To ask if anyone else prefer eating their evening meal on a tray?

[FredSoftly]

I have friends who insist that every meal is eaten en famille at the table so everyone can "talk about their day." Then they complain that it's often tense or their teens are moody and uncommunicative.

When I suggest tea on a tray, they gasp in horror!

We often do this in front of the TV and it can make for a nice relaxed evening. We also manage to chat a lot without facing each other across the kitchen table on a nightly basis.

Am I common?

But eating every meal at a table smacks of unwoke, right-wing white privilege

Geez - bum oot the windae talk!

Always eat our meals at a table - and did it when I was poor and living in a council house.

I have really bad misphonia so there’s no way I could eat at the table with my DH - he’s not a noisy eater, but he knows any sound makes me want to stab him, which puts him on edge. We now sit in front of the TV with cushion bottom trays and watch things like House of Games - we still chat, there’s no stress and we enjoy it.

@TurquoiseDragon can you post the recipe for that please?

Every meal is eaten around the table - breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I prefer eating around the dining table as a family with the television off.

I will happily eat snacks sitting on the sofa but never a meal.

All I suppose I mean how do you know how much you want to eat, aren't you continually going back to the kitchen to top your plate up. Or maybe we eat too much?

And I can't imagine how you concentrate on your meal, chatting and watching tv? We've now finished our meal (at the kitchen table), DH is clearing up, I am in the sofa (mumsnetting) & then we will decide watch to watch for another hour, personally I can't watch more than one programme per evening does that make me right wing & privileged?

And what if you don't like watching the same sort of tv? I have no wish to sit through some of my DH's choices when I am eating, and I imagine he feels exactly the same about the sort of things I want to watch. You must be a very lucky couple/family if you are all happy to watch the same tv show together.

We eat at the table except on sundays when we have a main meal at lunch and then tea on a tray on our laps in front of the TV. The kids (and me, sadly) get quite excited by our sunday TV tea! I enjoy eating around the table. It teaches kids the 'art of conversation' for want a less pretentious phrase. We chat in passing of course throughout the day, but at the table there are no distractions - unless you count a battle over vegetables - and so they need to properly listen and properly make conversation. It was handy training for restaurants and going to friends houses, as their expectation was to sit and join in the conversation and not ask to be 'let down' every 30 seconds after a few bites (they are older now so it's not an issue of course but from an early age, about 4/5 they were happy to sit at a table and talk and I was happy with that). Also, I read some really interesting research somewhere that I can't now find again (not v helpful, sorry) that scientists did a big cohort study on children and vocabulary and ability with language and something else (possibly general academic success) and it correlated more strongly with whether their family ate dinner together most nights around a table than almost any other thing . . . . it was more a predictor of success than economic background.

www.goodnet.org/articles/9-scientifically-proven-reasons-to-eat-dinner-as-family
Some of this is interesting, some fairly predictable.

I hate that connection with eating round a table and vocabulary. It assumes no one ever speaks apart from round a table.

3 adult dc, we often didn’t eat round a table.

One high up in civil service
One doing PhD and been offered job by Cambridge who sought him out
One a journalist in national press ( and he has dyslexia)

So l don’t like that theory. It assumes no one ever talks unless at a table.

I grew up eating at the table on weekdays and in front of the TV on weekends. It was a nice balance.

Although if I had the occasional bout of fatigue I could eat in bed.

I do have friends who insist on every meal at the table and they sometimes complain of moody, uncommunicative teens or tense, sullen DHs at the table and I think stress might be alleviated by not eating every single meal en famille.

If they have moody uncommunicative teens or tense sullen DH's at the table, I'd say they have bigger issues than always eating at the table. And that the table is not the main culprit.

Teens are often uncommunicative, table or not. It’s what teens are designed to be like.

But eating every meal at a table smacks of unwoke, right-wing white privilege.

ha ha ha ha ha I assume this poster is being ironic, or they don't know any left wingers or non-white people? Because this would come as news to my immigrant mother and my council house grandparents - have they been doing 'woke left-wing immigrant' wrong to date? Someone come and tell them to abandon their tables and embrace the freedoms of the TV tray teas!

Possibly Lweji or maybe their families don't thrive on prescribed togetherness.

I can understand the table aspect, although I'd prefer eating then chatting or chatting while waiting for food

There are some very strange comments on here. Our children have a little table which they eat at but we eat sat on the sofa. I don’t understand the comments about not being able to use a knife and fork? Dinner is on a plate, as it would be on a table. The plate is on a tray. Why on earth wouldn’t we be able to use a knife and fork? Also the comments about digestion - maybe it depends on your sofa but ours allows us to sit upright so I’m at no different an angle to when I sit at a table. We have a coffee table within reaching distance for our drinks.

There are some very judgy people on here.

@unmarkedbythat

I know it's a lot to do with luck but my child is not a fussy eater at all and I think a lot of that is due to home cooked meals eaten together with no distraction and us rolemodelling

It's luck. I have one child who will eat just about anything, one who was so self restricted we had to work with a psychologist when he was young, and one who is slap bang between the two. I'm sure your home cooked meals are lovely, that eating them together without distraction is great fun and that your role modelling is a pinnacle of parenting, though.

Obviously hit a nerve with you. Very bitter

@FredSoftly

Possibly Lweji or maybe their families don't thrive on prescribed togetherness.

A meal can't be much more than, say, 30 min, if meals together are so horrid and so often that your friends complain about them, I really don't think it will be because they have to be around the table. It seems more like they can't stand each other.

When the kids were little we ate at the table. Now as teens, me and my daughter eat with those bean bag trays (perfectly easy to eat anything off them, no need to slouch), chat about the day and watch a box set. My son does his own cooking and eats at a different time.

I'm autistic and cannot physically bear to hear people eating, its like being tortured - so our lives became a lot easier when we bought trays and started eating watching TV instead. Never had any issues with mess or posture.

Its really interesting how snooty some people are on this thread about it all though. I have to say, I wouldn't have expected that. I don't get it. Its just fuel and we need it to survive. Eat it and get out on a healthy walk where you can talk about nothing for the four millionth time during lockdown instead

There are some very judgy people on here.

I am afraid I do judge.

It's just slovenly isn't it? Fine as a student or for an odd takeaway but not every night. My DC are young so it would be too messy anyway but even so I would never allow it as a regular thing. It just brings the image of Jim from the Royal family to mind.

@blueshoes

There are some very judgy people on here.

I am afraid I do judge.

Good for you.

Must be a sad life to be such a judgemental twat.

Being short of leg, big of boob and a large settee I always found I couldn't sit properly with my feet on the floor and always ended up with dribbles of food on my tops. Along with the stomach problems of not sitting upright it's always eat at the table for all meals.

I am not going to start eating at the table because some people think it’s common to eat on the sofa. What a funny thing to judge people on. I would judge talking with a mouthful, scraping the plate or slurping, not where I sit to eat it. I also don’t understand what’s difficult to understand. If you have a tray you can use a knife and fork easily to cut your food. You don’t have to slouch and you put your drink on the table in from with the condiments. It’s hardly a wild concept. And I personally think it is a lot of rubbish that children in restaurants are better if they normally eat at a table. We didn’t and had impeccable manners. People used to comment on it. How on earth would you know who does and does not eat at a table, do you hand out surveys? I am often shocked when I see how many kids behave in restaurants but that is parenting in general, not eating at a table.

I'm genuinely (and not in a shitty way) amazed at the amount of people who eat off lap trays. I suppose I never really have it much thought before reading this thread.

We eat every meal at the table. DS may stand at the kitchen counter with a bowl of cereal but apart from that we're a strictly white privileged, table using family