To think that it’s impossible to have a 6pm family dinner time?

[whatonearthishappenin]

Do people really sit down at 6 pm and eat dinner together as a family in the evening?

If so, how?

I’m not always home from work by then, my children have afterschool club and clubs… swimming, football, dance etc… how do people manage it?

We didn't even attempt this for years. Only Sunday lunch was doable for everyone at the same time.
Batch cooking was the only way and everyone got their portion when they had time to eat it. Less stressful all round.

Have never even tried. 6pm is way too early, I would just be eating again before bedtime.

My parents didn't eat before about 9 or 10 and I grew up with that as my normal. I try to eat between 7 and 8 if we are all eating together. My kids are older now and mostly sort their own meals when they are hungry, but even as littlies, they were rarely fed until 7.

Yes we did and still do but it’s a moveable feast in that it was between 6.30 to 7.30 . DH and I had a deal. He was home for dinner but after dinner and bedtime for children he could work in his office. Also there was none of this putting small children to bed at 6pm or an earlier dinner for children which a couple of my friends did and I didn’t even realise was a thing till then. DS had football twice a week so there was one training evening where he and I would eat without DH.

Culturally food is massively significant, you come to my house I’m offering you food. It is supposed to promote harmony and a sense of belonging so family meal time is a huge deal.DS is an adult but still at home. If anyone has something on we move the dinnertime around to attempt to accommodate all three of us. No TV and no devices.

It really depends on what time you walk through the door if not WFH and whether there's time then to cook for 6.

Dh comes home just before 6 3x a week ( at home the other days), I WFH so the latest I stop is 5 but I'm only PT.

We have clubs every night but Friday and they are over by 5 except brownies which is after dinner.

It's doable but you have to plan ahead.

We do but it just depends on your family set up I guess. There’s me (home full time), dh who works 10 mins walk down the road 9-5 weekdays and Ds aged 13 who has autism and doesn’t do any clubs etc (doesn’t want to) so we’re always ready to eat around 6. When I was younger my mum and dad both worked and Mum and I always ate around 7.30/8, Dad was hardly ever around for dinner.

how do people manage it?

because not everyone has the same lifestyle as you.

We sit down for dinner event evening, before 6 actually, husband WFH, I finish at 4.30 and clubs are at the weekend.

Do what works for your family and your lifestyle as it is.

We have dinner every night around 5.45. I either wfh or am home by 4ish. Dh home by 5.30 and dc has sports later in the evening so needs to eat at that time to let it settle.

We never eat at 6pm and I don’t know anyone else who does either. I might feed the DC then but DH is never home from work before 7.30pm. That’s the norm if you live in a London suburb and work in town - the earliest you might leave work is 6/6.30pm and then an hour+ commute home - assuming the tubes/trains are behaving! (as a poster earlier commented).

I do know a couple of families who don’t need to work long hours for various reasons but even they don’t eat together at 6pm due to hobbies & kids’ after school clubs/sports.

People are just much busier nowadays.

People are just much busier nowadays

Compared to when? What rot. And no, your norms are not the norms, people live in London suburbs and leave work before 6.30 pm. Not everyone does your work pattern.

I'm childless and probably past the point of having them, but this always bothered me when I tried to imagine how life would actually work with kids. Work finishes 5.30 if you're lucky, then an hour home. Only you need to pick them up from nursery by 6 and small children do need to eat earlier. I simply don't see how it works. Or rather I watched other people scrabbling to make it work or never eating with their kids etc.

It's one of the contributory factors to why I don't have them.

@BrokenHipster
Not in my part of SW London they don’t. Yes I suppose I should have caveated that I can really only talk about where I live and people I know - apologies!
Rents/house prices are so expensive here that you need to be in a very highly paid job and/or work very long hours (unless you’re lucky enough to have family money). A small 3-bed house here can cost more than £1.5 million and there aren’t many jobs that can finance that sort of mortgage and allow you to leave work at 5pm for the day.

I find batch cooking and the nights when everyone is eating at different times infinitely more stressful. It feels like the kitchen is never closed.
So much easier to cook once, everyone eats, cleans up and be done for the day.

@StrawberrySquash
Yes it’s definitely complicated. My work allowed me to leave at 5pm to get back for nursery pick-up with the expectation I’d log in again later that evening but with unreliable trains etc it was just easier to get a nanny in the end especially with more than one child.
When my DC were young I never ate with my kids on days I was in the office but rather with DH when he got in at about 8pm.
My DC are teenagers now so we do actually eat together quite often in the evenings - but they still need a (large!) snack as soon as they get in from school to keep them going.

It was just the way it had to be. I had a toddler and 2 almost teenagers. I worked 7 till 4, dh worked from 9 till 7. Dh did breakfast/ childminder. Older 2 sorted themselves out. I did childminder pick up, and when necessary the football/ scouts/ swimming runs. DH got home around 7.30 - 8pm. Would do late pick ups of older 2 if required en route. There was really no time point on a week night that we could all have sat down together. Older 2 were really good about using public transport but sometimes it wasn't possible.

Yes we do...but we both start work at 8 and finish at 4 (me - a teacher) and 5 (dh and he has a very short commute so home before 5.30).

When I was working I didn't finish work until 6, later if we had a staff meeting. So we got in the habbit of eating around 7:30 (DS had tea at nursery). DD2 often isn't home before 6:30, DH also can be about this time so no way would 6 work for us.
Growing up me, my mum and sister used to have tea at 6 and mum would plate up for my dad and brothers so they could heat it when they got home. Mind you my mum didn't have a lot of choice big age gap between siblings and often dad and brothers weren't home until 9:00, so too late for me and sister.

We don’t eat until about 9:30! It’s just too early otherwise and we end up needing another meal:

dc eat at 6 as they are in bed for 7:30 (two youngest) but I sit at the table with them when they eat and I have a snack normally. it’s still a nice family time and we have no phones/ipads

Yes we try to. 2 young ones (4&2), tend to pick them up from child minder about 5,pre-plan and sometimes pre-prepare meals. Aim to sit 5:45-6pm.

About 75% of the week DH is home just in time for tea, if he's not we will start and he has to have cold later.

Meals that take longer to cook I save for a day off in the week or the weekend.

Mid-week meals tend to be things like chilli or ratatouille or stews that I will have put in the slow cook in the morning, or things like sausages, eggs & beans or stir fry that take about 20 mins to make.

It's manic but do-able.

No after school clubs yet though.

We do yes, DDs are a bit older now so it's more like 6.30pm.
When they were younger I worked part time 8.30-4.30 so was home 5.30 at the latest (or DH did if home before me) and would make something quick and we would all eat by 6pm.
After school activities have either been straight after school so before dinner or starting at 6pm so early dinner before going.
Occasionally it doesn't work out and we eat separately but on average 5 nights a week we eat together.
I guess we chose to prioritise that, maybe other families prioritise other things.

I'm 40 and as a child we never ate at 6pm all together - we have horses so was still at the stables then, yes, even when i was a baby. My life has been a rush around forever 😂

We eat together everyday between 4.30pm and 7pm depending what everyone's doing. But. We do eat together every day.

@user2848502016

Yes I think that you just decide to prioritise it - by choosing jobs that finish early or are flexible enough to be home in time and also pay enough to provide a house/lifestyle you’re happy with in a part of the country you want to live in. And also being strict on after-school stuff.
A lot of kids’ sport especially at high levels is very time consuming. A good friend has 2 teenage DC in football academies and it’s 4 evenings a week travelling across London for training. But that’s a priority for them.

When I was growing up (rural Ireland) most people finished work pretty early (especially farming in the winter) and there just wasn’t the same range of after-school activities on offer so we always did eat together in the evenings. It was pretty boring though - much prefer life now 😂

@user2848502016
not to say that the eating together part was boring! Just there was nothing to do afterwards - e.g. we had only 2 TV channels and lived quite far from any of my friends (obviously an issue when you’re a teenager and can’t drive yet. I used to cycle everywhere which was interesting on dark Irish country roads!). I don’t think I’d want to go back to that!

Growing up, we had a 5pm dinner every single day.

Mum stayed at home, and dad worked as a college lecturer a 5 minute walk from our house, with, like school teachers, no set finish time.

Even after dad was long since retired and us kids had left home, they maintained a 5pm dinnertime.

Dad is sadly no longer with us, but mum still keeps it up! She heads off to bed at exactly 10pm as well. Not a second before, or after. And I think she finds it a bit weird that I'd rather just head up when I'm tired, and not sit there clock-watching. Whether that's 8:30pm, or 11pm!

We all eat at different times during the week. The only day we sit down together for dinner is on Sunday evenings. My DH works shifts so he is either finished at 7pm or starts work at 7pm. Kids have sports 4 nights a week so we leave the house at 5pm and get home at 8.30pm so the kids (teens now) have dinner straight after school at 4pm and then something when we get home from training.