Apparently, both of his parents worked late.

“Do you want to know about my dinners?” he said. “I come home and look at a listing of take-out numbers posted on the wall and choose one of them. One night I would have Chinese, next night Italian, then Greek and so on.”

I was just as astonished at his dial-a-dinner habit as he was at our daily family gathering. But maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. The world has changed in so many ways. More moms are working, everyone’s schedules are busier and family life is not what it used to be.

Growing up, family dinners were considered sacred in our home. For my mom, it was unthinkable to miss dinner for any reason, even to attend a school activity. 

I try to be flexible. We move our dinner hour around to accommodate activities. If you were to ask me, “What time is dinner?” I’d say, “Depends on the day!”

When my husband works late, we usually wait for him. When we are in the middle of playoffs, we’ll have a quick pizza together, even if it’s at the baseball diamond. The importance of the ritual family dinner was imbedded in me by my mother, which makes me one of the lucky ones.

One day at the rink I was speaking to a fellow hockey mom. She told me her family rarely eats dinner together. “Right after work, I go to the fitness club for a workout,” she said. “With everyone’s schedules these days, it’s impossible to have dinner together. Everyone is on their own.”

I was stunned, but couldn’t muster up the courage to challenge her and, besides, it really wasn’t any of my business. But I know what I wanted to say: “Shouldn’t gathering together for a family meal be a daily priority?”

Family dinners provide a fantastic opportunity to learn about each other’s day. They’re the perfect place to teach manners, a great environment to introduce kids to the art of conversation and a faithful setting to pray. We always say Grace before meals. Over the years, we’ve also talked about God, the obligation to fast for an hour before receiving the Eucharist, and what the kids have learned at school, especially in religion class. Mealtimes should be occasions for families to affirm their faith and have lively discussions about right and wrong.

Dinner time is also a place to build family bonds and foster teamwork by working together to make the meal, set the table, clear the dirty dishes, load and unload the dishwasher. Also, my husband and I are constantly amazed at the things that we learn during family dinners. Like most families, we have to fend off such distraction as telemarketers, television, the Internet, cellphones and texting so we can actually talk to each other and learn about pet-peeves, happy moments and all types of small, but important, details of each other’s day.

I was recently surprised when, out of the blue, my husband noted that we’ve probably sat down for a family dinner 97 per cent of the days since the kids arrived. I took his compliment a little more seriously when I learned that studies by The National Centre on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University found that children who eat regularly with their parents are less likely to smoke, drink or use drugs. Parental engagement fostered around the dinner table was regarded as one of “the most potent tools” to help parents raise healthy children.

Renowned author Fr. Henri Nouwen once called the dinner table the barometer of family and community life. He believed it should be a place to foster intimacy and sharing. That’s also what I believe. Now I pray that when my kids get older and start families of their own, they will celebrate the sacredness of meal time and see it as a time to foster intimacy and build loving bonds in their homes.