The family dinner hour can only survive if the leviathan state provides the correct economic conditions

Amanda Marcotte is an insufferable twit.

She's not the first to mock the "mythical" 1950s-style family dinner hour.  Mrs Cleaver and Donna Reed have plenty of detractors.  But I'm not sure I've ever run into these particular types of whine about why it supposedly doesn't work in the real-life modern world.


The upshot tying them together is stress, doncha know, and until gummint steps in and makes these households at the outset of evening tolerable environments, it will be that way.

Mothers today are short on time, you see:

The researchers interviewed 150 mothers from all walks of life and spent 250 hours observing 12 families in-depth, and they found “that time pressures, tradeoffs to save money, and the burden of pleasing others make it difficult for mothers to enact the idealized vision of home-cooked meals advocated by foodies and public health officials.” The mothers they interviewed had largely internalized the social message that “home-cooked meals have become the hallmark of good mothering, stable families, and the ideal of the healthy, productive citizen,” but found that as much as they wanted to achieve that ideal, they didn't have the time or money to get there. Low-income mothers often have erratic work schedules, making it impossible to have set meal times. Even for middle-class working mothers who are able to be home by 6 p.m., trying to cook a meal while children are demanding attention and other chores need doing becomes overwhelming. 

Then there's financial stress:

Money is also a problem. Low-income women often don't have the money for fresh produce and, in many cases, can't afford to pay for even a basic kitchen setup. One low-income mother interviewed “was living with her daughter and two grandchildren in a cockroach- and flea-infested hotel room with two double beds,” and was left to prepare “all of their food in a small microwave, rinsing their utensils in the bathroom sink.” Even when people have their own homes, lack of money means their kitchens are small, pests are hard to keep at bay, and they can't afford “basic kitchen tools like sharp knives, cutting boards, pots and pans.”

And then there's those impossible fellow family members:

Beyond just the time and money constraints, women find that their very own families present a major obstacle to their desire to provide diverse, home-cooked meals. The women interviewed faced not just children but grown adults who are whiny, picky, and ungrateful for their efforts. “We rarely observed a meal in which at least one family member didn’t complain about the food they were served,” the researchers write. Mothers who could afford to do so often wanted to try new recipes and diverse ingredients, but they knew that it would cause their families to reject the meals. “Instead, they continued to make what was tried and true, even if they didn’t like the food themselves.” The saddest part is that picky husbands and boyfriends were just as much, if not more, of a problem than fussy children.

No mention of the larger public policies - such as a taxation rate that makes it far less possible for one income to support a family than it was when father knew best and Wally and Beav sat down to June's casseroles, not to mention the diminished stature the homemaker role has experienced in the last half-century - that make for the assumptions in which Marcotte couches her argument.  It's all about harried women squeezing in yet one more thing.

And the pests mentioned in her paragraph about low-income women (why don't men make an appearance until well into her paragraph on picky fellow household members?) is a bit condescending, is it not?  It's that sick kind of faux-pity with which collectivists charge their scenarios to get you to emotionally buy into their schemes.

Then there's the picky-fellow-occupants part of her thesis.  The classic pre-cultural-revolution moms had a way to deal with that.  They put the plate in front of you and said, "Eat."  And she had Dad's sterner looks and growls to back her up if needed.  There was respect for the family cook.  You ate her output not just to nourish yourself or gratify your taste buds, but to acknowledge the love she'd expressed by preparing it.

And then the family - far and away mostly consisting of an always-married-to-each-other mom and dad, and some offspring - would share their experiences of the day, discuss current affairs, how schoo was going, perhaps some household business. Maybe a philosophical debate or two.

In fact, you weren't just acknowledging the food as an expression of love, you were conveying gratitude that she loved you enough to, as a sovereign individual human being making free choices, prioritize her life in such a way as to be there, at the stove and then in the dining room, to see to it that you had some thoughtfully-prepared chow to eat.

But all that was in a time when the state was much less involved in family life.  And we had families, not households.