Page 8 - North Star Magazine 2022

COVID v.s. Family Dinners
by Maura Beale
I grew up in Staten Island, New York where the population is massive and varied. The people of Staten Island are hard working and devoted, when COVID hit, responsibilities and hard work increased. In my own home, family dinners are a must and a tradition. Family dinners have become scarce not only in my home, but in others’ as well. Staten Island is a firm community where everyone works for what they have. The people of Staten Island have always been willing to make sacrifices, regardless of how
big or small. In my family especially, family dinners were a major sacrifice. Robert Putnam, the author of the book Our Kids, claims that family dinners are more common to the social theory of parents who have a higher education and a better paying job compared to those who don’t. My Staten Island subculture was put to test during the pandemic which led to the instant serving of others. Although family dinners were sacrificed, the wellbeing of the people of Staten Island increased.
My dad is a radiologist at the hospital in Staten Island. Due to the pandemic and him being a healthcare worker, he was working a lot more than usual and was not able to be a part of family dinners. His job consisted of taking X-Rays of patients with COVID. This of course, was life threatening to himself and my whole family. My dad isolated himself in our home in order to protect us from contracting covid, which led to him missing the family dinners we held close to our hearts. Robert Putnam discusses family dinners in his book Our Kids. Putnam argues that parents who have a bachelor’s degree
or better tend to have more family dinners than those parents who have no more than a high school diploma. The pandemic, however, flipped life upside down, causing this to be the opposite for me and my family. It can be seen that the harder our parents work and the more effort they put into our job for us, the less time they have to spend with us, therefore possibly eliminating family dinners.