had it🤣🤣🤣

I had to move sides when I had an injury. You'd think the world had ended from DH reaction! I'm less bothered and would rather swap around e.g. if on holiday but he's very set in his ways!

It's actual madness I bet these people think they are all cool and edgy they are phsycopaths !

We don't have our own seats at the dining table but in the sitting room we absolutely do

DS is only one who has his own space at the dining table, the rest of us just sit wherever we land. Typically who gets there first sits at the back. We do always eat in a "self serve" style though so doesn't matter where plates land as they're all empty and everyone helps themselves from the food in the middle. The children love having the ability to choose their servings.

😂

But the sofa is in the sitting room not the dining room.

One of our first inklings that the DC might not the completely neurotypical was the absolute importance of one's own place at the table. That, and crowd control so no DC was within kicking distance of anyone else. Then we added cutlery / food specifics and it all grew from there.

Like many other families, we also have set places in the car (we even ask "are you getting in John's side, or Ellen's?) and broadly set but TV-viewing-specific seats in the living room!

How on earth do you manage otherwise? 🤣

Mine have a place in the car too. They're 19 and 16. The 19yo has his own car but even now if they're driving with me DS sits behind the driver.

OMG, please don't tell DH! He's a proper Sheldon Cooper when it comes to seating arrangements 🙄.

We have our own set seats now but when the children were younger they would chop and change, next to each other, opposite each other, diagonal to each other. So now Ds1 and I are on one side of the table and Dh and Ds2 are on the other, I am diagonal to Dh. It means a parent is next to and opposite their children.

To go one further, technically we have matching upholstered dining chairs however mine and Dh's were bought earlier as the children had a rip off version of the Tripp Trapp chairs at the time. When we bought their chairs to match ours they had changed the seat construction so when you sit on it it feels different, think one is hard and one is much softer. The chairs all have our initials sharpied on the underside so everyone gets the right chair

If we have guests their places have name cards so no one sits in the wrong place.

My parents had their set place and kids just sat wherever