Copyright The New York Times
To the Editor: Re “Why I Had to Kill Family Dinner,” by Erin O. White (Opinion guest essay, Oct. 16): This essay made me laugh out loud. The rules and practices that bind us are powerful motivators, forcing us to do things we really do not want to do because “we have to.” Growing up, most of us experience family norms, and sitting down for dinner together was paramount in my family. I felt driven to rush home from my hourlong commute to replicate the same tradition with my son, stepdaughter and husband. No matter how tired or disinclined I was, I remained driven to the daily task. Maybe it was divorce guilt, maybe it was simply hard-wired into my stubborn, Midwestern psyche, but family dinner was nonnegotiable. Those meals were predictably similar to my childhood dinners — sometimes awkward, occasionally satisfying, often silent or filled with a series of questions with nearly inaudible teenage grunts. But by God, we did it all — family dinners, family vacations and family holidays — and I have no regrets! Janice Randall Vashon Island, Wash. To the Editor: Americans are living through a severe loneliness epidemic. “Killing” family dinner won’t fix what ails us. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors bonded over shared meals, and every other culture in human history has continued the tradition. This is no accident. A 2025 study from the World Happiness Report (a reputable publication on global well-being) found that “across regions, countries and cultures, for men and women, young and old, sharing more meals is associated with greater subjective well-being.” Yes, preparing dinner adds to the load for busy parents who are already stretched thin by the demands of modern life. But family dinner doesn’t have to be a gourmet event. It can be a simple meal thrown together in a few minutes or ordered in and shared around the table. In our home, family dinners are sometimes a flop — the kids hate the food, the vibe is grumpy and the meal is over in 10 minutes. Other times, we’re filling our plates with seconds and thirds, laughing and sitting together much longer. Most meals fall somewhere in between. What matters isn’t the quality of each individual meal. It’s that we keep showing up around the table as a family — without distraction — once a day. Christina Dinur Milwaukee To the Editor: Erin O. White, obviously overwhelmed, complains that “family dinner is an extraordinary amount of work, ill timed to coincide with the one period of the day when no one wants to do any work.” I don’t want to make any ridiculous claims about eating together as a family. Family dinner probably won’t save a failing marriage, get your kids into Harvard or wean them from online gaming. Every family is different, and if eating home-cooked meals together doesn’t work for you, for whatever reason, don’t do it, and don’t feel guilty about it. But as someone who’s cooked family dinner almost every night for more than 30 years, I can honestly say that I seldom spend more than half an hour in front of the stove — that’s usually with a drink. Family meals can (and should) be simple affairs. Using fresh ingredients is fine, but so are frozen vegetables and canned beans. Pasta takes 12 minutes to cook. Rice takes 20. Plenty of pasta sauces can be made in the time it takes to boil water and cook the pasta. Braising chicken or chops might take an hour, but you can leave them unattended to do whatever you like in the meantime. Save the elaborate stews, complicated sauces or labor-intensive roasts (if you make them at all) for the weekends. Some of us have soul-destroying jobs, or can’t get home every evening in time to cook, or just don’t like to cook. I get it. If you love your kids and give them the attention they need, they’ll grow up fine without home-cooked family dinners. But the dinners my kids liked best, the ones they asked for over and over when they were little, and the ones they now want me to cook when they come home for the holidays, are as simple as simple can be. Cooking doesn’t have to be hard. And nothing ever made me feel happier or more needed when they were growing up than being asked, “What’s for dinner?” Robert Voss Tenafly, N.J. To the Editor: My mother killed family dinner, too, circa 1972, after she had raised her six oldest children in the tradition and before her seventh and eighth children were old enough to notice that it was gone. Meat was too expensive, so we had it only once a week, when my grandmother routinely arrived from the market with a roast of beef. Other days we relied on Izzy the fish man, who would knock on the kitchen door at 7 a.m. to announce he’d caught snapper or flounder that morning. My mother would smile, and Izzy would later appear with 10 pounds of filets, at a fraction of the cost of meat. I missed our regular sit-downs. Fifty years on, our family still feasts together on Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. Good times or bad, our mother taught us: Loving each other throughout our lives, on this all depends. Ted Gallagher New York To the Editor: Bah, humbug! That was my first thought when I finished Erin O. White’s guest essay about why she gave up cooking family dinner. I have the exact opposite feeling about cooking family dinner. I do it as a way to show my love for my wife and family. I, too, think about what to serve throughout the day, and I enjoy the process. I try to think of something healthy and special, and it gives me joy. Sitting at a table with family members, with the TV off and devices put away, is a great way to come together as a family and share our common experiences. Soon enough the kids will be out of the house, and the ritual of sharing a family dinner will be a common bond throughout their lives. I encourage all families to take advantage of this special time together. Ken Becker Burien, Wash. To the Editor: Erin O. White’s article summed up my only regret of my 60-year life so far — that I planned, shopped for and cooked homemade meals for my family for over 20 years while working full time and enduring two hours of commuting a day. What a waste. Sigh. Leslie Stevens Vancouver, British Columbia
