I want you to imagine a very loud room. Everyone’s talking over each other, you can’t make out if someone is laughing or crying and the person sitting next to you just wants to tell their version of the story… by the way, welcome! You’ve now accurately created an image of any dinner party with my family. 

For some context, I am one of 17 cousins on my mom’s side of the family, making our typical gathering anywhere from 30-40 people. This has contributed so greatly to my life because I truly believe that if I had the opportunity to school yard pick my family, I would not change a thing in the lineup- this helped motivate my desire to speak on the topic of family dinner parties.

Among some of my most used lessons early in life were how to welcome guests through a door, fill any and all requests, and properly set a table- knife edge facing in and never out, all in preparation for family dinners. Now, this may sound miserable to some, but in reality these roles have been shown to instill independence and confidence within children. According to Stanford Medicine, gathering around the table has significant impacts in teaching children how to communicate, listen and build self-esteem.

Now for our second point: tradition. Coming from a large family that’s lived on Cape Cod for 8 generations, the large family gathering has been consistent in my life for as long as I can remember and this is a tradition that I cherish. Historically, traditions are a time to pass on heritage and connect generations. Traditions, like dinner parties, are shown to create positive bonds to places, memories and your people.

Finally, how conversations at the dinner table are foundational for children and young adults. In 2022, 91% of parents surveyed noticed their family was less stressed when they shared meals together, but only about 30% of families do this regularly. This benefit is in part due to the healthy communication that can occur at the dinner table, 80% of teenagers saying that family dinner is the time of day they are most likely to talk to their parents. Additionally, for young kids the organic language that occurs at the dinner table often contains vocabulary that they would never pick up from school or a picture book. 

Sitting down with my family at the end of the night, sharing each other’s company and a meal, will never feel like a chore to me. However loud or overwhelming, I hope you learned about what can be received from a dinner party. 

Now, welcoming you back into that loud room that you imagined earlier, I want you to alter it just slightly, creating an image of your own family, friends or roommates rather than mine, and think about how you could benefit from a round table dinner.