I’ll just come out and say it:

We rarely eat dinner together as a family.

Our daughter is three and a half and she goes to sleep at 7pm. She eats dinner around 5:30-6 — either with me or the sitter, depending on the day. If I eat with her, I’ll snack on something — but it’s too early for me to eat a full dinner and my husband isn’t home yet at that point.

My husband and I eat dinner together, but it’s often in front of the TV. We both work hard and this is our only time to unwind. I know we should be sitting at the nice dinner table, savoring our food, and discussing our day, but 70% of the time we’re too wound up for that. Read the rest of this entry »

According to a Universitiy of Illinois study from 2003 (yes, we just came across this article, thanks to Diane, from WomensDish), it appears that this is the case. The study found that married working moms were much more stressed out during the 5:30-7:30pm time window than their single working mom counterparts. From the article:

Single moms may feel less bound to live up to magazine-cover images and standards of the normative American two-parent family — such as dinner on the table at 6. Without the presence of a husband and father who has to be catered to, things become more simple and flexible.

When I graduated from college and moved to New York City I worked at a job that kept me in the office 12 hours a day. When I came home and collapsed on my couch, dinner often consisted of cereal or crackers and cheese. A year later my husband moved in with me (well, my future husband I should say) and I found myself feeling bad if we didn’t eat something more substantial for dinner. He’d always tell me that it’s fine, he is more than happy to eat cereal, but still, the nurturer in me felt bad.

We’ve now been married for almost six years, have a toddler, and two demanding jobs. Our daughter eats early and by the time she is asleep, we’ve done more work, and gotten things organized for the next day, there’s little energy left to make dinner. But we try - a salad, an omelet, leftovers from the weekend. I do find myself feeling guilty that I am not cooking a nice dinner for us from time to time and I try to do this on weekends. (My husband is an amazingly helpful guy, but cooking is just not his area of expertise. He does mix up a mean bowl of cereal!) Do I feel pressured by my husband to make dinner? Quite the opposite - he is always telling me to not worry about it. I think I feel the pressure because I grew up in a family that valued family dinner time and I think it’s a nice way to spend some time together after the daily run-around.

What about you? If you are married or are in a relationship, do you feel pressure to make dinner for the family? Do you do it because you enjoy it? Single moms, sounds off - do you agree with the findings in this article?