It’s hard to imagine how one might argue against family dinners, but professors at North Carolina State University have found a way. Throw enough government money at it and you can engineer whatever outcome you’re looking for.
Professors worked on this project for a year and half to arrive at the following conclusions:
- Michelle Obama’s health programs with an emphasis on family togetherness at mealtimes is stressing American moms out.
- The underlying message is that good mothers cook for their families, bad mothers don’t.
- Time, money, and finicky children were cited as the biggest obstacles (read that as stressors) to nightly family dinners (did your parents have this problem?)
- A nightly, home-cooked meal is a major source of drama for families, and that’s not good.
- Unrealistic expectations of mothers providing a relaxing, home-cooked meal each evening is a major source of stress causing women to feel inadequate, frustrated, and all manner of guilt when they feel they don’t measure up to that “idyllic” standard.
- The emphasis on home cooking is “a tasty illusion, one that is moralistic, and rather elitist.”
The study interviewed 150 mothers and shadowed 12 working class and poor families. You just have to wonder, what questions did they ask?! And why did they only interview mothers?
The University of Michigan studied 3000 Generation X adults over the last 25 years and reports that American men are more involved in the food preparation process. On average, the men cooked 8 times per week and grocery shopped at least once per week. Hmmm??? That study doesn’t jive with the NC State findings.
I’m not sure who suggested to the mothers being interviewed that they needed to be adhere to a perfect “Leave it to Beaver” dinnertime-type setting, but they really just need to relax about it. The only person stressing them out is themselves.
Every family needs to make adjustments based on their needs. For a study to suggest that the First Lady’s encouragements to make healthier choices is causing them mental anguish is ridiculous. It’s not like the healthy food police are going to start monitoring our kitchens to enforce home-cooked meals.
You can read more about this study here. In the meantime… I’m going to go whip up a big batch of pasta!
