Published Articles
By Dr. William R. Morrow

"The Family Meal Is Not Just For Eating"

Recent research in the field of substance abuse says that attentive fathers may be a big factor in whether their kids use drugs or not. It is the quality of the father/ teen relationship that is important. The researchers say improvement is a pretty simple thing, something as simple as eating dinner together. It seems pretty basic, since everybody has to eat. I mean that's boiling it down to what fathers in most any cultural setting should be able to handle: Sit down. Eat. Talk. You don't even have to do all three simultaneously.

I am picturing some anthropologist in pith helmet stumbling on a remote jungle village far up the Amazon. In this scene, the village gathers for a common meal. And then the host father gestures to the honored guest, grunts, and communicates three one-syllable words:"Sit. Eat.Talk." And everyone does, as they have for thousands of years. It is a grand occasion. Sitting, eating, talking. Maybe someone should warn these primitive villagers that as soon as they get television, supermarkets, and a paved road to the city, things will be harder.I could predict that one of the brave young boys in that village will break the mold and go to school one day and come back "civilized". Then the family will sit for a meal, only to hear the son utter the phrase he has learned from his new friends: "This meal sucks!" I can tell you that this will be the symbolic beginning of trouble in that village. The fathers will start drinking distilled potato water and coming home late for dinner. The witch doctors will become confounded by all the new problems.

So much for the uncertain future of the aborigines, where did the American family get off track, I wonder? Somewhere along the line in our "progress" we began to think weird science. "Meals are for eating", said the Grocery Grinch, and so we turned on the television and started forgetting about real table meals and leisurely conversation. Not just fathers. We all got too busy. It seems to me that too many families have pushed the mealtime aside in favor of fast food and other family-member activities, as if physical nourishment were all that was important. By fracturing the family meal time, we have neglected a basic resource. It is like poisoning your own well or setting fire to the house. We produced a vendorized barren dormitory, but not a home.

Amid all this frantic pace and skewed priorities, the ritual of the family meal should be held sacred; that is, don't mess with it. We all have something to learn from the Jewish tradition of the Sabbath meal, which is absented by any family member at risk of becoming a nebech. If you don't attend, it's like you're not part of the family. Besides, during the Jewish holidays, who would want to miss these special meals? Many ethnic groups know that feasting is not just for food. It is a time to restore the soul of the family. Look into my eyes...You are getting weary....Sit. Eat. Talk.

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