YOU KNOW family has become a marginal institution when we have national “Family Day.” Stouffers, the maker of frozen dinners, is one of the sponsors of the event, which encourages families to do something radical – sit down and eat dinner. Columbia University, also a sponsor, says that families that eat dinner together are less likely to have teens who use drugs. Above is one of the photographs on the Family Day website. Two moms and their child. [Or, perhaps as noted below, it is a mother with two daughters?] Wouldn’t it be nice if eating dinner together were all it took to rescue families? 

Do any of the corporate, government or academic sponsors of this event say anything important? Family Day sounds, at best, trite and meaningless and, at worst, outright dangerous. Do these sponsors have any idea why families don’t eat dinner together? Do any of them say that it is wrong for women to leave their children in the care of strangers and for parents to let government institutions raise their teenagers? Do any of them openly criticize feminism? Do any of them say homosexual unions are not family? Do any of these sponsors advocate male achievement so that more families might have fathers? You know, fathers? Do any of them acknowledge that family dinners are not possible for many people in a world with sexual freedom and unleashed careerism? Do they link drug use by teenagers with the ideology of public schools? Do they say it is wrong for parents to use TV and video games to raise their children?

Dinner is important and central to family life, but it is simplistic and trite to call attention only to dinner. There will be no Family Day until families overturn the rule of experts, who reduce life to prescriptions and evade the hard issues.

                                               — Comments —

Natassia writes:

You could be very right and that is a photo of “two moms and their daughter.” 

But it could be a photo of a mom with her two daughters. Oftentimes strangers remark how much my mother and I look like sisters. In fact, they’ve been saying that ever since I was in high school. She is 23 years my senior, but she looks very good for 50.

Laura writes:

Yes, you may be right.

Brenda writes:

I think the photo probably shows a mother with her two daughters, & one girl is simply a few years older than the other. If you observe the way the photo is staged it looks as though “mom” is making something, perhaps a sandwich, for her girls; they are holding pens or pencils, & there is a small book open near them, as though indicating they are doing some homework. So I think that a single-parent household is being represented here. 

I, too, am distressed when I read about things such as a Family Day for our nation. And not because I don’t see the sharing of a meal as important. It’s just that a reminder to eat together seems to make the whole thing rather contrived, instead of the enjoyable time that it can be, with a conversation that flows freely, & people seated around the table that are there because they like each other. 

You posed this question (probably rhetorically) : “Wouldn’t it be nice if eating dinner together were all it took to rescue families?” That’s the whole problem! Because of “studies indicate that……..”, we are led to believe that involving our children in this activity or that will yield the desired result. Whether it is school-related, church-related, privately held business-sponsored, or government-mandated, it matters not. There is no activity, not one, that will save the family unit if the parents, themselves, don’t know & enjoy the importance of that activity, and not rely on some other authority to give them the “go ahead”. 

My children are older now, but I was once asked by another mother (we were conversing while our little girls played together), “J____ is so bright & imaginative…..do you work with her?” Well, of course my answer was “no”, because I didn’t “work” with her in the way this other mother meant. I was home with my children, & simply engaged in the rhythm of of our day, doing all the things that we liked to do; they were invited into my world, both the work & the play, & we experienced real things together, in real time. I could not point to any one thing that we did…..it was impossible for me to reduce it to a single maneuver. 

Some time ago, Mrs. Wood, you said something about children not being machines. Too true! We can’t simply input certain things and expect a favorable result, ignoring the fact that what they really want is a real home.

Laura writes:

Excellent points. It’s difficult to teach families how to interact when the natural rhythms of life are disrupted.

Lydia Sherman writes:

You are right. The culture will not change from advertising campaigns or acts of Congress. Culture will change when each family changes, and that change will flow outward to the advertisers and the Congress. 

N.W. writes:

Oh, poor, innocent me; I really just assumed it was a mother with her daughters (though, on second glance, I will admit it was difficult to discern which was the mother and which was the elder daughter).

Laura writes:

The jury is in. I was wrong. But, then why are the two women looking at the young girl in a parental way?

N.W. responds:

No, your interpretation seemed legit, except for the subtle details pointed out by another of your readers; far right was making two sandwiches and center and left were writing or some such thing. Still, I find ‘family day” to be cloyingly sweet. It’s like a friend of mine told me; everytime he saw a bumperstick on a fancy little car that said “I love my wife” he just knew somebody got caught running around with some young thing. Essentially, when you have to make a point about something, whether it be the fact you have a wife or the fact you have a family you are obviously neglecting something. 

Jesse Powell writes:

I will admit, when I first saw the picture in question, I jumped to the conclusion that it was supposed to be “two mothers” and their daughter. I think the similar maternal expressions of the mother and elder daughter looking at the younger daughter, the fact that the elder daughter and mother are a similar height, the fact that the elder daughter is standing close to the mother and is clearly separated from the younger daughter; that the elder daughter and mother appear to be a “unit”; these are the things that lead me to think the picture was supposed to represent “two mothers” and their daughter. 

On closer inspection, the elder daughter appears to be a teenager, not in their late 20s or early 30s like the mother, and the elder daughter is holding a marker indicating she is sharing a drawing activity with the younger daughter. If I was being conspiratorially minded, I might say the picture above is intentionally ambiguous; maybe it represents two lesbian mothers with “their daughter” and maybe it is simply a mother with her older daughter and her younger daughter. That way, “Family Day” keeps the homosexual activists and the social conservatives happy at the same time, as they both think the image is being supportive of their point of view. 

As to the issue of “Family Day” itself, it is pretty pathetic if parents have to be told that it is a good thing to have dinners as a family and to be involved in their children’s lives. I do like the “STAR Pledge” that Family Day promotes, however:

S – Spend time with my kids by having dinner together

T – Talk to them about their friends, interests and the dangers of drugs and alcohol

A – Answer their questions and listen to what they say

R – Recognize that I have the power to help keep my kids substance free! 

I think that Family Day is well-intentioned and that overall it is a good thing. Even though it is obvious that parents should spend more time with their children and be involved in their children’s lives, it is still a message that bears repeating and needs to be reinforced. All of Laura’s criticisms of Family Day are legitimate and need to be reinforced as well. “Family Day” is not enough, but at least it is a start in the right direction.

John P. writes:

I know you mentioned it but I’d like to reinforce the fact that there is no father in picture, regardless of whether it’s a mum and two daughters or two mums.

Tangentially related, I’ve been watching CNN a lot lately (I know, dirty job but someone has to do it) and I’ve noticed that they never, so far as I can recall, use the word man. Every male person, whether soldier or criminal is a “guy”. Whether this is unconscious or deliberate the word man is being effaced from CNN.

Mrs. P. writes:

When I saw your post about Family Day and families eating dinner together, I became enthused. I am especially fond of the family dinner hour. I grew up with a father who insisted that we all sit down together for dinner each night. No one was allowed to begin eating until everyone in the family was present and seated. Quite often dinner took place at my grandparents’ house just up the street. So I had the advantage on many evenings of sitting down to dinner with both my parents and grandparents. It was there as a child at my grandparents’ dinner table tucked in between the grownups that I learned how adults talk to each other and what genuine conversations sound like. It is a wonderful memory for me. 

Later my husband and I practiced this dinner ritual with our own children. Every night dinner was on the table like clockwork and we all sat down as a family to eat. And to talk. We talked to each other. We used dinner time to reconnect after the work day and school day had ended. When our children, who were close together in age, reached their teens, they hung around the dinner table after dinner had ended for the invigorating conversation that followed. My husband and I had a great deal of good influence on our children. We can thank the family dinner hour in part for giving us the opportunity night after night to influence them. Our adult son keeps a journal. I learned recently that he writes about our dinner time together as a family and how secure it made him feel to know that come hell or high water dinner would always be there. It wasn’t always fancy, but it was always there…along with the conversation. 

So to me, the family dinner hour is one of the most important events in the life of the family. It is an opportunity for family members to get together and share not only the blessings of food, but most important the blessings of each other’s company. Sometimes it is the only opportunity in the day to get together as a family and share the events of the day with each other or just talk to each other. 

To those of us who grew up practicing this dinner ritual or raise our children this way, it seems odd that families should have to be encouraged to sit down together for dinner. But today’s world is filled with a thousand distractions, some of them well-meaning, that interfere with this family dinner hour to the point that it is nearly non-existent with some families. When, in the life of the family, this event disappears, family members can become strangers to each other and communication can shut down. You see this happen with teenagers especially at a time, too, in their lives when they are exceptionally vulnerable to influences outside the family. The drug use and alcohol use among teens today is an issue that deserves its own post beyond this one, but I can tell you from personal experience with two of our teenage grandchildren (we have 15) that it is a very real problem. It is very bad. It is very threatening to the future of these children. The outside influence on children this age is insidious. Anything that will help parents become a stronger influence in the lives of their children should be employed. If sitting down together as a family at dinner time helps, which I think it can, then I say do it. 

If a family has not been sitting down together for dinner, the whole dinner thing may seem awkward at first. Conversation may seem awkward. It may take on the appearance of a play. So be it. If it is practiced enough times, it will begin to feel natural and un-staged. I would say to a family that is trying to reinstate the family dinner hour to pull out the fine linens and the good dishes and make it a special event if it can take place but only once a week to start. Make it so that the children look forward to it. 

Finally, I interpret the photo in question as being a mother with her two daughters. It looks to me like the daughters are doing some homework while the mother prepares either a snack for them or school lunches.

Laura writes:

Dinner is sacred. Family life is diminished without this civilizing ritual, which serves as daily recognition that the family is a small community. The family almost has no identity without dinner. But the dinner ritual is more than a habit; it is the expression of a way of life. It has declined as a family ritual because it depends on the clear demarcation of the sexes and on respect for domesticity and for fatherhood. Dinner in a collectivized, unisex world is haphazard and irregular.

 Mary C. writes:

I was struck by the fact that so many comments were made about whether this is two moms or two daughters. This is precisely what “they” wanted to do: to represent “family day” as politically correct as possible. If they had put two men on there, well, then Stouffers couldn’t sponsor. But this way, they can easily say what your readers did: perhaps she is an older daughter. It appeals to the masses, you see. And doesn’t offend diversity rules by showing a dad coming in at 5:35 p.m. while the kids set the table for Mom. 

The point is they try very hard to represent “family” without actually showing what most of them look like.

Kilroy writes:

Laura wrote: “The jury is in. I was wrong. But, then why are the two women looking at the young girl in a parental way?” 

Indeed, and why was this image chosen, with all its confusing ambiguities? Methinks that was deliberate – let’s remember this is a marketing ploy. I think the product they are selling isn’t just “family day” but a certain nebulous paradigm of “family”. It’s revolution masquerading as tradition. You may have not been wrong at all.

Hurricane Betsy writes:

A couple of decades ago the premier of the province of Alberta declared a family day because his son had gotten involved in drugs. He felt that he had not spent enough time with his family being a proper father. So now everybody in Alberta has to do Family Day.

Second, I love with Brenda had to say about children in her paragraph:

My children are older now, but I was once asked by another mother (we were conversing while our little girls played together), “J____ is so bright & imaginative…..do you work with her?” Well, of course my answer was “no”, because I didn’t “work” with her in the way this other mother meant. I was home with my children, & simply engaged in the rhythm of of our day, doing all the things that we liked to do; they were invited into my world, both the work & the play, & we experienced real things together, in real time. I could not point to any one thing that we did…..it was impossible for me to reduce it to a single maneuver.

This is the ages-old, traditional way of “raising” children. Nothing special; you are just close to them doing what you need to do and the kids catch on in more ways than you can imagine. No yap-yap about [contrived] quality time.

Third, I agree that the photo of the three females purportedly representing a “family” is the most contrived and manipulative thing I’ve seen in some time. FEH.

Laura writes:

So now everybody in Alberta has to do Family Day.

You mean there’s a place where people actually observe Family Day? How awful. The implication is that every other day is not Family Day. It all has the ring of Soviet-style propaganda, of a phony, secular holiday in worker’s paradise.

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