How do families with older/ adult kids manage timing meals when there are both larks and owls?

[GreenSoapSauce]

Our kids are adults and with partners.

When they come home:
One couple are larks - up and showered, breakfasted early. Ready for an early lunch, happy to have dinner early, eg 6:00/6:30pm (at home)
DH and I are on the same schedule.

The other couple are night owls. They rise late morning, faff about forever making/ having coffees. Breakfast 12:00pm, lunch 3:00pm or later. If I call at 8.30pm, they’re just making dinner.

We’re thinking of going on a family villa holiday next year, before they all start trying for babies (and life changes) but I just think there’s going to be irritation with the owls trying to make breakfast as the rest of us are clearing away after lunch.

So my idea would be that everyone just helps themselves and grazes during the day - with no formal/ set breakfast and lunch but, even with this, I anticipate the owls nudge and pressurising us to book restaurant tables later and later into the evening when the larks and DH and I would be happy to book for 7:00pm and be in bed soon after 10:00pm.

I’m thinking that a villa holiday is perhaps not the best idea for our family but am a bit sad about that.

Do any other families with grown-up children deal with this different time-zones issue? If so have you any advice for a villa holiday?

Yeah you do your own meals during the day, and most evenings. Book a couple of meals out for 7.30. Bit later for you, early for them. But mostly people sort their own food and schedules.

I would make it clear before the holiday that the evening meal will be 7pm every evening and you expect to eat together as a family.

What people do apart from that is up to them. But eating together every evening seems reasonable.

But it sounds like they are all adults, taking time off work to go on a holiday they want to enjoy? If everyone wants to eat at that time every day then fine, but you can't dictate it for people paying their way.

I would stick to the lark schedule, the owls are just eating breakfast when the larks are lunching, and lunching when the larks are having dinner, then they can make themselves a late dinner in the late evening.

I think the key is that everyone is considerate of the others, so not being noisy early or late, and not teasing about bedtimes or being late or eating strange things at strange times.

Picking the right sort of accommodation is also key, location of bedrooms away from the kitchen and living spaces would be very helpful

The way it’s always worked for us is that everyone does what they want during the day. Apart from anything else it would be like herding cats trying to get everybody together through the day, let alone the prep/ clear up etc.
Dinner is all together and whenever parents decide it is. People can stay up afterwards as long as they want to.

But the “children” are adults!

If they as adults, wish to eat later, they either have leftovers and heat it up or
they may be happy to buy and cook their own food?

I personally wouldn’t dream of telling my “adult” kids they have too eat at a certain time 🤷‍♀️

But if you aren't at least sharing the evening meal as a family is there much point in having a 'family' holiday together? Sounds like everyone will be spending time doing their own thing and not mixing.

I'd have thought a shared evening meal where you caught up on the day's happenings was the most sociable thing to do. Otherwise you might as well all holiday separately.

I expect larks and owls for dinner 6.30 pm. Not that hard.

Agree on a compromise time for dinner and make it the one meal you all eat together.

If the holiday is abroad you will seriously struggle to book for dinner at 6.30 anyway, in much of Europe most restaurants won't even open before 7.30-8.

Do your own thing for breakfast and lunch. Agree a compromise time for dinner- 7.30-8.00? But I would present it as being a plan you're working out together, not you telling them what to do. Presumably they're all keen to eat together and can be a bit flexible. Do you have any reason to think they are going "nudge and pressurising us to book restaurant tables later and later into the evening"- this would be quite odd.

I think you’re all adults going on holiday, you all sort out your own food when you’re hungry, but maybe as a ‘family’ discuss a few set mealtimes where you will all meet up and enjoy a family holiday lunch or dinner- meaning that both the parks and the owls will have to adapt on those occasions.

we have this at home.

i’m a lark my Dd is an owl.

compromise is we have one meal together at 6pm. It’s my dinner and her lunch.

me: brekkie 6am lunch noon dinner 6pm
her: brekkie noon lunch 6pm dinner fuck knows when.

We have an extended family like this and we found a cruise worked really well (surprise for me, I didnt think I would enjoy it). Food is available so readily it stopped being an issue - some ate before evening entertainment and some after, we often had an afternoon tea and biscuit with those eating their belated mid-afternoon ‘lunch’. Perhaps a good AI would work in a similar way?

Thanks for all your comments, everyone. Food for thought x

I agree one meal per day at a set time. And everyone agree to respect the others ways. I find people who are still up when others go to bed tend to try to keep it down more but early risers seem more entitled to make noise because they perceive everyone else should be up too. Maybe that's just my personal experience with people. I'd also try to put early risers over the kitchen and owls over the sitting room to minimise disruption.

As an ‘owl’ I’d be very careful of following any suggestions here of ‘making clear’ of a dinner time of 7:30. If my PIL tried to impose that on me I’d be saying fuck that and wanting 0 ‘family time’.

There’s a moral superiority morning people have compared to evening people and I see it reflected in your OP. Talking of them ‘faffing’ around forever in the morning and pressuring you to eat later than you want. Can’t you recognise that you’d also be pressuring them to eat earlier than they want? And that they probably think you ‘faff’ at a different time.

To make a holiday like this work there needs to be equal compromise from both sides (I.e. if they want to eat at 9 and you at 7, you split the difference at 8, not 7:30) and total non judgement about the others schedules. No jibey comments about them eating the day in bed or ‘gosh, how do you manage to stay in bed so long’. Nothing kills a family holiday quicker than resentment, and you only seem to foresee it building on ‘your’ side, make sure you’re conscious of the other ‘side’ too.

Go with your time schedule for daytime but I personally would want to be eating later than 7pm . It’s normal in my circle to eat later than 7pm at any time and even more so on holiday.

7 is very early for eating out, I'm neither lark nor owl but it's pretty normal to book for 7.30 at the earliest when eating out unless it's pre-theatre or cinema.