Opinion | Why I Had to Kill Family Dinner

Thoughts? I only “have to” feed myself and my PIC, and I still enjoy figuring out what we might like on any given day for the most part, but there are def stretches where I, too, feel overwhelmed by the many options out there, or just draw a blank. This site, of course, has been and continues to be incredibly helpful when inspiration or mojo fails

I don’t know how my mother did it for so many years, although she kind of had a system: “dairy” (quiche, lasagna, etc.) on Mondays, meat on Tuesday & Wednesdays, fish on Thursdays (her supermarket shopping day), and chicken on Fridays (for Shabbat). Saturdays were usually leftovers; Sunday was out to eat or the meal that takes a long time to make.

My father and I used to guess what we were going to have for dinner, based on what my mother was thawing out or what dish she hadn’t made in a while. We were right a surprising amount of the time.

Some people live to eat, some people eat to live

That’s a little black & white, don’t you think? If you read the article, that family certainly likes to eat. It’s just the main cook who got tired of doing all the work, all the time

I know but I found the author very whiny about how hard it is to cook and plan…

I kind of did as well. Why not involve others in the making of various dinners? The kids certainly could have helped created a potato topping bar or pizzas when they were tweens to teenagers. She took it on herself to feed everyone early on, but to the best of our knowledge, she never asked how the rest of the family felt about her NOT cooking every night. To the best of our knowledge, she never asked her spouse could have kicked in at times. It wasn’t until she finally got sick of it and told her family that they’re on their own (and they were happy about i) that she realized this. So it’s kind of on her.

I mean, I’m very glad I don’t have to prepare a dinner every night. If I’m driving home from work and haven’t pulled anything out to defrost or have something ready to go (either in the fridge or in my brain as an idea), I can make scrambled eggs or cereal, cheese and crackers, or a handful of nuts and Fritos (not together though!) without having to worry about kids or others to feed. But when I do cook? I enjoy thinking about what’s in my fridge/freezer/pantry and preparing the ingredients.

“Now I make simple meals a few times a week, and on other nights we rely on takeout and cereal.Now I make simple meals a few times a week, and on other nights we rely on takeout and cereal.”

Yup, that’s the easy route, but I doubt it’s providing a lot of benefit to keeping bodies running well.

Dinner is often a pain in the arse, especially when you’re dealing with intolerances or aversions. Sometimes (and, sometimes often) you have to grit your teeth and deal with it like a grownup who knows they have responsibilities and obligations, especially when there are kids involved.

“Erin O. White is the author of the forthcoming novel “Like Family.”

Or she could just be trying to draw attention to her new book. Publication date. November 4, 2025. Who knows.

I definitely understand the dinner fatigue. Working full time with a kid, dinner definitely gets to feel like an obligation, as the author mentions. One problem for me is that cooking/baking is one of my hobbies and a creative outlet, and one of those activities that I can get into a “flow state” with - and it can help me to destress when I’m in that zone - but often this hobby begins to feel like an obligation and drudgery. (Maybe I need some new hobbies!)

Right around the end of the school year last year, I was absolutely burnt out from cooking and the reason I most looked forward to our long summer vacation was that I wouldn’t have to cook for almost two weeks! I came back refreshed and back in the groove, but with the luxury of time that I now do not have back in the swing of the school year.

But I have made a couple of changes that have eased the pressure a bit. First, I enlisted my husband’s help to cook one work night a week (there’s a thread on the cooking board about it). This has been a huge help. He doubles the recipes so we usually have enough for a dinner or two plus maybe some leftovers for smaller lunch portions, and enough to feed the freezer a bit. If there’s a night I know is going to be crazy, I can defrost something and we don’t need to spend a lot of money on takeout that is inevitably much less healthy than whatever is in the freezer. Second, I got my butt back to the farmers’ market. (It’s a long winter in NY but from May to October the farmers’ market is bountiful.) That did wonders for my cooking mojo. Simple preparations work well with the incredible raw ingredients I can get from our award-winning local market. Yes, it is pricey, but the freshness and taste is incomparable and much more satisfying than grocery store ingredients. In addition, the human connection piece of talking to people, often the very people growing/raising the food I’m buying, and being among my community, has energized me too. I know it’s a privilege I am able to shop there and not one I take for granted. Finally, and I think the author alludes to this, I have just tried to put a little less pressure on myself about dinner. I do like for us to sit down together, and my daughter is still young and unencumbered enough for it to happen daily. But I’ve been trying to simplify with easy preparations, some shortcuts/convenience items, and not stressing too much about it all, and everyone is still happy and fed. I still do love a good cooking project or diving into an elaborate recipe, but I’m saving that for weekends or vacations for now.

NY Times is surely western equivalent of RT??

UK Times isn’t the worst, but in terms of ‘lifestyle’… don’t even pick up your bargepole.

Dunno. What is “RT?”

Maybe this?

“RT News has been blocked or restricted in many countries and on major social media platforms due to its role as a propaganda outlet for the Russian government

. A significant escalation of these blocks occurred after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, prompting a widespread crackdown on Russian state-controlled media.”

Never heard of them. Sounds as reliable a news source as the Epoch Times

This comment only exposes your lack of knowledge about the NYT. There isn’t anything called the UKT.

Yeah, I found it whiny, too. I suspect, as @Miss_belle pointed out, this article is more about getting clicks in service of promoting whatever book she has coming out.

There’s no particular reason she can’t get her kids involved in helping or, frankly, doing when it comes to dinner. She could even go the route my mom did, once I was old enough to be trusted with chopping vegetables and roasting a chicken without burning the kitchen down (so, age 12) - dinner was my Monday-Friday expectation. Mom and dad both worked. I had sports and extracurriculars, but dinner was still my responsibility. So, we ate a lot of meatloaf, stir fries (I have fond memories of our electric stainless skillet), chicken, American chop suey, and the occasional taco kit. And it was expected that I cleaned up after myself, do the dishes, etc. Then I did homework and went to bed.

Yes, I did also walk 10 miles to school, both ways, uphill, in the snow

But, hey, if she’s decided that she doesn’t value family dinner anymore, then that’s what she’s passing on to her kids. They’ll get to decide for themselves when/if they move out.

Having grown up in a family with a dad who worked in acute medicine, we never really developed a culture of family dinners. Me and my sister were fed at a time in the evening determined by my mum - often with us parked in front of the TV so she could catch up on housework (she worked full-time in a 9-5 job). She would stay up late and eat with my dad if he got back from work late.

Now I’m the doctor with weird and wonderful hours so we don’t have a culture of family dinner in my home. My husband and son both cook and fend for themselves. We eat out together as a family reasonably regularly.

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As much as I like to cook, yeah, this was a nonstop struggle for me for decades. Trying to come up with something tasty, nutritious, and not boring wore. me. out.

I finally ended up with a small stock of things that could be done with a minimum of effort that everyone would eat like stir fries and various pastas that would at least be edible with minimal effort on nights that neither I nor anyone else cared beyond just having something to eat.

Some nights I asked for ideas/requests, sometimes i was enthusiastic about a particular menu, and sonetimes we just needed calories but were out of time, energy, or giveadamn.

Now? I have expanded the quick and easy optikns, and yeah, sometimes I have cereal.

I understand the fatigue of getting dinner on the table every night, because it hits me hard too. Though like other Onions here, my spidey sense left me feeling the author was leaning hard into a contrarian position to promote her upcoming book release.

Also, I’m going to share that it comes from a place of economic privilege to simply stop cooking dinner for one’s household. I wish the author would have acknowledged that. There’s no way our limited food budget would have been enough to keep our bellies full had my grandmother opted out of making dinners when I was a kid. Weeknights we couldn’t all eat at the same time because my mom worked later. But there was one meal available. Period.

I appreciate how lucky I am in this phase of life to be able to decide I’m not up to cooking and choose takeout, a snacky dinner, or sometimes dinner out.

Privilege is a wonderful thing to enjoy indeed, and it’s easy to forget just how much of it we have

A good reminder, @tomatotomato.

And I wish I had a time machine to travel back and treat my grandparents to some lovely dinners out.