Is your family closely knit?

 

In a recent report published in The Daily Mail, a British newspaper, it indicated that close to 45% of households no longer have dining tables. Here in Uganda, a good portion of households do have one.

 

However, it is almost never used for what it was intended — for a family meal. These days, the dining table has been changed into a storage point, if not a service area for one to serve themselves and then head for a couch in the living room where lunch or supper will be eaten while watching television.

 

In the old days, we used to sit round the table as a family my parents at either end and we would eat as a unit, from breakfast, to lunch and supper. My sisters and I would also take turns to set and clear the table. Today, nobody sets the table and many children think a table is only set in hotels and restaurants. 

 

Ask them to set a table and they would have no idea where the glasses, knives and forks should be placed. Now, we all go to the kitchen, serve ourselves and decide where we are going to eat from.

 

In my era, we were brought up and taught how to use a knife and fork. We also knew what a spoon was supposed to do and it was to eat cereals and in some cases desserts.  

 

Today, more and more children are growing up using a spoon for it can multitask from being used to eat cereals to the main meal and desserts. If not, they just use a fork. More and more children today do not know how to hold a fork, let alone a knife. All you have to do is attend a wedding reception and see people struggling to use a knife and fork.

 

Furthermore, many people do not even know that a tea cup or a tea pot exists. Back in the day when tea was made, it was done the proper way brewed in a teapot and to keep the tea warm, the pot would be covered with a knitted cover to keep the tea warm. And when we drank tea, it was in a tea cup and not a mug as is the norm today.

 

Whenever we had to see our grandparents, we went to Gayaza on my mother’s side and Ibulanku on my father’s. Going to the village gave us a perspective of nature, the countryside and a sense of belonging.

 

Though we knew that milk came from cows, we did not know exactly how it came from cows until we saw the farm — hand milking the cows. We also learnt how to dig, harvest maize and potatoes, for example. 

 

Today, when children go to see their grandparents, it is a 20-minute trip to one of the suburbs Muyenga, Bugolobi, Kololo or Mengo. The ‘village’ has moved to Kampala. Children know that they have grandparents, but do not know what a village is, where it is, or even how to get there.

 

Sunday was visiting time. After lunch, we would all pile in the car and drive as a family to see family and friends. While there were no mobile phones then to call ahead, we would just go. If you got to one house and they were out, you did not go back home. You simply went on to the next house until you found a family that was in.

 

Because of that, our friendships not just with cousins, but with friends were tighter and closer. Our parents knew who our friends were.

 

They knew where we used to hangout (not in the malls because there were no malls in those days but at one of our friends’ homes) and most importantly, they also knew who our friends’ parents were because they (the parents) were also friends. 

 

We always had breakfast as a family, as we did lunch and dinner. Dad worked and on most occasions he would pick us at 12:30pm from school then we would go to Mulago Hospital where mum worked, picked her and go home for lunch. In the afternoon, he would drop us back at school and mum back at work.

 

Today, children do not have lunch at home during the school week. Parents do not go home for lunch either so the only time that children might have lunch with their parents is on a Sunday and that is if they are lucky!

 

Usually, my parents were home by 6:00pm. Sometimes dad came back late because he had a Rotary Club meeting. And in those days, parents never went out every night to hangout after work as it is today.

 

We always saw our parents before we went to bed during the school week while today, children tend to see their parents for the brief 20-minute ride on the way to school the following morning.