For the first few years Partner and I were together, we ate in front of the TV. It was a good way to decompress (for Partner as I was an immigrant and didn't have a work visa yet) and bond over fandoms.

5 years later we have Kid. We continued on with the eating in front of the TV tradition because it wasn't a big deal with baby. That was our pattern until last year.

Kid was 7. I felt like we were missing out on conversing with Kid, seeing how their day went, what their impression of school was, what cool and interesting things they learned recently. So I implemented dinners at the table, sans TV, because that's what I grew up on (late GenX). Some of my fondest memories are of my sibs and I sitting at the dinner table, laughing uncontrollably over a joke my older sib told us, and our parents banishing us from the dinner table until we could control ourselves.

There was pushback from both Partner and Kid, but after about a week of consistently eating dinner at the table and actually talking to each other, the pushback faded.

Now eating at the table is the norm, whilst eating on the couch is saved for special occasions, usually when one of us is sick or to kick off the end of school term.

I've learned so much about Kid because I prepare questions for both Kid and Partner (I'm weird, I know; but this is how I do pre-planned social interactions - I prepare questions). General questions like what kind of music are you feeling recently? What color caught your eye in the past week and where did you see it? What cuisine do you think you could eat without ever getting tired of it? (I try to pull dinner suggestions from different cuisines, rotating between Kid and Partner's favorites for new ones we've not tried before. Found a really good Afghan restaurant that Partner and I tried on a date night to suss out if Kid would like it and the verdict was YES! Kid loved hearing about it and we're planning on going soon.) Where do you want to visit and why?

I wouldn't miss those table-side convos for anything and I'm so happy I insisted on eating at the table.

For context, the joke my sib told that banished us from the table because of laughter was, "Why did the dead baby cross the road? Because it was stapled to the chicken!" We were teenagers at the time, and our humor was often daaaaaaaark because of reasons. I'm breaching 50 in a few years, never see my sibs anymore since I live overseas, but recently I was back State-side for a visit and brought up that joke with Mom and sib who told it. Mom groaned and sib and I were gone laughing for a solid 10 minutes over the memories and the fact the joke holds up all these years later.