The Family Table

I've been asked a lot of curious questions over the years, about our extra large family.

It can be hard not to resort to sarcasm. "Where do they all SLEEP?" For a moment, I wondered if I should answer "Kennels!" I didn't. "Beds!" I smiled back.

Often asked is how we feed our children. What do meal-times look like in our house?

I'm not sure whether they picture a scene from The Waltons, or perhaps, a great trough, their snouts in and butts wiggling excidedly.

It probably looks like yours, only more.

Mostly, it starts well and ends up looking like someone exploded a bomb in a pot of minestrone.

We aim for a tidy table, prepared with loving care; each place setting laid neatly. We aim-but usually miss.

Even simpler dishes take longer to prepare for our brood -currently there are 11 of us at home. You don't just 'rustle up' a 5 minute dish for that many. So, by the time we're all home, hands washed, bums on seats; the cook (usually moi) is getting tired. If the table wasn't already set, great handfuls of cutlery are snatched from the drawer and handed - sometimes hurled- out. Too often there's something, or someone, missed. "Where's Michael?" "Where's the salt?" Where's my SEAT?" Nothing stays still in this house for long!

Our table is extra long and always full.

It was an Ikea bargain bought in 2002 after our then 6 children had outgrown our lovely farmhouse kitchen table. It was simple, but has survived 7 housemoves and a teething puppy. It has been a stage for unruly toddlers who loved to climb and perform, and a den.

It is the centre for homework and currently, amidst lockdown, homeschooling. It's where accounting is done, late night discussions with troubled teens, gift wrappings, letter writing, and days of working from home and most often where i find myself writing ma blog!

Our table has hosted tears, tantrums and hysterical laughter, sadness and silliness and stress. Our children have learned how to debate around this table, to argue politics and hot topics with respect for each other's opinions. Family prayers and Bible reading take place, around the table. Birthday celebrations, with extended family squeezed in, all around the table.

It's the place where hospitality is practiced as we create a space for an often overwhelmed guest, and make them feel part of the clan for a while. Once, a visiting teen looked like she was going to cry when we asked her about her day. She usually ate alone. Her parents, she later said, never asked.

Our first Thanksgiving Meal was celebrated together, around this table, when our precious American daughter-in -love joined the family. Over 20 of us gathered, of 4 generations- great grandparents to our small grand children, to adopt Mckenna's traditions, into ours. It was precious. And delicious!

The table is where we prepare together for the day ahead, over breakfast, and where we return to unpack our days over an evening meal. Some years ago, we began doing 'best bit of my day." It is always popular and always noisy. The intent is to give each child space to share, so that the chatty ones don't dominate the conversations and the more introverted children can speak up. Invariably though, something triggers someone who bursts with a detail they just remembered.

Manners, taking turns to listen as well as talk, take a long time to learn. The table is is often where we practice.

Our table is noisy, messy, funny, sometimes chaotic, sometimes orderly. Good moods and bad tempers all in one place at the same time. It is the beating heart of our family life and stands, literally, at the heart of the house.

Years ago, the hearth was the heart of the home. It was where people gathered to cook and keep warm.

Now, we scatter throughout our centrally heated homes, each on our own device or absorbed in different activities.

The table is more important than ever for family life. To gather us together.

I'll level with you. I can find meal times an ordeal. As I've grown older, I find noise more troubling. The booming voices of our older boys-become- men, have gone. Only Gabriel remains of them. Apart from when they return with their beautiful wives! NOW it's the girl's turn to dominate! They are loud and laughing, as opinionated and out-spoken as their brothers and they NEVER STOP TALKING!

Multi generational parenting means chatty teens, mixing with fussy tots and all the children in between chipping in. But we muddle through. Over the years, I've become used to muddling.

28 years of parenting has produced mum phrases that they play "Mum Bingo" with.

"I'm not running a cafe. You eat what you get." That one is still rolled out from time to time.

We never stop trying though, because it's important. Not just in the vital task of nourishing, but nurturing, our children. To gather and communicate daily, is vital, it's key, to growing a strong family, be it 3 or 4 or 13 or 14. It can be surprising what comes out over the table!

It is so much more than a dining table. It is a communication hub. It's the heart!