Christmas is coming. This may be for many, the final family dinner celebration for the year—a tradition that other times of the year seems to be waning. The dinner table has been front and center many times in my life. Occasionally the focus has been food but mostly, not. The disappearing communal dinner as vehicle of important social and family functions is lamented over and over again in movies, editorials, and books—- I have an image of TV trays with plates full of food facing a TV screen…….
Regarding family dinners, mine is a love-hate relationship.
My mother married my stepfather when I was less than two years of age. He was fifteen years older than she and raised in the Midwest during first, the roaring twenties, and later, the depression. His tradition was for formal sit downs most nights as a family—just as, I suspect, he was raised. My mother loved that with the possible exception when a boxing match was broadcast and he would not yield the radio during dinner (always at 7:30 PM). I learned my table manners, was mostly quiet, and listened to Cassius Clay defeat Sonny Liston during such dinners.
My memory is flawed in that I have told people that we were so formal that in the first half of the 1960’s we boys were obliged to dress nicely ie with ties and jackets for dinner. On reflection, this was only accurate for special occasions such as Christmas dinner or a birthday. It is the holiday dinners I remember best for their impact on the memories of a small child. By seven years of age, I had mastered tying my own tie, a milestone I was proud of. When celebrating an occasion my mother proved an excellent cook. My dinner of choice was for my birthday—deep fried chicken with rice and sliced tomatoes. A rule of etiquette in my family was that you could not pick up your food with your fingers—not even fried chicken. By age ten I was adept at leaving no meat on the bone using a fork and knife which would later attract attention when in college dining halls and visiting for dinner with friends over the years.
When my brother Chip reached adolescence, dinner became something altogether different. Chip was deeply intuitive and had ranging interests in a wide variety of topics. In addition, he was, “street smart.” He did not like our stepfather as he had memories of his biological father and romanticized the could-have-been life with him. As it was, my stepfather (Ernie) had been educated with discipline in the tradition of Jesuit schools —- in the Midwest. The debates were dreary affairs as Chip would proclaim an idea that he favored only to have Ernie break it down with rhetoric and debating skills that were awesome and terrifying to behold. Chip had skill enough to annoy but not win such debates. My allegiance was torn in that I loved my father, but saw my brother as the underdog and so, mostly rooted for him. This process which came to be a routine at least a couple times a week became increasingly difficult given that Chip was a juvenile delinquent who rarely got caught and Ernie understood that; the emotional content in the discussion was way out of line with the actual intellectual content. For Ernie, these debates were an attempt to both educate and to bend Chip to his will.
It was painful. I think the point of a very serious and angry discussion regarding what has to be in place to win a war (this would have been while the Vietnam war was on—pre Tet offensive) and Ernie’s position was that one had to dominate and control the enemy completely to declare victory. Chip disagreed and Lethe’s discomfort was very apparent as the meal was closing and there was to be no resolution in sight. This was lasting forever and the voices were getting raised. I piped up, “Dad, does that mean we did not win the Revolutionary War?” I remember the conversation fading rapidly and I remember Lethe giving me a look of thanks.
I was the prototypic, “middle child.” I could be useful at the dinner table.
The family dynamic for our dinners changed as the sixties charged on. Chip left the fold for college, and the informality that the sixties brought came to affect us as well. The exceptions remained with the holidays though Chip would arrive with long hair, mutton chop facial hair, and bell bottomed pants with leather boots just to spice things up. Thanksgivings famously were events in La Jolla at my Grandmother’s and we kids (even Chip) were relegated to a room with a television while the grownups drank and chatted before dinner. Dinner was usually good and in my family, wine was offered even to someone in High School.
Jackie’s Thanksgiving desserts were famous for their (from a kid’s point of view) failure. Pumpkin pie was made with no sugar. A baked pear in pastry was pickled with brandy.
Horrible. I did not try pumpkin pie until late in High School in a cafeteria and was amazed at all that I had missed for a decade because of grandmother Jackie.
This pattern was broken in my middle years. When visiting San Diego from our Olympia home, I realized that my contact with my nephews and nieces was limited to these formal dinners where they were not expected to speak. Lethe wanted her nuclear family to herself. That left Kernie sometimes at the end of the table with our kids and their cousins. I made a deal with Kernie. We would no longer socialize on this footing and would meet each family one-on-one where kids could be kids and they could be known. When Todd (nephew through my brother) was in his late teens, we invited him up to Washington. He had a great time and speaks of it to this day; our dinners were his dessert.
Raising our own children, Kernie led the way with the structure that remains a bedrock of our shared experience. I was often late from the office; I was given the time to be home to share a meal with the kids whom I did not see nearly enough. We did not eat at a formal table but rather, clustered about the island-counter in the kitchen. We reviewed what happened in school, challenges as well as the fun stuff. I was asked about my day and mostly speaking to Kernie, RN, I shared pretty graphically the day’s medical events, good, bad, and ugly. By doing this from childhood, Amber and Darby developed a vocabulary and a desensitization regarding the human body and what can happen to it. Amber loved this; Darby would say it was not her favorite set of topics, but both would say it educated them.
I recently asked Darby if she remembered this, but when asked to be specific, she could recall my satisfaction draining an access and I embellished the amount of pus expressed by pointing to her milk glass, “THAT much came out.” Darby had a steep learning curve.
They could enjoy my examples when they were humorous: “I was asked to come into a room to help sort out what was wrong with a woman’s cervix. I introduced myself to the patient who was lying on the exam table, noting her dark hair and makeup (she was a Goth). As a came around the drape, I was in awe as her pubic hair had been shaved to look like the batman logo. Oh, and her cervix was just fine.” They also learned that their dad was curious if not incredulous to learn that women coming in for a pelvic exam shaved their legs and wore their best underwear. I saw the nicks and would tease such patients that they did not have to do that for me, coming from a hippie college in California.
When working in a portable trailer-clinic near the woods, I had to do a pelvic exam on an ancient woman known to us for her hearing difficulties and haughty airs. She was formal, and the communication was often difficult as she had an old fashioned hearing aid which was the size of a transistor radio that hung about her neck. I needed her to scoot down to the end of the table and wound up shouting to her with these directions; given the thin walls of portable trailer, everyone in the clinic could hear my directions. When it was time for her to stop, she could not hear me and she propelled herself directly into my lap, her gown now coming off as I attempted to keep my balance on the small wheeled stool I sat in. My nurse, Shannon, was no help at all as she crouched to avoid peeing on herself, her laughter convulsing and also within hearing range of the whole building. I lifted the patient with grace, not falling and was able to complete the examination. We never saw her again.
Before cellphones, there were beepers. Not uncommonly, on the way home I would get a page to the OB unit. On arriving home, to check in with them, my kids had become comfortable enough that when taking the call home that preceded the paging, they would ascertain if the woman in labor was a primip ie having her first baby, her dilatation, and descent. I was met with this information and their read on whether I would have time to have dinner with them. When I checked in the Labor and Delivery by phone, they were correct more often than not. It occurred to me as the years passed that graphic descriptions of deliveries, more than descriptions of sexually transmitted diseases, proved a useful topic with which to use graphic imagery. I knew of mother’s who tried to interest their daughters in the comprehensive care of horses—both because they loved horses but also, it was an effort to keep them out of social circles that might invite intimacy with boys. I saw this as a delaying tactic of uncertain value. Learning about blood loss, torn skin extending into the rectum, and the size of babies that routinely were delivered vaginally, I saw a certain education and resulting respect for what intimacy might bring. Again, humor was a useful tool in education: At the two week check up the husband was present and took me aside to ask when he could have sex with his wife. I would say in a stage whisper so that his wife could hear, “Until six full weeks have passed nothing can go in there unless it has been boiled for at least ten minutes,.”
Darby’s boyfriend in late high school became a fixture at our house and shared many meals with us before going home to have dinner with his parents. He was an athlete and his parents ran a collection of restaurants. He was not a science major. One night, when asked how my day went, he interposed, “Are you guys going to talk about vaginas tonight?” I got that ours’ was not a typical dinner experience. Later, we were invited to his parents for dinner and the six of us ate formally at their dinner table. Darby and Evan left while we socialized after dinner and when we got home, they were waiting in our living room and complimented us: “You guys did really well! No swearing and I did not hear a gross medical story or anatomical description once! We are so proud!”
I think they were in error in that at some point that night, I did point out that no matter what a woman looked like in advanced age, there was an occasional surprise to learn that 80 year old breasts can look decidedly younger than their owner. How would you know that if you were not a doctor in the business of screening for cancer? Hopefully, you wouldn’t! Mammograms remained on the plate of to-do’s. The girls were not sure what to do with that bit of information; I hope it gives them hope now that they are in their middle years…..
We are not there yet, but we see the future coming out of the past. Old people at holiday celebrations are often put in the corner, literally or metaphorically. Dinner conversations with grandchildren in their teens take a different direction now that Kernie and I are not at the head of the topic selection; and these days, kids are more than just seen. As with most extended families, some topics are best left alone and the ribald topics of the past are a rarity in my house.
And then there is Amber’s dinner table, coming home from what was voted The South Sound’s best Woman’s Health Clinic. Those grandchildren of mine are getting the education she got. Given her history doing sigmoidoscopy, foot care, and women’s health care, my grandkids have been known to ask if their mom, had a, “… butt, foot, or vagina day.” Once more, reporting back on the sex education block in fifth grade, even the third grader nodded his head noting, “We already knew all that!”
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