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Aren't these bulky pieces of furniture that take up lots of space and are rarely used outdated now except with older people?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But isnt this just all outdated and unecessary faff a house can do without in a time when people are no longer as formal when it comes to situations such as dining?

[LittleOneMum]

Just having a think about how we've used ours in the last 24 hours (going back in time)

• this morning, DD and DS had breakfast there and we read DS's favorite book - Busy Day at the Airport
  
• last night, DH and I had dinner there
  
• yesterday afternoon, DS and I cut out paper 'medals' and coloured them in so that he could pin them on his t-shirt for being 'brave'
  
• ILs, DH, DS and I ate there at lunchtime yesterday
  

I think YABU - where else would you do these things otherwise?

[MrsPresley]

I'd love a dining table to eat at all the time! Unfortunately we dont have the room for one, but we do have small fold away tables that are used for meal times and they work just as well for us.

We used to have a small 4 place dining table but to be honest the sitting room looked too cluttered and it started getting used as a dumping ground.

[SoloAgainItSeems]

Personally, I find a dining table is invaluable. Children can learn from you at a table, you can talk to them and actually find out about them whilst eating; that is unlikely to happen in front of home and away.
I use mine to sew on too.

[StarryEyedMama]

How sad - I don't think I could live in a house without a table, it is an essential part of our family life. The kids eat all their meals (except when at school) at the table plus do arts and crafts etc. We war as a family every evening and if people come over socially they'll sit St it and have a cup of tea etc. Im sure there has been a study somewhere that shows thar not having meals at a table with your family can be detrimental in terms of health and also your family's emotional stability.

[ivykaty44]

Are you doing you research on here for a newspaper article?

[VelvetSnow]

why the need for welsh dressers on a farm?

[tortilla]

It appears from what pretty much everyone except LDNmummy is saying that eating at a table is the norm. Hence, as none of us appears to be living in the 1860s, they are obviously entirely compatible with 'modern living' and given most MNers have small, messy children they are probably not very formal either...

[NewbeeMummy]

We eat almost every evening meal at our dining room table, we have a small house and our table is shoved to the back of the living room.

We often eat lunch or breakfast on the run, so unless it's a cooked meal we'll eat it where ever we find a place.

But I like the 30 minutes of no TV, chatting about our days time that we get, instead of just wolfing down food in front of the telly.

[StarryEyedMama]

Grrr silly text prediction. War = eat and St = at!!

[AmazingBouncingFerret]

ivy I didnt know LDNMummy was a journalist!

[Georgimama]

Our dining room has become the playroom, but we still have the dining table and chairs - they are in the big room/drawing room/family room/whatever you want to call it. Fortunately that is a fairly large room so easily accommodated. Admittedly we only eat at it once or twice a week.

However the kitchen table is used for breakfast and dinner every day. We could do without one or the other but the thought of having nowhere at all to sit down together, talk, share food, discuss the day, plan things - no. That sounds horrible.

[worraliberty]

We've even shagged on ours

It wasn't very formal though

[worldgonecrazy]

YABU. The only meal we eat in front of the TV is pizza. My parents eat every meal at the dining table, and now we have a DD we do the same. How can children learn table manners if they don't have a table?

[cheesesarnie]

i couldnt imagine not having a dinning table.its used daily for everything not just eating.

[cheesesarnie]

mexican is the one meal we dont eat at the table!we have picnic in the front room.

[MrsTittleMouse]

I'd like a house big enough for two dining room tables - the one to eat off, and the one to do all the craft/painting/homework/house admin on.

We eat on ours every day. It's not "formal", it's just a normal part of life (and much easier to keep small children clean-ish on a table, rather than in the lounge. The only problem is moving all the craft etc. off at dinner time. :)

[swanker]

We eat at our dining table 2 or 3 times a day.
We have never once eaten in the sitting room in this house (here 5 years +)
No room in the kitchen for a table though, would be lovely to have a smaller informal table in there, but just not the space.

[itisnearlysummer]

tortilla perhaps, even essestial for modern living, given the homework, hobbies, activities that children do at them and the busy lives that mean we don't spend so much time together at other times.

[Cosmosis]

We use ours every day, I can?t imagine not having family meals. DS is only 10m but we all have breakfast together and we have lunch together when we?re not at work. And when DS have his tea, we still all sit together even though it?s way to early for us to have our meal, because I think families eating together is a really important part of family life.

[BecauseImWorthIt]

How ridiculous to assert that modern living is incompatible with having/eating at a dining table!

Or is this the same kind of 'living' that sees all meals made in the microwave, so that you no longer need a kitchen either?

YABU

[mollymole]

we use ours on a regular basis for meaks, crafts, newspaper reading etc and would not be without it - and it is is a room with no TV

[ivykaty44]

me neither - it is just the way the post has been written that it came across as research rather than a genuine and made me wonder?

[mumblechum1]

We use the dining table when all three of us are eating together, but just the kitchen table when ds and I.

When ds's friend is round for tea (he practically lives with us), they have dinner in the kitchen and we have ours in the dining room (they don't have the same topics of conversation ).

We don't eat in front of the tv because we hardly ever go in the telly room.