Dinnertime: A Line in the Sand

By Monica Seeley | The Epoch Times

A few days into his first summer job, my teenage son came home and wanted to tell me about “an interesting conversation” he had with his boss. The job was his first venture into the wider world after being raised in the bubble of homeschooling and a small Catholic classical high school, so my curiosity was piqued.

As they worked, the subject had turned to my son’s homeschooling childhood, a subject that was completely new to his boss. Somehow, in this context, my son began describing our family’s dinnertime conversations. Those conversations were frequently sparked by his father’s love of history, he said, or by his older brother’s “encyclopedic knowledge,” or by events of the day.

“And then there are these stories,” my son said humorously, recalling the many stories that have been told and retold around our dinner table until they become family legends.

His boss, an atheist, responded thoughtfully, “That’s how values are passed down.”

The talk then deepened into a discussion of values: What are values? Are they subjective or objective? Which ones are passed down?

I was struck by the fact that my son had not set out to evangelize. He was simply sharing the things he knew and loved, the experiences of his childhood. Central to those experiences was the dinner table. And that’s where the conversation turned to deep topics.

Just as the dinner table was pivotal to that conversation, it has been pivotal to our family life since my husband and I exchanged vows three decades ago.

In fact, years before we married, I found an antique gate-leg table in a dark corner of a junk shop. I was scraping my way through college and barely had money for the purchase, and I didn’t even have a home for my battered but elegant find. Nonetheless, I clung stubbornly to my treasured table, borrowing space for it in various sheds and garages until the day it took up residence in our first apartment.

As our family grew, that table grew as well, from a half moon pushed against the kitchen wall of our tiny rental, just big enough for two parents and a high chair, to full size and then some, as additional leaves made space for more kids.

The gate-leg table has had a couple replacements over the years. But our family dinnertime has remained remarkably consistent. We’ve prioritized it, sacrificed for it, and rearranged schedules for it.

Sometimes it’s (very) late; sometimes it’s early. Sometimes there are guests. The cast of characters changed as our family grew to six children, and changed again as those children began heading off to college and beyond. But at some point in the evening, those who dwell in our house gather around the table for prayer, food, and conversation.

My unwavering commitment to the family dinner table goes back to my own childhood. Each night, our family would gather around the table, parents at the head, usually a baby in the high chair. We would go around the table and each child would offer one thing about their day: something good, something bad, often something hilarious. Some of those stories were legendary; we laugh about them to this day.

There were a dozen of us children, so this sharing could take a long time. I have vivid memories of sitting in the warm light of the kitchen on a winter night, as it grew dark outside the window, listening to stories of the day, whether it was about work or school. It was getting late; homework was calling, but no matter. I knew that this was more important.

When we look back on our parenting years, my husband and I often wonder, sometimes with a chuckle, how we managed to successfully raise six children, five of them boys.

I watched other moms with admiration as they proactively planned, organized, and got ahead of their kids. For my part, once my children left the womb, it seemed that all I could do was hold on tight and remain calm. Our house was a whirlwind of activity, noise, pets, and strong, strong wills.

We weren’t particularly good about schedules, routines, or rule making. We homeschooled, but definitely leaned more toward unschooling than schooling.

The one constant we can point to in our parenting is the enormous amount of time we have spent talking with our children.

Conversations—about faith, education, politics, family, every topic under the sun, although they do have an amusing tendency to circle back to history—wove their way into our family life. They formed our children in the things we hold dear and kept open the lines of communication at vulnerable times in their lives. Now that our children are mostly grown, those conversations serve to inspire and call us higher as they share their insights and aspirations.

And where did so many of those conversations take place? At dinnertime, around the family table. No matter in how many directions we were scattered, the dinner table brought us back together at some point every day, to pray, eat, and talk.

When we re-did our kitchen several years ago, I was surprised when the designer and the contractor both matter-of-factly suggested getting rid of our dining room to make room for a more spacious kitchen with a large island for food prep.

I was shocked. What? Get rid of the dining room and the dining room table? Where would we eat dinner together? I could feel a deep sadness welling up inside me at the thought of what would be lost.

As we begin a new year, prioritizing family dinnertime is a worthy resolution. It’s a great parenting tool, a place to build memories, form hearts and minds, and keep a family close. It’s where important conversations start, and continue.

For my family, it’s even more: It’s a symbol of our countercultural life, a line in the sand between us and the world.

This article was published in slightly different form in Soul Gardening, a print journal.

Published originally in The Epoch Times on December 31, 2025 | Read The Article