Where Do You Have Dinner?

Having a tradition may be something you need to reinforce your identity. “Dinner with Family” was written to project an idea that your traditions may affect more than just your identity, it maybe what your children are depending on in order to form their identities. A statement like, “Teenagers who eat with their families at least five times a week on average will get better grades, are 42% less likely to drink alcohol, 59% less likely to smoke, and 66% less likely to use marijuana,” makes you wonder how important it really is. "In a house where most of the objects haven't moved since yesterday, and no new people have apperared on the scene, the puppet show on the television screen is the most surprising thing in the child's enviroment, the stimuli most in need of scutiny and explanation", is a reading passage that follows the facts behind children statistics and sets the foundation for importance of providing stimulative family activity to your children in order to keep their attention. The essay also points out that traditions can change over time due to the world changing all the time. This paper shows that it really isn’t the dinner tradition that is an issue, but the fact that parents are too busy trying to make a living to raise their kids.

I chose this piece because it is a subject that hits home for a lot of people. I know that my family strives for togetherness during mealtime and we benefit from it. I also see the same results when I’m out to sea and sailors sit and eat together. It is a time where there are little distractions to prevent good conversations. I liked writing it because there were many facts to drive the paper and it can be considered a national problem. I consider this a critical thinking piece because I was able to identify two points of time, 1950 compared to present day, to observe the tradition, identify the differences, find the causes of change, and list the effects of change with support from outside sources. I should also point out that my professors thought that I finally met the requirements on this assignment.