The Importance Of Family Dinners In My Life

Mom explodes, “Don’t you dare just say what! Where have you been? What were you

“We best be leaving now. Thank you for your time.” I said, getting up and moving toward the front door. Warterhen followed behind me.

“Thank you so much! I will make sure that this never happens again. Please let me walk you out.”

It was the time of year that you knew that you were gonna have to see the cousins that no one liked. 2007 was the year. Thanksgiving in my family is the definition of chaos. My Dad’s parents don’t like my Mom’s parents. I don’t like my cousins on my Dad’s side, John and Mason, they always pick on me. I have an extra toe on my right foot and sure do remind me. We always come together at my Grandparents house in Durham. It usually starts off pretty calm because my Mom, Dad and sister usually spend the night before Thanksgiving in Durham. We always get up and make biscuits, sausage, cinnamon buns and my personal favorite chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. I make the pancakes for myself because when Grandma does it they always get burnt to a crisp.

To develop a menu and show what a healthy meals are for a family of 5.

“Dad!! Stop your hurting mom! Dad stop get off of her!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

Many scholars have written about the particularly intimate connection between food and family prevalent in Italian-American culture. Herbert Gans interprets this to be a legacy of the traditional Southern Italian peasant culture that the immigrant generation successfully passed down to the younger generations in America. Thus, the connection is implied to be a “transplanted” cultural trait. However, when viewed in light of the social changes in America, this bond was inevitably affected by the Italians’ experiences in America. Italian-American food culture was a tradition shaped by changes outside and inside the family. An examination of the Italian-American family of the interwar years (c.1919-1940) demonstrates that the critical role

"I'm out", I say to no one in particular, and as I stand up to leave, taking a couple of my roommates with me.

My mom met my father (different from my dad) in high school. I hear it was an instant connection. My father was known for his ways with women, and how he always managed to charm them again and again. He charmed her well enough for me to be the result. He didn’t believe my mother when she told him she was pregnant with his child and accused her of cheating. He was one to talk, for in the same time frame, another woman was pregnant with his child. He left her to fend for me on her own when she was seventeen years old, soon to be eighteen. It ruined her ability to go to college and to pursue a better career. She took a job at Wal-Mart to pay for the things in life I would need.

My Mom replied with a very strong finger point out of the room. I rolled my eyes, then I heard the stomps as I walked out here came dad with spit flying out of his mouth screaming at me saying don’t disrespect us like that.

It’s understandable. Families are busy, whether it be rushing form school to soccer or ballet practice. Going strait from work to the next PTA meeting or school play. Many time the simplest thing that we can do is just go through the local diver thru and getting dinner there. But this should not be and everyday event. It’s important to make time for an old fashion family dinner.

“I see you can still fucking hear, but your brain is still working on the words. Just remember to say nothing around his mother.”

“I am so sorry, not only for leaving you but for everything I said, I was so stupid to think that they will ever want me”

"My father and I hadn't said a word to each other when I went home for

I have spent approximately 5,735 hours sitting at a dinner table with my family. Some of those hours dragged by and some of them ran out in the blink of an eye. Many hours took place around a huge mahogany table that seemed to extend for miles, while others occurred around a tiny folding table, barely big enough to contain the food and conversations being passed above it. However, one of the things that has always stayed that same, no matter the table or the topic of discussion, was the people that sat around it. Family dinner is such a profound time of the day; a time when everyone can come together as one. Throughout all of these years and all of these dinner tables, I have come to learn that relationships are sacred.