It may seem strange to say that in order to go forward we often need to go backward. Sometimes it is the harsh truth. Cooking meals at home seems to be somewhat of a lost art in America today. The return of the practice might be one thing which could help rejuvenate and revive some portion of the quality of life as we used to know it.
Many of the key elements which made us strong as Americans have been lost. The biggest of these key elements is, I believe, the family structure. The idea of the father as the head of the family, the mother in support of the father and the children subordinate to parents, somewhere along the way these ideas have taken a wrong turn. In our effort to be our independent selves, we have done damage to the family, causing the gap between parents and children to widen and falling into that ever widening fissure is the communication which is needed to weld a family together.
Count me an idiot, call me crazy, shake your finger at me and tell me how foolish I am. But I do believe a primary reason for many of the problems plaguing American families today is because we no longer sit around the table in the evening for a family meal. We no longer have that time where we talk, listen and yes, sometimes even argue about the things in our lives that are important.
The reason we no longer do this is because we have convenienced ourselves out of the habit of cooking. Fast food has become too easy, too plentiful. It has robbed us of one of the basic elements of family living, togetherness. To be a real family, members have to participate in some sort of congealing element or practice. They need something which draws them together … something that affords the interactions needed to have healthy relationships inside the family.
There are other reasons, to be sure, for the decline of the family structure. Many can be linked in one way or another, some very directly to missing the gathering of the family for the evening meal. For what ever reason, no one can refute the fact that the family is in decline. Our techno lifestyles and fast pace society doesn’t seem to have time for the family. A simple task, the task of the family sharing in the preparation of a meal, seems so small. How many problems could be solved, how many families could be brought back from the brink of disintegration with this one simple old fashion family practice of cooking a meal at home?
Those who were products of the 40s and 50s, 60s maybe even in the early 70s can probably remember the times when the family gathered at the table to discuss their problems, to talk about how their day. Granted, not every family had the Ozzie and Harriet mystique. My own family was semi-dysfunctional, but we still had those times we gathered around the table. Those times the meals were good and happy things were bantered back and forth as we all shared as a family.
Sometimes things weren’t all sun shine and roses, and cross words could be heard. We still gathered to have that evening meal, and to be a part of the family, good or bad. We knew who we were, we knew each other. We knew our limitations and our boundaries. Usually they were clear boundaries which had been tested and retested as they were set down by the social structure of the family.
In America today, life seems to get more and more complicated. Every time we turn on the news there is something else the mainstream media has sensationalized into a giant fear factor adding one more worry, one more negative aspect of living to be ever vigilant about. We struggle to keep our focus on the things that matter in our life. But do we actually focus on the right things, on the things that will actually keep us safe, keep us from fearing and keep us healthy?
So much of the time we spend in a day is spent in useless thought about useless things which cause nothing but worry. Things which really matter in our life are put aside, making those thoughts second to the things that we’ve been told we should fear. We should fear the threat of terrorism. We should fear the threat of disease. We need to worry about the dwindling fuel supply. We need to worry that our health might not be good enough or that we need to take a new drug to keep us from experiencing depression.
We worry about artificially concocted problems, and ignore the simple things of family which could make us whole again. We need to be whole not just as individuals, but as members of a strong family with substance to hold onto and a basis from which to step out into an uncertain world. If we can somehow relearn the importance of family, as we do take those steps we can be secure in the knowledge that there is structure behind us … a structure from which to build.
It’s a fact that Americans are living longer today than they did a 100 years ago, but at what cost? What did we have to give up, what did we sacrifice to gain those few years, and the biggest question of all, was it worth it?
The group of individuals that I cited before, those that grew up in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, and early 70s, I feel would have the best perspective about how things have changed. And I don’t know for certain, but I’d be willing to wager you wouldn’t find many who would actually say life today is any better than it was back then. In fact, I’d be willing to go so far as to say that most would say that the quality of life today is far less than it was when we were children or young adults.
Life is too complicated, too technological, too fast and sometimes just too much. Someone told me once that you can’t stop the wheels of progress or the machine built by it will come crashing down around us. That may well be true, and most certainly stopping progress is not what I would propose. Rather I would propose to try to reintroduce the idea of the family meal back into our way of life.
To do this pick a day … one day a week … if one day a week is too much, then start with one day a month. Encourage family members to participate in the planning and pre-paration to further the idea of family togetherness. I am sure that tuning out the world for a few hours for something as alien as cooking a family meal will seem a bit awkward at first.
However, I also believe if we could reintroduce this one element, the family meal, back into our lives, we will gain an insight into living that has become so obscured as to almost be lost.
I think we all have an idea of how we wish our family life could be, how it should be, how it might have been. I also know that today there are so many families who have fallen into the no time trap. There is no time to cook, no time to talk, no time to share thoughts and feelings. It’s off to the sports, off to the office, off to school, off to the so many other activities that rob us of real family time. Don’t let the “no time trap” take from you the most precious asset you have … your family. Find time for the family meal, and better yet, make time. Just remember, having a meal with the family is much more than just having something to eat