Learning to Play Nice with Others at the Dinner Table

Leland mentioned former NYT food critic Ruth Reichl recently and that reference sent me to reading an interview with her by Psychology Today. One of the topics the interview touched on was family meals. Reichl posited that today's decline of family dinnertime will produce children who grow into poorly socialized adults.

When I was growing up dinner was always a family meal. The food may have been plain at our house but even the simplest dinner was a highly ritualized affair that assumed it would be carried out properly; according to "best practices" as we like to say in my line of work. Being a kid was not an excuse to take shortcuts. As soon as we were tall enough to reach the cutlery drawer, we were instructed in the proper way to set a table, use utensils, pass and serve food and clear the table.

There is no doubt that family dinner was a major forum for developing important social skills.

• We learned basic etiquette: no elbows, close your mouth when you chew, swallow your food before you take a drink, use your napkin.
• We learned how to plan, which ranged from clearing homework off the table in enough time to set it for the meal to anticipating which condiments would be needed.
• We learned coordination. Since there were so many of us, orchestrating ourselves around the table to accommodate left-handed eaters was critical. No one wanted a collision with a flying left elbow.
• We learned consideration by watching out for the littlest ones and making sure they had someone alongside to assist with meat cutting or spaghetti twirling.
• We learned to take turns while the serving platters made their slow progress around the big wooden table. (Unless the entree was liver. Ugh!)
• We learned tolerance. Since our family had a mandatory no-thank-you helping rule, we had to eat at least a tablespoon of everything no matter what it looked like.
• We learned patience because no one was excused until everyone was finished.

Dinner conversation covered a lot of ground, as expected with so many people and interests. Announcements from school, upcoming plans, acknowledging achievements; sometimes Dad would offer up a riddle or drill us on our knowledge of the city. There was always plenty to say. But our very favorite conversations were the stories. Something - maybe a menu item, maybe a news item - would usually trigger the reminiscence and we would linger, entranced, listening to stories of when our parents were young.

Body and soul nurtured at the same meal.

By the time we hit our teens, the dinner schedule was more difficult to maintain and sometimes the group around the table numbered as few as three, but the rituals never changed. Even into my 30's, reconnecting with my roots was as simple as slipping back into my place at the dinner table . Conversations may have taken an irreverent turn, but the Emily Post habits remained solid.

Several years ago I was at an associate's home working on a project. As we started to wrap up our books and papers for the day, her husband invited me to stay for dinner. I accepted. One of their college-age sons was also present for the meal. I knew these people to be somewhat sophisticated about food and eating out. But I was nothing less than shaken by the scene around their dining table. It was a blur of flashing forks and grabbing hands. People stabbed salad directly from the serving bowl and brutally tore off hunks of bread. As they raced each other to the meal's conclusion I wondered why they even bothered to eat as a group.

I don't think they were a happy family.

And so, Ms. Reichl, as evidenced by my own experience, the family that eats together better have good manners if they're going to stay together.
y'think?