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Aren't these bulky pieces of furniture that take up lots of space and are rarely used outdated now except with older people?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But isnt this just all outdated and unecessary faff a house can do without in a time when people are no longer as formal when it comes to situations such as dining?

Kalinda

"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."

Wow how nasty! So now I'm some villainous DIL because I mentioned my MIL's taste in furniture? I also mentioned that my own mother is the same as well as many of the older women in my family. Actually I wasn't seeking legal advice but advice about buying a home from her generally as I have never bought a home and didn't understand this kind of process. The house isnt actually hers alone, it is ours and even my money goes towards its maintenance and mortgage payments to keep it ours. She also owns a second home and has given DH and I the go ahead to redecorate this one as she is moving all this furniture to her other home and she wants us to prepare this one for our new life with a baby.

As for my OP being presumptuous, obviously you didn't notice that it was a question. See that sentence at the end where I summarised with a question? And in that case obviously I wasn't presuming anything but rather asking the opinions of others on the matter to see if they matched mine, majority answer being no which I accepted a long time ago.

Don't eat from your lap

Don't let anyone else eat from your lap

it's just plain wrong

Hully, I think you'll find that there are special dvds out there for people who do that

Oooo hubba hubba

I can't imagine not having a dining/kitchen table - in our house it's where everything happens, from homework to crafts to meals to just veging with the Sunday papers.

I think it's a huge part of family life to encourage our children to eat, with good manners, and converse and enjoy that whole ritual.

I feel quite depressed at the idea of eating from trays on our laps with the TV on, or sometimes off.

Sit at a table so that you have to look at each other!

I wonder how people will react then if I let slip that I eat with my hands most days

You are DISGUSTING

Did you know there are whole continents where people carry on like that?

GET SOME CUTLERY, GUYS

I eat curry with my hands. Best way IMO.

If you don't have a dining room, where do you stack your unopened post and paperwork?

Big at Hully

Far from unnecessary. I guess you might consider we have 3 dining tables- tables at which we eat as a family. They are also the tables that get used for craft projects, dumping school letters on and one currently has a sewing machine on.

2 are gate leg folding tables , teh 3rd is big round table that lives in our conservatory- we eat there in the warmer months and its dumping ground in winter when we eat at one of the other tables either in kitchen or dining room depending on temperature/ day light levels.

I just shove it behind all the empty pizza boxes in the corner of the living room.

I thought thats what everyone did

LDNmummy so have you been convinced that you need a table of some kind when you redecorate, if not a dining room one?

Absolutely essential, otherwise the children would cover my kitchen table with PVA, glitter and little bits of paper!

I eat my post, but with silverware

LaWeasel I am still unsure as I didn't grow up with one (cultural reasons) yet my parents still instilled table manners in me from a very young age (which fork is for what and don't pick the ice out of your glass to chew etc..)

I do see the sense in it, as many have pointed out practical reasons for having one, but I suppose I have come to the conclusion that that is only because of having a child.

Otherwise, I don't think it is necessary. Unless you really need a wooden board with four legs to keep you in communication with other members of your household because the TV is far too alluring and your will too weak to simply switch it off.

Different strokes for different folks and all that.

I am not sure how much we would bother with ours if we didn't have DD. But the amount of food she can smear everywhere is just ridiculous. Plus the other practical stuff.

Socialising with friends changes a bit post kids as well, definately much more likely to have a meal with friends or relatives and need a seperate space to do it while kids run around elsewhere.

LD, don't get too excited. Your question, when it came, after your dissertation presuming everyone lives and thinks like you, contained the presumption that this is "a time when people are no longer as formal when it comes to situations such as dining?". In fact, your question is essentially rhetorical since it is, as you point out, in essence a summary of your preceding statements and not actually seeking any answers. And lo and behold, after pretty much everyone on this thread contradicted your stance, you still think everyone else is wrong. Because we are all too feeble to resist the TV and you are so superior.

Sorry if I offended you re your MIL's furniture, I wasn't intimating you were about to send her dresser to Oxfam, or anything. Just that living with other people's taste in furniture can be a lesson in tolerance (speaking from experience here). Obviously not going to be a problem for you.

Don't have a dining table if you don't want one. But just because you don't want the option to eat round a dining table, don't presume that no-one else will either.

Fwiw - we eat together round the dining table sometimes, and enjoy that - both on ordinary days and special occasions like Christmas (I can't imagine eating christmas dinner sitting on the couch, whether or not the tv was on). I like having my morning coffee and reading the newspaper at the dining table (I find it easier to read the paper and do the puzzles sitting at a table). I use the dining table for craft activities such as sewing and painting. The boys use the dining table to sort out the papers for their sunday paper rounds - that takes a lot of space, and can't be done on the floor (people prefer their papers not to have been chewed/sat on by the dog). We use the dining table to put out the buffet on when we have parties. I write my christmas cards at it, so I can spread out the different cards, the address list and the labels. It's a very handy place to wrap all the christmas presents.

So you are being very narrowminded to assume that a dining table can only be used for dining, and very narrowminded to assume that, just because you don't want to eat formally, at a dining table, no-one else does either!

Only eat at the table.

Eating on the sofa always ends in stains and mess.

When I was a child we had every meal at the table in the kitchen. When we had visitors we used the dining room as it was bigger and the table there was bigger. We used the dining room at Xmas too; it made it more of a special occasion.

When we were a little older, we would all eat supper in the sitting room, balancing plates on our knees. Mum would bring everything in from the kitchen on a trolley and dish up from there. Dad had a tray on the piano stool. Lunches at the w/e were always at the kitchen table.

Eventually we stopped using the dining room as dad had turned the table into his desk ....

With my own family, dh detests eating on his knees and insists we have supper in the kitchen round the table. We have a big kitchen and can fit at least 6 people round the table. We are lucky. When dh is out for the evening, dd and I eat in the sitting room; it is a 'treat'.

The kitchen table is used for everything. Prepping food, homework, my studying, chatting with friends, art/craft and loads more I can't think of right now.

I love it. I cannot imagine how I could have fed dd when she was tiny without a kitchen table, really. Well, I can, but I don't want to

Mind you, when I was single I didn't need or have a kitchen/dining room table and didn't miss it at all.

"I wonder if people really have the time to go through the hassle of setting the table and sitting as a family formally."

It isn't exactly a hassle to lay out table mats and cutlery. We always eat round the dining room tabel. Our kitchen isn't big enough to accommodate a table and I hate sitting hunched over a TV meal on the settee - a great way to get indigestion. We don't eat "formally", we eat together as a family round the table because it is the most practical way to eat a meal.

You obviously mix with different types of people to the ones I do.

We don't have DC but we love our dining table (can seat up to 10) and we have a cabinet with formal china/best crystal in it - and I'm 46, not an old fart. We love sitting at it, especially when we have guests and I really like it when we have big family get togethers and can seat the whole clan (including DC) comfortably round it. Mid week we do eat in the living room but this in no way removes the need for the table. I also use the table when i am sewing/quilting or wrapping very large presents. DH loves reading the weekend papers at it as he can spread out.