[sealaska]

Do you, or will you, allow your children to participate in extracurricular activities? Or is eating every dinner together less of an absolute priority as you claim? Your comment makes it sound like you may have some.

I ask because most of the dinners I missed growing up were due to sports.

[lettergram]

You figure it out, my siblings and I were always in multiple extracurricular activities. We’d typically eat at like 6-7pm. If something came up we’d move dinner to 5pm or later to 8pm. There’s always someway to make it work. We also tended to have breakfast together so even if we have to miss 1-2 days a week for dinner, we still eat together at least one meal.

In the US extracurricular sports and music tend to be after school 3-7pm range.

[hawaiianbrah]

I had dinner together with my family very, very regularly growing up. I also did a ton of extracurriculars, including sports. I think when I was younger, it was every night as a family. In high school, I’d miss dinner on competition nights or when that particular sport’s practice schedule was incompatible with dinner time for whatever reason.

I plan on having dinner together as many nights as possible when I start a family, but not to the extent of disallowing extracurriculars. But I also think that I would discourage my kids from being so involved elsewhere that we can’t have dinner together as a family a couple times a week.

[Leherenn]

How late are the extracurricular activities? I'm not American, but at home we would just eat all together after, e.g. around 9 p.m. and if they were later in the evening, we would just eat a bit earlier, like 7.

[technothrasher]

I think many Americans would look at you like you were nuts if you suggested regularly eating dinner around 9pm. I'd say 5-7pm is the most common here. Often when trips to Europe come up, the discussion is about how you can't get dinner at 5pm because the restaurants aren't open. Although my last few trips to Europe I noticed there are more restaurant choices in touristy areas that open early just to get the American's business. I've also noticed it's better to wait and eat when the locals do. Some of the worst Italian food I've ever had was in Milan at a touristy restaurant, and some of the best was in the same town at a place that a local recommended outside of the tourist areas.

[WastingMyTime89]

I think you have found the heart of this issue. As a French I wasn’t understanding the points being made about extracurricular activities but here a 7pm dinner is considered early and most people will eat around 8 up to 9. To be fair few people leave work before 6:30pm and being home before 7:30pm would be exceptional.

My beef with US supermarkets the only time I went there is how poor is the quality to price ratio is particularly for vegetables. Generally speaking you could shift every thing one price band compared to France.

[pnutjam]

My young kids are in bed by 8pm, if we don't eat at 6:30 or earlier they get indigestion from trying to sleep right after eating.

[alistairSH]

When I was in school, we ate as a family when schedule allowed. For most of primary school, sports were done in time for dinner. Music lessons were usually 1-2/week and often after dinner (instructor had a day job too). In high school, dinners as a while family were less frequent, but whoever was home would eat together. Same for the short time I lived at home after college - dinner was around 6pm and Mom expected me to let her know if I wouldn’t be home (default assumption was I’d eat with Mom & Dad since I was living there).