I hate thinking of topics. And I’m a writer. It’s literally the worst part of what I do for a living, other than the pay. So the last thing I want to do over supper, when I’m not working for a few minutes, is continue to think of topics for us to talk about. Every single night. But that’s what I have to do.
In our house, we do family dinnertime as much as possible. Family dinnertime: It’s not just for Shabbos anymore. In fact, experts recommend you eat as a family, which you would think is just practically speaking, because that’s when the food is ready. But that isn’t all, because if it were, family dinner could just be about sitting around and listening to each other chew.
But what do you talk about? Coming up with article topics is hard enough, but supper is every night. Can you just talk about the same stuff every night? Are you even allowed to say a d’var Torah at a weekday meal? I would ask a shaylah.
But even so, a d’var Torah is usually one person talking. You also need conversation topics, so you can take turns stuffing your faces while the other people take their turn talking, and then yell at your kid for talking with his mouth full, when that is the entire point of eating together.
So here are some fantastic conversation topics that you can talk about, to enhance your family meal. They may not be exactly the sort of topics the experts had in mind, but they are all excellent dinner conversation topics, judging by frequency that people talk about these things and also the volume:
- How loud the other person chews.
If this bothers you about someone you have to share meals with, there’s really no other good time to bring this up. You can’t just be sitting in a car at a red light and say, “You chew too loud.”
“What? I wasn’t doing anything.”
This topic is bound to come up eventually. It’s a known fact that for example the volume of a man’s chewing is directly proportional to how long he’s been married. Same goes for his sneezes. And he’s only one of the people at the table.
And then, over the course of this discussion, someone can point out that the person who brought this up chews plenty loud as well, plus there’s the way they slurp their soup. So this can get a whole conversation going, with everyone enthusiastically getting involved.
- Why there aren’t napkins on the table.
This is an ongoing point of contention in our household. My wife is of the shitah, handed down by her ancestors, that whoever sets the table should give everyone a napkin. Whereas my son believes, apparently, that she buys them for nothing. Though he may be nogeiah b’davar, because he expresses this opinion particularly during meals for which he set the table.
My son has ancestors too, but this shitah hasn’t fully been handed down to him yet. We’re working on it.
He needs to be given a reason every time. He asks, “Why do we need napkins?” and my wife says, “In case somebody spills.” Which is not the best answer, because if someone really spills, one napkin will not be enough. Maybe everyone should get a pile of napkins. But on the other hand, most of the time, people don’t spill. At least on that level. So then why do we need napkins at all? Mimah nafshach!
I think maybe when you spill, the idea is that you can grab your napkin, and also the napkins of the two people sitting right next to you. Those three are a start. This is why even the neat eaters need napkins, and why we sit every messy eater between two neater eaters.
- Who should get up to get things that you forgot.
Because you definitely forgot something. Every meal. It’s like going away for Shabbos.
And apparently, getting up is this monumental task that should maybe not be pawned off on one’s children. You give them the smaller jobs. This one is too big. Getting up is the worst. Like you have to say tefilas haderech…
Unless the door knocks; then everyone runs.
And people hate getting up, because if they do, everyone’s like, “Hey, once you’re up…”
“I didn’t even want to get up.”
All of a sudden, everyone thinks of a hundred things they need brought to the table. It’s like when someone goes to Eretz Yisrael, and everyone wants them to take a small package. All the way from the other counter. And G-d forbid you come back without every single thing that was asked for. That’s on you.
- How nothing happened in school.
Nothing. You pay thousands of dollars in tuition, and there is not a single day that anything happens.
“Well, did you learn anything new in school?”
“No.”
Maybe we should talk about that.
- What happened at work that put you in a mood.
Nothing actually happened at work. But you have to make it into a story.
Lead by example!
For example, you can complain about your customers. Customers are the worst.
“My boss was annoyed again that the people who hire us to do the thing we do apparently know nothing about the thing we do.”
“My boss asked the client to send an A1C, and the customer asked, “What’s an A1C?” if you can imagine.”
And meanwhile, your spouse is nodding along, because they don’t know what a A1C is either. They’ve asked you before, multiple times, but each time they forgot, and they can only ask so often without you getting annoyed. And they’re just glad that someone’s filling the silence so they can have a turn chewing without you hearing that they’re chewing.
- We’re doing haircuts after supper.
“But I don’t need a haircut!”
“Yes, you do.”
Then the person feels the back of his head. “No I don’t.” And then he goes back to touching his food.
“I’m going by look; you’re going by feel. How many people are going to feel the back of your head? “You looked like you needed a haircut, but now that I’ve felt the back of your head, I see that I was wrong.””
- There’s nothing to eat here.
This conversation is usually started by one of the kids, in case you’re looking for conversations that you as an adult don’t have to start yourself. And it’s usually a kid who is waking up about this in middle of supper, rather than an hour ago when you were asking for someone to help you make it, or earlier in the day when you were looking for suggestions of what to make. He wakes up about this when not only is supper underway, but everyone’s plate is almost empty.
And this is news to you, because you definitely thought there was something to eat here when you called everyone in for dinner.
But this kid doesn’t really continue the conversation. He takes one bite and then he’s gone, leading into the next conversation, which is about how people should come back to the table, because it’s family dinnertime.
It happens to be that the chances that everyone in the family likes exactly the same foods gets smaller and smaller the more kids you have. And then eventually kids-in-law, who were raised by an entirely different set of parents you’re not crazy about. There definitely aren’t enough foods that everyone has in common to figure out an entire week of suppers. On a good night, maybe two people like everything you’re making. Another person likes it but they definitely shouldn’t be eating it. Another person likes parts of it, but tries to fill up on just those parts. And one kid just today decided they don’t eat it anymore. Even though it was a kid-friendly food. Why did you make something you shouldn’t be eating if not all your kids like it?
The Venn diagram of foods everyone likes is a bunch of circles that barely touch. Some of them are on entirely different pieces of paper. Whose idea was it that everyone should sit down to eat together anyway?
Even you and your spouse cannot medically eat exactly the same foods, because you’re not blood relatives. Someone’s going against their doctor here. The two of you have a very limited menu of foods you can both safely eat, and none of those are foods your kids like.
I’m sure there are other topics such as these that people can talk about to enhance their dinner table, but I’m going to be quiet now, because I’m a little afraid that I’ve given away too much about my own home life. And yours as well. So now I’m going to reach out: What topics do you think people should talk about over supper that may or may not be what the experts originally had in mind? What topics have you had come up over supper that you would highly recommend as something that can be discussed over and over and never get old? If you’d like to do the incredible mitzvah of enhancing chinuch and sholom bayis by helping everyone figure it out, send it in, and I can write up a second list of topics for when these get old. Or you breeze through all of them and you’re still only up to the soup.
Mordechai Schmutter is a weekly humor columnist for Hamodia, a monthly humor columnist, and has written six books, all published by Israel Book Shop. He also does freelance writing for hire. You can send any questions, comments, or ideas to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.