Ruth’s MM: Dinner Conversation.

I remember sitting at the table every night while I lived at home and having dinner conversation.  I knew every night I would be asked the same question:  What did you do at school today?  Followed by:  Did you do your best?  Then they would ask my brother.

Lately I’ve been a bit concerned about all I don’t know about my daughters’ school days.  A lot happens in a day, you know?  I know all about hundreds of students’ school days and very little about the precious ones I live with.  It makes me a little sad.

Then I remembered these dinner time conversations.  As a child I never felt that my parents were missing out on my days, nor that they were out of touch with my daily life.  In fact, well into middle school and early high school, I would dread the questions. I  would filter out my day deciding what I could tell them that would end the continuous “pumping of information.”  It didn’t matter that they weren’t with me every minute — they knew the big things.  They knew because they asked. 

I’m going to ask too.  Because it doesn’t matter if I know the minute-by-minute details of the happenings in their classrooms (that’s my day job!); what matters is that I know the big picture and the important happenings and whether they’re doing their best.