Family dinner. As parents, we were told it was the solution to everything. Our kids required it to grow up well-adjusted and become adventurous eaters. Meaningful conversation would flow freely as we cemented close and lasting bonds over Brussels sprouts and sushi. As I get closer to an empty nest, I’m taking stock of these thousands of dinners I churned out every night at six. Sometimes it was a slog, sometimes it was lovely, but either way, I don’t want to do it anymore.
The bulk of planning, shopping, and cooking dinner has always fallen to me. My wonderful husband can cook three things, and one of them is a borscht with roasted beets that makes the kitchen look like someone has been murdered. A meal that works for my whole family can’t contain gluten, cheese, nuts, sesame, or sunflower seeds. No lamb, no mayonnaise. During basketball season or Tech Week for the high school musical, it should reheat well. Huge quantities are required except for the times that someone ate a burrito at 4 p.m. I could go on and on, but even I’m getting bored.
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So what happens to family dinner once the kids move out? My friend Kristin isn’t ready to ditch dinner once her teenagers are gone. She predicts she and her husband will continue trading off cooking, though “we can probably expand our menu since we won’t have to please four people.”
My parents still do a candlelit dinner for just the two of them, though after my brother and I left, my dad started coming to the table in his underwear until my mom put her foot down.
Mindi, a single university professor, tells me that without the need to follow anyone’s schedule, her meals are pretty makeshift. Dinner can be popcorn, a sandwich, or maybe some leftovers prepped on the weekend if she’s not sick of them. While this sounds amazing to me, she adds, “I romanticize the idea of a set dinner time. It’s a marker of the end of the day, a time to put work aside and take care of myself. With no reason to get home, I just stay too late at my office.”
As an exhausted parent of young kids, I depended on established mealtimes to divide the day into manageable chunks. Family dinner came at the expense of ignoring my own internal clock. To me, Mindi’s popcorn dinner sounds like the ultimate in self-care.
I’m glad we had those years of family dinners. My kids developed from extremely picky eaters to moderately cautious ones. They leave their rooms sometimes, have friends, and haven’t kept me up all night worrying more than half the time. For my reward, though, I want the freedom to listen to my own rhythms. Maybe after a few years of popcorn on the couch, my husband and I will start having candlelit dinners every night… maybe even in our underwear.
Jessica Barnard has lived in Belmont since 2010 with her husband and two children. She is an administrator at Harvard University, a writer, and a Town Meeting member. Her website is jessicaclembarnard.com.