Dinner time - generational differences?

Nanamar well jel. It's interesting as we often find out we have followed US customs. So making me rethink...my SIL (sister of late husband who I continue to have close relationship after divorce and death) lives in California in the Bay Area and I have been shocked how she has roped in her son to be part owner of her house as her husband has filed for divorce and wants his half. I thought she was just being a bit over-possessive and not letting him go...perhaps not. He has a steady girlfriend.
I thought the post was going to be about the nomenclature of the words, times, and spaces for dinner, lunch, tea and supper. Vastly changed over my lifetime. Epecially over which are shared. Partly generational, partly fashion, partly class. perhaps partly geographical but very interesting. I love the sound of your set up. dogs too. mmmmm. btw I think showers are very important for well being de stresing a treat etc etc. so don't interfere with that one
I think back to my childhood where the midday meal was called dinner...there were school dinners I didn't have school dinners, I lived nearby so I walked home with my friends where my mother had prepared two or three course meal. In the evening we would have tea which was a smaller cooked meal, often something on toast..fruit, supper might be cocoa and biscuit. My gran who lived with us. Laid the table for breakfast every evening so we came down to porridge, other cereal and a cooked breakfast. My mother and gran, her mother, would have had their Ryvita and tea earlier so they were up to serving and cooking for us..this was in Wimbledon in the fifties. I thought normal..was it? I of course threw all of that way...perhaps too much...sixties bohemia, cereals whenever you liked. anarchy. mmmm. I think I was very lucky. we liked some things more than others but there was no sign of catering specifically for individual tastes. It was totally unneurotic and a good example of mixed generations living together.

Since posting Nanamar have just read about the family situation and agree with 4allweknow look after yourself and let them get on with it.

I used to cook for 6pm one meal for everyone including DD and DGC, and DH.
DGC had breakfast at 8am morning snack biscuit and fruit at 10am, lunch 12.30 was sandwiches or something on toast, afternoon snack at 3pm usually fruit, small cake or biscuit. That was my routine for family and also when child minding. Also with my own DC when they were young.

Wow! So many of you eat at just after 5 o’clock, yet I was never home from school until 5 o’clock.
Dinner was usually at 7:30, and that suited XH & I, too. Homemade snack for DCs when they got back from school, when young they ate before us then bathed but ate with us as teenagers. (My cooking must have been pretty dreadful, because they’ve all turned out marvellous cooks in their own right)

Patterns of work and domestic relationships have changed from the 1950s and we all have to get used to them.

If working from home surely a time could be chosen for everyone to eat together. Important in my opinion, if it can be done. Table manners (important to me) can be checked and bonding over everyone’s day. You are a family at home together, not a hotel.
It also shows disrespect to all your cooking efforts if everyone just does their own thing.

It’s a different generation and they do have food to eat.
We have similar problems here. DD and husband don’t eat with the children. The DC come to our home and like to set the table and take their own portions from the communal plates on the table. Here their manners are good but at home it’s a very different story.

I think you should have at least one day when you all sit round the table. Eating and socialising give you great times to remember and the little one should be involved in this - helping to set the table etc. I know we all lead busy lives but dinner for all the family is such a lovely time. Food doesn’t have to be fancy - lasagne or a one pot dish. Many happy hours spent with my now adult children and grandchildren

Sounds like you live in a cafe with all the different eating times. With the emphasis on families eating together with children surely the patents could manage to sit down with your GS within an hour of a set time. Their lack of any kind of routine would drive me mad and think I'd do for myself and leave them to do the same.

I’ve noticed with my sons, particularly the youngest (29), he works all hours and unsociable hours in hospitality. Many times I’ve heard him say he was cooking dinner for himself and partner about 9pm! I’m not saying that’s everyday but depends on which shift he’s on. Luckily enough he’s not living at my house, I say that because after our dinner which is generally about 5, the ‘kitchen is shut and the cook has gone home’ that’s me, the evening is all mine then!!! It’s a shame for you grandson who seems to eating alone, I hope it’s not every meal time, Most of the time when my kids were small & growing we ate as a family at decent times. I guess it’s a generational thing, times have changed, family life has changed with many of both parents having to work. I’ve always been led to believe that if you eat too late at night it can cause upset or gastrointestinal problems.

I feed my grandchildren at about 4.30 when they get home from school, youngest son about 5 when he gets in from work and husband and older son at about 7. I eat with whoever’s food appeals to me most. It’s a pain in the arse but it works for us. Sometimes on Fridays I say it’s my day off and don’t cook anything for anyone and watch them run around like headless chickens trying to find food ??‍♀️?

i think you need to talk to them not us.

I think the meme sums it up

Thank you Nanamar for sharing that - I'm glad it's going well, in the main!

you need to all sit don and talk about it

That information does put rather a different take on the situation.
I guess they want to be flexible, but in your position I would appreciate a bit more clarity about timings and who does what, when.

In response to Riverwalk as to how living together turned out: I have to say, despite my post regarding dinner time differences, quite well, at least so far. A lot has to do with individual personalities as well as space. Our situation is complicated further by the fact that DS and “DIL” are actually divorced but amicably so and determined to raise GS together. We wanted to move to Southern California after my DH died and, since it’s very expensive there, the only way to do that was to combine profits from two house sales and purchase one property. We bought a home with a guest house; DS, GS, and I are in the main house and DIL is in the guest house. I have my own “master suite” and we also have a large garden which allows us space for ourselves as well as the opportunity to spread out two dogs and four cats. We are all relatively easy-going (again despite my complaint about the dinner situation.) Obviously if and when either DS or DIL find another love interest things will get more complicated but their feeling is that they will always be GS’s parents and I’ll always be his only Nana (DIL’s parents are both gone.) As an aside, the New York Times recently published an article about how ex-spouses’ continuing to live together has become relatively common, for both financial and child-rearing reasons.

I would just leave them be - you've done your bit by preparing dinner so it's up to them when they actually eat it!

In our day I expect most of us came home from work, prepared dinner, everyone ate, we cleared away, dishwasher on, and that it was it - we didn't graze or stretch things over hours.

As an aside, there are quite a few threads started by grans saying they're thinking of selling-up and combining households with a son/daughter - most replies are ones of horror and foreboding! It's not something I'd consider but it would be interesting to hear your thoughts on how it turned out overall.

So much will depend IMO on working hours and ages of children.

At home my father was hardly ever home before at least 6.30, so dinner was at 7 ish, but as younger children we’d have tea rather earlier. Most schoolchildren (from experience) will be ravenous on coming home, and can’t wait for a late dinner, so will need something fairly substantial soon, even if they also eat with parents later.

Dh was much the same - rarely home before 7, so dinner was at around 7.30. (Still is, after retirement.).
I’d feed younger dds earlier - they couldn’t wait.

I’ve often wondered what sort of jobs parents have, if the family can all sit down to eat together at 5.30 or 6 - presumably strictly 9-5 and very local.
It was never the case for us, or for me as a child.

I would be really cross, its so important to sit and eat as a family.
It may not be possible every evening but it is important for your grandson to learn table manners and to converse with his parents and yourself.
Could you have a weekly meeting to do a meal plan so you are preparing food everyone enjoys, it may be a good idea to have a couple of nights a week that your son and daughter-in-law cook,create a timetable to fit in with extra curricular activities etc, pin it on the fridge.
Even if grandson isn’t eating with you make sure he is sat at a table and has company while he eats.
Good luck.

We always ate as a family, around a table at 5.30pm (which move to 6.00pm once the children became teenagers). Both our sons, now with their own homes, eat at 8.00/9.00pm. Each to their own- I would hate to eat so late, but it suits them. I wouldn't stress over it - as you do the cooking, just dish out what you and any child wants, and let your son and DIL warm their meals up when they are ready to eat.

Gosh. It’s so difficult isn’t it! I think you’ve just got to go with it otherwise trouble ahead unless you can sit down and thrash it out?
I have 3 daughters and eating with their families is totally different. One has regular mealtimes. The boys help prepare the meal, sit properly, use their cutlery, eat everything, say please & thank you and clear the table. The 2nd family complain, sit with their heads an inch from the plate and one has her knees up, feet on chair, pecks and throws a tantrum if made to eat more than a spoonful (she’s 9). They graze all day on rubbish. I want to scream but can’t. The 3rd eat at totally unsocial hours (for me) but they do prepare delicious food from scratch. How can 3 offspring all brought up in the same way become so different apart from insisting they all sit round a table together - which is a bonus. I’ve learnt the hard way that although it’s hard to do, keeping ones own counsel is the only way to go.

“Or they’ll want GS to eat around 5:00 (due to bedtime schedule) but DIL will stop and take a shower at 5:00. Silent implication is that DS or I will feed DGS?”

I think the silent implication is that your ds should be feeding gc. It’s his child too and he should be pulling his weight.

I watch my son and dil where they evenly split child rearing chores together and how I wish my DH had been better trained. Anytime he did anything his mother would clap like a seal and chastise me that he looked tired and I should have done it.

We both worked but he did far far less of the labour.

Cook at lunchtime and dish up a plate for GS for 5 pm.

They might like to eat at the table lunchtime when they take a break from work.

If not then I’m afraid it’s just something to get used to.

Different people, different customs