It’s more for immediate family in the house. My wife loves to cook so she usually does, unless she’s going to be busy and then I’ll chip in. Sometimes we have the kids make dinner and we meal plan so they get to decide what to make.

Conversation is a lot more organic than you’re thinking. We talk about our day or what we’ve recently learned. Could go into taboo subjects like religion and politics. The kids get some great critical thinking exercises. If someone has something going on then we try to eat around that (ex. like a sports function to be at). Most other people eat around the same time (5p-6p) so it’s fairly easy to ensure we eat together most nights.

I guess the biggest take away is that we set this expectation since before we had kids, my wife and I tried to eat dinner together whenever possible, and the kids have grown up with that routine so they’re used to it.