to think it is just not necessary to have a dining table anymore?

[LDNmummy]

Traditionally it has always been the look of a good home to have a dining table, preferably with its own area/ room in a house for family gatherings.

But, with modern life as it is, I just don't think it is necessary to have one anymore, unless of course you genuinely use it at least once a week. But do most families anymore?

I don't know many families who still go through the process of sitting around the dining table every weekend let alone every day, possibly for the fact that it is a little extra effort people are not as formal about anymore and sitting together doesn't have to be around a table but even just in the living room watching the telly together IYSWIM.

Plus, houses are not always big enough to accomodate a large family sized table and some may just feel it isnt worth the hassle to cram one in.

I also think this about the large cabinets that traditionally housed all a households fine dining wear that would come out on special occasions.

Aren't these bulky pieces of furniture that take up lots of space and are rarely used outdated now except with older people?

My MIL has a six seater table in the living room that could easily fit eight diners but is used properly about once a year. Half the reason for that is that it is too big and has to be crammed against a wall so isnt convenient to sit around daily or even weekly anyway. She also has a very large display cabinet full of her best dining wear wich is only used when special guests such as family travelling from abroad are visiting, which is rarely.

She is about 60 and in her eyes these two items of furniture are essential to beautify a home as well as for practical reasons, which IMO is questionable. My DM and all the older women in my family feel the same way.

But isnt this just all outdated and unecessary faff a house can do without in a time when people are no longer as formal when it comes to situations such as dining?

This thread is soooooooooooo mumsnet.

we ate dinner on our laps tonight because of this thread.

Another one who eats at the table every meal, though not a dining table but a kitchen table. I've got a dining table in our 2nd reception room, originally dining room probably, but use it as my desk and for dressmaking. The table we eat all meals off in the kitchen is a bit of a squash but the food is so yummy - of course - that nobody minds once we're all squashed in with no hope of getting out until the meal is over. The table is a huge part of our life and I would be bereft without it. Everything happens around that table. I don't think eating at the table is middle class - in my working class childhood we never ate anywhere else except at the table, with our designated places.

I'd hate to eat our meals in the living room, particularly in front of the telly - how depressing. I almost always serve the food at the table in serving dishes which we wouldn't be able to use in the living room - or if we did it would make a huge mess. Plus the smell of the food in the living room - yuk. Mind you, we had a few meals in front of wimbledon this year. They put the matches on at such an inconvenient time - hardly time to cook it let alone eat it

We don't have a table there is not enough room in the house as I have to use one of them to teach in. There is just the two of us though and we often have to eat at different times so it doesn't matter.

We chat about the day in bed or whilst walking the dogs.

I've a dining table that has not been used since Christmas 2009.

Before that Christmas 2008.

There are two of us here me and my son has been for four years, he eats with his dinner plate on the floor on a tray, and I don't eat dinners.

We eat off our laps in front of the telly. We tend to pause the telly because you can't concentrate on two things at once

As a child I ate in front of the telly too and DH ate standing up before rushing out to do sport. We've not found this a serious bar to eating in restaurants or performing in polite company.

The only thing I would say about DH is he likes to eat from a big shared plate while stretched out on the floor, resting on one elbow and using a fork in the other hand. I always spill food on the floor, clash heads and get indigestion.

We eat at the dining table because it's practical.

We eat every breakfast and evening meal together (me, DP and DD); and often lunch too.

It's easier to sit at a table to eat and it's more sociable and certainly beneficial to DD.

I think the formal dining room is of dwindling utility - my parents, for example, have a large dining kitchen (the table in there seats 6 comfortably,8 at a push). Therefore we literally only use their formal dining room at Christmas time. This always seems like a waste of a perfectly good room and some pretty expensive furniture.

However their kitchen table gets used for every meal, as do the tables that my sibs and I own. None of us has reached the dizzy heights yet of having a separate dining room. I entertain a lot and can't imagine not being able to seat guests for dinner.

What my parents younger neighbours are increasingly doing is knocking the dining room through into the already generous kitchen to create a massive family living space. They have tables and toy corners. Homework desks where computers can be used under parental supervision and comfy seats for adults to lounge in.

Much more practical....

YABU

You don't have to have outdated furniture if that's not your thing, but the concept of a dinig table or room is not outdated imo.

We dismantled our dining table for one week when we were having new flooring in the dining room. It was awful, the kids ate on the floor on a picnic rug, they have no concept of eating off their laps. I was so glad when we got our table back...

What is this 'modern living' concept, where people do not prioritise eating together or spending time around a table?

YABU

You'll be surprised by how soon you'll be needing a table - what are you planning to do when you wean your dc at 4-6mo? It comes around faster than you'd think!

I'd also bet that you'll rethink the crafting etc in the home office. There is no way I'd want paint/glitter/glue etc all over my work area, whereas it's no issue on the kitchen table.

Sorry, was off eating dinner not at the dining table

And at cheesesarnie and *MrsDevere, very MN indeed.

The thing that strikes me the most about the responses on this thread is that 99% of people seem to think that not eating at a table equates poor manners generally or having the telly on throughout as well as frozen or ready meals which seems very presumptuos to me.

One person even said her husband whom she chose to marry was' dragged up' because he grew up eating this way and it is uncivilised. But then she chose to marry a person who grew up this way so must surely not be all those negative things regardless??

"The thing that strikes me the most about the responses on this thread is that 99% of people seem to think that not eating at a table equates poor manners generally or having the telly on throughout as well as frozen or ready meals which seems very presumptuos to me."

Yeah, I'm just off to shovel food down my "gob", talk while my mouth is full, and belch loudly.

He was eating at a table by the time I married him.

I DO think it's uncivilised to eat off your laps. I can't imagine not having a table. its like not having a bed or a sofa.
Quite apart from the mess of eating with food balanced on your lap at every meal!

It wasn't until I moved in with DH that I knew he owned a laptray. I was horrified tbh, but now I quite like slobbing out with him.
You're right, people do presume if you're eating off you lap, that it won't be a home cooked meal. Maybe most if us want a bit of fuss over the food we've taken time to prepare? It feels more like people notice what you've done for them when they sit at a table. I hope modern living doesn't take that away.

We don't have kids yet and still eat at the table every night. If DP's out I'll eat on my lap with a book in the other hand, and if I'm not here he does the same. When I work from home I have lunch at the table on my own, and often breakfast as well. It saves mess and, if we're both in, facilitates conversation.

I'd love a kitchen table, but sadly there's no space.

Well, I grew up with a dining table hidden at the back of the lounge under massive piles of crap and we only ever used it for Xmas/Easter dinners. We ate on the sofa in front of the TV. I grew up fine but I think it had two consequences: firstly, me and my parents never took the time to communicate properly and I became a total telly addict. Secondly, when I grew up I felt really sad that my parents never made the effort to be together as a family and a dinner table was top of my list when we bought our house.

Obviously, my family had general issues that went way beyond dinner! Can you get by without a table? Of course. But it's a) very practical, and b) a nice family thing to do, especially with little ones. Your kids will thank you for it in future :)

OP, your whole OP is based on presumption: that nobody else dines "formally", that everyone wastes space with dining tables, that nobody eats around the table due to "modern life"... whatever that means, I think you mean your life.

I lost my dining room.

I lost it around the time my son became big enough to ask "Mummy, why do you have a big bedroom, does my sister have a big bedroom, do YOUR BOOKS have a big bedroom and I have a small one?

I wasn't sure how "Because my books won't fit in the little room and you will" would affect future therapy bills, so something had to give, and the dining room became my study. We do have a table in the kitchen, though.

However, I've been missing it lately, and it has occurred to me that now it's no longer necessary for a computer to have a tower, I could ditch my old computer desk, redistribute the peripherals and have a table again instead.

OP, I think that of course yanbu to have whatever furniture you want in your own home.
The collective experience of MN suggests that you may rethink this when your own child is on the scene.
YABU, clearly, to think that due to modern living most people don't need a table.

Having a formal dining room on top of a kitchen table is a different matter, and I do think that having one when you're struggling for space in the rest of the house isn't necessarily reasonable.

YABU.

We eat breakfast, lunch and supper at the table. We don't have a dining room, but our lounge is big enough for a table which seats 8 so it isn't a problem. I can't imagine not eating at the table. The TV is never on when we eat either!

Bizarre. How else do you eat? What do you do with the children when they eat?

I don't understand why anyone wouldn't want to eat at a table?!? That's what they're for, after all, whether kitchen or dining tables.

Eating off a tray or a side-table or on the floor or sitting cross-legged or whatever other options posters have suggested here sounds so much more awkward and messy. You'd surely just end up with splatters of food all over your soft furniture or down the front of your clothes etc. Ugh. Eating at a set designated dining/kitchen table keeps all the mess in one area that you can clean easily. Wooden dining table, wooden floors in our house = minimum mess.

Also, OP, don't you live with your MIL? Have a vague recollection of this from a thread you posted a while back seeking legal advice. If you do, I do hope you let her decide whether she wants to keep her furniture. It might not be to your taste, but it's her home.