What Mealtime Represents for Families

Sara Bradley

What thoughts does your family have about mealtimes? Do they represent togetherness or a rush hour? If you could make even one of your mealtimes that special quality time of every day, you would create family memories that would live on forever.

In our busy lives we often put the family aside to do other things, because we believe that the family will understand where the world won't. Somehow our jobs or outside duties take priority over the ones who need us and depend on us the most. Their hearts are tender and precious when they are young. They are easily hurt into believing that they are least important to you, especially when time with them feels squeezed in to your busy life. And at the same time, they easily adapt to being loved with security and peace. Start when they are young and it will become a lifelong tradition.

Don't put your work or outside activities ahead of the love of your family that you're working for. In years to come, no one in the world will appreciate or care about the little extras you gave, but your family will treasure every moment that you spent with them.

Most of us have places to be and things to do during the day, and yet we all seem to return home at the end of the day. So why not use that time to do something else besides eat? Why not turn that mealtime into something that the whole family looks forward to?

It may be for only a few minutes a day, but it will become a precious time that everyone will expect and accept as a special family time. Although what they eat for supper will certainly help to encourage them to attend, it's the quality of time and the love shared that will be their true driving force.

My children were involved in so many social activities when they were growing up, but through training and encouragement, we always made sure that we all gathered at home for supper. Sometimes they wouldn't even eat; they'd just sit there because they weren't really hungry. But it became such a special time to them that they didn't want to miss it. Most of my children have families of their own now, and they have that same special supper hour.

It's a time of sharing and laughing together, and it creates in each child a confidence that says that they are home, they are special, and no matter what the world says about them, they are loved. It may be for only a few minutes a day, but it's those few minutes that makes all the difference to them.

04/03/08  By Sara Bradley