Stepping Up to the Plate

Families eating together regularly isn't just about learning table manners. And the cumulative effect of neglecting communal mealtimes may be greater than we think

BlackBerrys and Apples are off the menu at our dinner table. They're the latest in a series of distractions I've attempted to sideline at mealtimes; a hit-list, which, like my kids, has matured with the passing of time.

Examples: don't throw the peas quite that far. Can you not sing with a mouthful of pasta? Please retrieve and dismantle that Lego mini-sub that is floating in your soup bowl. If you sneeze over the salad again tonight, you can eat it all.

Happily, most of these restrictions have failed. Dismally. And I'm thankful, because if they hadn't, our family would be that much the poorer. Children's idiosyncrasies are revealed more around the table than in any other social activity - it's the greatest show on earth, and in retrospect I wouldn't have missed a single performance.

There have been plenty to attend. According to my calculations, I have participated in approximately seven thousand, one hundred and thirty family mealtimes since 1988 (average four weeknights, weekends, not to mention extended Sunday breakfasts, picnics, brunches and the odd dinner out). Add coffee breaks and the routine passing around of the biscuit tin, and that's about a year of non-stop eating.

A parent attempting to make it to every family meal may sound like an extreme position - a kind of Die Hard With The Veg Stance - but I've always believed that if you're going to bother having kids, don't settle for half-measures. And with twenty years behind me to appraise it, I suspect that making such a commitment at the beginning may even have tipped the balance between our family's failure and its success.

Don't quote me as saying that families don't eat together anymore - I'm not. A YouGov poll commissioned by Bird's Eye in the summer indicated that 45% of families do still gather around the table once a day. Maybe that's a bit optimistic (it was reported in a marketing document for a food company after all) but even if it's correct, it still means 65% aren't. And to my mind they're missing out.

Training up the troops

Much has already been said elsewhere about the benefits of eating as a family group - such as children adopting healthier diets, or interacting with each other. I know of a former army officer who says that one of the most difficult jobs with new recruits in recent years has become getting them used to sitting around a mess table and talking, as many had never experienced this at home.

He's absolutely right. Mealtimes are team-building opportunities, basic training for kids and for parents alike. They're settings where we can learn life's rules of engagement, forums where ideas can be expanded, differences explored, grievances aired and disagreements resolved. Regular mealtimes provide a child with anchor-points in their day, familiar processes from which they derive security, havens they can return to.

But there is far more. The table is a bigger setting than we may imagine. Around it, family history, lore, anecdote and experience is imparted; here, we first discover the strands of our family history, the good and bad in the woodpile. Here, parents can help children form a worldview, explaining their beliefs and tenets: children can challenge those values, the two age-groups re-inventing the family for another generation. It is a day-in, day-out tidal process, where a sense of heritage is deposited, flaws are eroded and washed away. And every wave prepares and equips children, readying them to repeat the process with their own offspring.

That's why we should be saddened by parents who abrogate such a responsibility. It is increasingly easy to find excuses: long working hours, daily commute, the bloated Inbox. Many of them sound genuine and justifiable, but there has to be balance, and I guarantee it won't be an employer who suggests you bring it. Parents must step up to the plate because neglecting this area of human activity ultimately impacts us all. As Thorin finally admits to Bilbo in JRR Tolkien's Hobbit: 'If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.'

Prioritising hoarded gold - our activities, interests and working lives - above our kids' development, robs both ourselves and society at large. Increasingly in the UK, we observe children with no ability to trust, inadequate communication skills and poor diets, as well as teens and young adults who have no idea of how to find their place in society. Young parents start families without foundational skills, an aging population has little or no relationship with children and grandchildren who will one day be their lifeline. So much of this is avoidable, preventable if we reinstate the table, the heart of a family.

Family meals? They're a serious business. Skip them at your peril.

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