I want to start eating meals as a family but there are so many hurdles to overcome

[Rockininthefreeworld]

Please don't judge me. I'm really looking for some advice and just feel so dissatisfied with our whole set-up 😔

I have felt bad about the fact that we never eat as a family. We have two children, age 6 and 2, and they always eat separately to us. This is for a number of reasons...

1. DH is a very fussy eater, and won't eat 90% of the things I make for the children
2. DH and I both work full-time until around 6pm, making eating together quite challenging. Having said that, we both work from home a lot, so it is do-able with some planning (but then, see point 1...)
3. We have a kitchen island but no room for a dining table, which means eating together in the kitchen is just sitting in a row. This makes conversations feel a bit challenging.
4. We have a dining room (although carpeted...) and I'd love us all to eat in there, but DH gets very very funny about mess and smells. I've tried to approach the subject but he just gets annoyed and shuts it down. He uses the dining room to work, which is very annoying to be honest because I feel like that's a whole social room that we've just completely lost out on.

The 2 year old is at nursery full time which does give him "social eating" time, and I think the 6 year old is fine because we do eat out and I often go back to my parents where we sit together at the table. But, he also gets very bored if I'm not constantly entertaining him and he's not a stranger to the tablet at the table. I hate that and feel quite ashamed.

I just don't know how to handle this. I feel so dissatisfied with the whole arrangement, but DH isn't going to support me with it and it feels difficult trying to do it in the kitchen anyway. I just want us to have a nice family meal together, even just at the weekends, but even if we manage that it still has to be in the friggin' kitchen and no-one will talk to me, DS will moan for his tablet and DH will be on his phone. I've tried to implement this before (in the kitchen), and it just felt pointless in the end because I felt like I was fighting a losing battle.

Does anyone have any advice? 🙁

As just a small win to add to this thread...I didn't tackle the dining room tonight, but I did make dinner for all of us, at the same time, eating the same thing, at the kitchen island. No tablets or phones, and a lovely conversation about the difference between a squid and an octopus led by DS.

I appreciate there are many, many issues to deal with. But I'm really tired and tonight that feels like a little win that I'm going to celebrate. Thank you everyone 🥹

That’s great! Celebrate the small wins always

@Rockininthefreeworld That is a win. Wow!
The dining room isn't going anywhere, that battle is further down the line.

I hate to tell you they use tablets all the time in primary schools for learning games. Get off your high horse.

Well done @Rockininthefreeworld

Well done @Rockininthefreeworld!

Def celebrate the win
what was the meal ?

Of course, I’m just saying that there are other ways if meal times are not an activity that works for you. As you say culturally it’s the one that is supposed to be shared and so
offen we think it has to be that or nothing, just putting it out there that other ways might suit the OP (or anyone else reading) better that they hadn’t thought of.

Make a list of what DH likes/ doesn’t and what the children like.
it doesn’t have to be every night that you sit together.

why don’t you plan for one day a week either Friday night or a weekend when you all sit together to eat. Sunday Roast dinner once is a classic one that suits a lot of tastes

The fact your DH is fussier than the kids 🙄

Sounds like you have space in the dining room but he is putting up an obstacle. Carpet wise why don't you put down a big wipe clean mat ? And maybe negotiate by saying you'd like the family to dine together at least at the weekends and make this the space to do so.
Have to agree sitting in a row at the kitchen island doesn't sound ideal so I'd be pushing for the dining room option.
You can then implement new dining table rules, like the tablet.

Whats the point of a dining room you cant eat in?

Maybe start with weekend breakfasts- cereal and pastries and coffee? Minimal smell, blandish, surely he cant have a problem with that.

Because typically ND people can mask these traits ( often if undiagnosed this masking has been developed as a coping mechanism ). It’s only after kids and real responsibility comes along that the mask dissolves. It’s very tough for everybody then. But I absolutely agree that being ND is not a licence to behave like a controlling bully.

Maybe you could eat together, a couple of times as a family over the weekend. With meals you could all enjoy.

Sorry OP but fuck that! Why does your DH get to dictate where you eat … and what you eat??? Why are you accepting this shit from someone’s undiagnosed son? This is about your children. And your time with them! If your DH doesn’t like the smell of fish, you can’t eat it??? Honestly I just wouldn’t put up with it. He sounds like a selfish dictator. If your DS sat around the table every day it wouldn’t take long before he was used to it and didn’t need his tablet anymore. My teen DDs have been eating at the table all their lives - we do our highs and lows of the day together every evening. When they were small we had a topic jar that we took it in turns to choose from. It was so much fun once I’d separated from their dickhead Dad 😂

Moaning and a phone by the sounds of it.

Something tells me you haven't read any of the OP's posts.

And yet he manages to hold down a job and presumably manages to refrain from inflicting his issues on his colleagues, stomping around in anger in front of his boss or having temper tantrums on Zoom meetings when things annoy him.

Do you see what I'm getting at here?

This

Stop coming up with solutions.

You have a dining room, it is ridiculous not to use it for food.

I'm quite stubborn about things but one thing that helps me is to have a date and a plan.

So we are mid October, tell him from the first of November you will be using the dining room for its intended purpose. He has that long to find a place to work, the spare bedroom, the kitchen, a café or the library. Finding the place is his job, not yours.

I agree with some others - you eat with the DC, DH could eat later. Over time this will change as they eat differently and at a later time

Not sure any school is dishing out tablets when kids are eating though are they?

Learning to eat with others is part of our wider, social education and we do our children a disservice if as parents we just give up and rely on screens all the time.

I couldn’t stay in a relationship with someone who is a picky eater possibly because he was pandered to by his mother. And you don’t want to transfer this behaviour to your own children who will learn how to manipulate their relationships.

Can you imagine what they will all be like in 10 years time with everyone doing their own meals and eating in their bedrooms while looking at screens. A nightmare.

And since food will be a lot more expensive and a greater percentage of income will be spent particularly if buying individual unhealthy meals.

So OP will have to get a grip and start eating together every day and every meal IN THE DINING ROOM

My DH was difficult about this, wanting to eat later, so I started doing it on my own with the kids and leaving him to eat whenever he wanted to and eventually he ended up joining in with us as he got FOMO

@Rockininthefreeworlddo you have a kitchen extractor which extracts to outside because that should help with cooking smells? Recirculating ones are pretty poor. I would also investigate installing some sort of kitchen door to stop smells getting into the hall and the rest of the house.
You should not be restricting the range of foods your children eat just because your husband thinks he’s turned out ok. Everyone needs a wide range of food to get all the nutrients they need, especially children.
Im afraid I couldn’t cope with someone as fussy and inflexible as your husband.

When were were kids, we had compulsory eating at the table every single day. I have avoided this since leaving home decades ago. Every meal was a total carry on, endless arguments and slapped legs under the table accompanied with shouting and being told off. It was the absolute worst time of day.