I sometimes wonder where we would have been without the kitchen table. Do you remember yours?
Our kitchen table was made out of wood and had any number of layers of paint on it. It was surrounded by wooden chairs, most of which were mismatched, and all of which had stove pipe wire reinforcing their legs so they would not collapse when our overweight neighbours sat on them.
The kitchen table was the centre of our universe, the hub of activity around the house, with goodness knows how many pages of homework done on it.
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It was the meeting place for discussions that laced our family together. This is where Mom and Dad figured out our family finances, adding in those few precious dollars that Mom got from selling her chickens’ eggs.
It was our own coffee row, the place where visitors sat to share with us the latest stories floating around the community. It was where our grandmother sat in judgment, just to make sure that her daughter-in-law was caring properly for her son. It was there that Father scolded us when we were mischievous, and Mother comforted us with bread, hot out of the oven. We solved problems at the kitchen table, played games, laughed, cried and, in the end, it was the kitchen table we left when we went out to our own adventures in the larger world.
I do not think that I would be overly dramatic if I was to say that today’s kitchen table is under siege. The table is in hot competition
with the cordless phones, stereos, television sets, video games and computers.
In the community, distractions from the kitchen table are found in too many minor hockey league games, the curling club, extra-
curricular activities in the school, the golf course, committees and everything that makes us late for supper. Known as we are on the Prairies for our volunteer commitments, times spent in charitable causes are to the peril of the kitchen table.
When I work with families who are in trouble, I sometimes encourage them to resurrect kitchen tables in their homes.
Even if the families just meet there for evening meals or impromptu gatherings, if they do so with television sets and cellphones off, they might find that moment of sharing and caring that somehow got lost.
Resurrecting the kitchen is awkward at first. After years of letting electronic debris get in the way of people talking to each other, no one knows what to say. Everyone has to start over, getting to know each other again. It takes time, patience and persistent commitment, but if everyone does it, somewhere along the way the magic of the kitchen
table reappears.
I have romanticized and glamorized the kitchen table.
I make no apology. The heartbeat of the table in our home is what I
remember, and that is what is important.
Jacklin Andrews is a family counsellor, living and working in west-central Saskatchewan who has taught social work for two universities. Mail correspondence in care of Western Producer, Box 2500, Saskatoon, Sask., S7K 2C4 or e-mail jandrews@producer.com
