Growing up in my tiny town in East Tennessee, I could count on several constants. Each remains special in my mind, some being bigger than others. One though is now part of what some experts see as evidence to why some people become civil and why others drift to incivility. Each night, especially until my sister turned 16 being more involved in church and school activities later in the evening, my father, mother, sister and I would sit down together for a family dinner, saying a family prayer and then enjoy conversation together.
Hard to believe that the sheer act of eating together now has become some sort of mystery, almost looked at like an ancient ritual. Yet, here we are in 2016, and so it is. We easily see around us society in a free fall, with both verbal incivility and a quick reaction with physical violence. You could, I suppose, make the claim that as a society, we have all grown quite thin-skinned, easily provoked. Author Richard Mouw writes about this issue of incivility and proclaims “I [am] convinced of the importance of the family meal as a kind of training ground for civility.” Mouw is writing on the larger topic of the impact of the Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper who spent his life trying to more deeply infuse a Christian worldview into society without attempting for force Christianity down anyone’s throat.
Kuyper wrote that culture and society is made up of spheres of influence such as “Business” or “Church.” “Family” was one of Kuyper’s spheres, and Mouw makes the case that the “Family” as a sphere in the 21st century is declining in its impact. Perhaps it might be more fair to say that the “Family” is dying. Oh sure, there are family units all around us, some great, some not-so-great. The problem though is that with the idea of family in chaos, or at least in retreat, society as a whole faces a risk.
Whether we like to admit it or not, the nuclear family of a father, mother and children was the original aspect of “civic society.” It was the first government, and as a child enters into society, it becomes the training ground for the child to enter into the larger civic society around the family. If, however, the family ceases to operate, either due to the splitting of so many families (thus, “if my parents can divorce, then should we be able to easily enter into civil war within the civic society”), or due to the reluctance of parents to actually fulfill their roles (either at all, or well), then society as we know it crumbles.
Today in 2016 as the USA still seeks to exit a weak economy, experts look for signals of strength. Historically, eating out was such a signal, but perhaps not for the reason you think. Up until the mid-1990s, maybe even just last decade prior to 2005, eating out was a luxury. At best, most did it maybe once a week. Note, we are talking about the family eating out, not the working parent grabbing lunch at the company lunch counter or the nearby Wendy’s. You ate out when you were very confident in your paycheck, and even then not unless it was a special occasion. So, economists could look at the earnings reports from restaurants and if it was positive, then properly conclude that American families were feeling confident in the economy.
However, in 2016, that is no longer true. Bloomberg reported that the Government’s data showed more money was spent eating out in 2015 than on groceries. It’s a shocking fact, I think…everyone knows that eating out costs so, so much more. Thus, economic experts no longer can draw a positive report about the economy from this fact. I think social and cultural experts now are equally perplexed considering the facts. One report I heard on NPR said that young adults, either singles or two working adults living together, simply are too tired to fix the meal…or don’t want the hassle. I get that. However, once children are in the mix, something key is lost.
Historically, the shared meal, especially with non-family, non-tribe members was a big deal. There were laws and unwritten rules about the traveler, about how to act (or not act) in the host home. Fail to uphold those rules and your own people, your own tribe, would act against you. Fast forward to modern society and while the harsh actions of the rules might no longer be around, the concept of the shared dinner table having a leavening effect for people is still valid.
Mouw writes “In the old-style family meal, children learned manners. They cultivated patience–by being forced to sit at a table for forty minutes with people they found irritating. This prepared them for citizenship.” Yes. Yes it did. My parents used our time to talk about life, about God, about one another. Dad would counsel both of us children through issues, challenges, hopes and dreams. Today, I know families that haven’t sat for a family meal in months, perhaps years. Other families may try to sit, but the parents have so abdicated their role of enforcing proper manners, the children either won’t sit down or may sit, complain, refuse to eat, then get up and grab some other junk food lying around the house. In my house, however, if I or my sister wouldn’t eat the food mother prepared, then we would be hungry. That worked in the 1970s….it also worked from the time my first child was born in 1995.
If we are unhappy with the culture around us, it simply is because we have allowed it to decline. And, sadly, now the numbers are against us. Much like Idiocracy predicted, if enough people who aren’t X produce more children than those who are….. In the movie, it was a question of intelligence, but the same is true about civility. If enough people who aren’t civil, who didn’t grow up in a functioning home, produce more children than those who are civil, then those offspring not only outnumber, but simply cannot know what civility looks like. Sure…some people can learn, but others will learn to see the civil person as weak, leading to more incivility or violence. Now, in 2016, we are fully two solid generations in of children who were raised either with no family, a broken family or a family where the parents failed to uphold their own roles. We are probably passed the tipping point to where it becomes nigh impossible to help stem this tide.
But, a trip back to the dinner table as a family could help. Mouw introduced me to the Search Institute located in Minneapolis. For 50 years, this group has been “discovering what kids need to succeed.” They created 40 Developmental Assets for Adolescents. Their first category (not sure if they simply list these first or see these as being of first importance) is “External Assets: Support.” The first is “Family Support” and the second is “Positive Family Communication.” On the second one, their first piece of advice is “use mealtimes.” Kind of hard to do that if you don’t ever sit together to break bread.
So, today, make sure you sit with your children for a shared meal. No kids? Then sit with your roommate or neighbors…turn off the TV, and simply enjoy the fellowship together of one another. You won’t teach each other rules about civil behavior (or, I suggest not trying), but you will be experiencing an ancient societal ritual that will strengthen our common civic bonds.