According to Miss Manners:
Family dinner is a quaint old ritual by which everybody in the same household would gather nightly at a specific time, rather than each head for the microwave when hungry; sit around a table, rather than stand in front of an open refrigerator; share the same food, rather than argue for competing standards of nutrition, taste and morality; and be entertained by one another’s conversation, rather than by that of celebrities on television. Without in the least minimizing the demands of work, homework and working out, Miss Manners nevertheless argues that the chief ritual that binds family and civilization is sacrificed at too great a personal and social cost.
Indeed.
From Judith Martin’s book, Miss Manners’ Basic Training: Eating.
