Can I admit something? Family dinnertime can be a slog these days. Half the time, dinner hour runs perfectly fine — we chat, we remind our children to use their manners, we learn about their days, we eat. A tenth of the time, we have those magical cozy suppers where everyone is happy and hungry, and the conversation is charming — even memorable, electric! But the remaining balance of our family dinners…! My son is prone to suspiciously quick-onset “stomach aches” when a new food is being introduced, which is often in our house, as Landon is an ambitious and varied chef. On those nights, my daughter will sullenly poke and prod at the fish on her plate, then come to my side of the table and whisper “how many bites do I need to have?” while my son panics and writhes in his seat. My husband will be exasperated. (How can they turn up their noses at butter-poached halibut and potatoes?!*) Mainly, it stretches on and on. My son can sit down at the dining room table at 6 p.m. and miraculously not have had more than a few bites over the course of an hour. His capacity for self-distraction knows no bounds. We suspect this is a circumvention strategy — wait long enough and we’ll absent ourselves from the table, and he can push food around to make it appear that he’s eaten, or “spill” some on the table — but it’s a complex issue. We don’t want to rush the boy (who is, generally, a slow eater anyway), and we don’t want to leave him to eat by himself (we continuously say “dining is a family event!”), and we frequently tell him that eating slowly is a good thing (I don’t know where we got this tagline, but we often say: “savor the flavor”), but my Lord, it can test the patience of the saintliest to sit there and watch him bring one pea at a time to his mouth over the course of ten slow-drip minutes. And that’s just the peas. He won’t have touched the potato, the pork, the plum. I must remind myself on these nights that the softest kind of love is patience.
There is also the matter of the conversation. We like to ask how everyone’s day was, make small talk about the happenings in our lives, model thoughtful and loving inquiry. Sometimes this is met with the gruff one-word replies of a pair of world-weary misanthropes: “What materials did you use in art today?” “Dunno.” “Anything interesting happen at recess?” “Nope.” Other times Landon and I elect our own topics, only to be determinedly interrupted. For awhile, we used Table Topics, but at some point grew fatigued with answering trivia all night long, and wondered whether we weren’t partly missing one of the points of family dinner: to learn the art of table conversation, unaided by gimmick or game. And then of course there are times the children devolve into bathroom talk or argument, or continuously get out of their chairs, and we find ourselves playing warden.
I’ve been reflecting on dinner hour and wondering how to improve upon it. Somewhere in my meandering thoughts, it occurred to me: maybe I need to accept that not every part of parenthood can be fashioned into something pleasant or cute. Maybe there’s nothing to smooth out here. Maybe we’re all tired, and it’s the site of a lot of important family instruction, and not all instruction will be smoothly-sailed and happily-met. (My daughter’s math teacher talks about “the learning pit,” and how resistance and recursion are just part of the process.) Maybe it’s OK to witness the conversation stalls and jibber jabber and complaints about the food because they present us with opportunities to communicate our values and develop together. Maybe there are sticky parts of parenthood that you commit to without seeking distraction or comfort because they teach the kids so much. When we get back to “first principles” and ask what is the point of family dinner?, it seems we are hitting on all of the fundamentals: it matters deeply to us that we gather around the table as a family unit and eat diversely and attempt to model generous conversation. It matters to us that our children try the food Landon lovingly prepares. I think those “pros” and the regular drumbeat of connection dinnertime offers outweigh my occasional tableside agita. Besides, I think we’re making headway in the right direction — I think we’re having more of the smooth dinners and fewer of the sloggy ones. Maybe it’s just a matter of time.
Sharing this, per usual, with no prose panacea. Simply seeking solidarity around those claggy middle bits of parenthood — the everyday stuff that we’re all trying to do well, and that are so routine as to be unremarkable and generally uninteresting to write about. Mainly, wondering if this is just part of the process?
Are there any routine parts of your parenting day that you find claggy, sticky, challenging, sloggy? What’s your perspective on them?
Post-Scripts.
*I feel compelled to contextualize that we always have at least one or two other things on their plates that we know they will eat, and that we only ask the children to try a bite of a new food. I picked up several great ideas along these lines from the comments on this post.
+Another swampy part of parenting.
+That time I realized I carry all the ages of my daughter inside.
Shopping Break.
+J. Crew new arrivals alert! Consider this holiday knit, this taffeta skirt, this tweed top with velvet bows, and this sherpa fleece.
+Ultra luxe winter gloves. Look for less here and here.
+Gorgeous pleated skirt. I ordered in the chocolate!
+I always get questions about this minimalist letterpress stand calendar I keep on my desk. It was just released for the 2026 season! Use code MAGPIEBYJENSHOOP for 15% off. As you know, I love and exclusively use the notebooks from this brand. Great white elephant gift!
+Chic ribbed striped knit dress.
+Cold weather is upon us! I always get these inexpensive glove 3-packs for my kids as we are forever losing one, leaving them at a playground, etc. Other cold weather find I like for kids: this rainbow stripe snood, these heart mittens, this football hat, these personalized knit hats, and for snow: these! (We also own and love their ski bibs, and have Reima ski jackets.)
+Loving Loeffler Randall’s new arrivals — especially this puffer, this embroidered quilted coat, and these boots with that cool contrasting ankle pull.
+Two ultra-splurgey knits from high-end labels that are worth drooling over: Elder Statesmen and Suzie Kondi.
+Have you checked out Suzie Kondi’s velour collection? It’s like a chic reimagining of our Juicy Couture suits from the early aughts.
+Ordered this half-zip for my husband in the wheat color, and these burgundy joggers. All of our recent Mr. Magpie orders here. He also recently discovered that these ski helmets he’d been eyeing are discounted and bought the olive green. Great holiday gift for a skiier.
+ICYMI: I added all my gift guides here! Will be updating these throughout the season.
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