So the 8yo and I got into a conversation the other day, about going home to have supper. She’s at an age where she loves to correct me. I’m sure it annoys the fool out of her that I normally laugh when she does that.
At any rate, I said, "Let’s go home and have supper."
"Dinner," she replies.
I said: "Well, I was actually thinking we’d have a lighter meal, because we had a big lunch today. So I would say we had dinner at lunchtime, and now we just need supper."
At which point her head exploded. Or maybe she said something along these lines:
"Mama, you canNOT eat ‘dinner’ in the middle of the day. That is lunch! You have dinner at night."
I shared with her my experience growing up, when we frequently had Sunday dinner for the midday meal. And of course, we went to church in the evening for what was called "Snack Supper," a redundancy if ever I heard one.
Needless to say, neither of us won the other over to our way of thinking. I found the whole incident to be evidence of two things, both of which I really already knew:
• 8yos are incredibly concrete. They like the dictionary, the rules and consistency. Heaven forbid you step over the line.
• My daughter is much less Southern than I am. I mostly attribute that to growing up in an urban area instead of a small town: Her friends’ families originate from all over the country, though certainly many are from here or near here. But I hardly ever hear the 8yo say "y’all," for instance. And the very idea that a large meal on Sunday lunch would not be called "dinner"!
She does eat barbecue. I can say that for her.
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I am from further south than you and we grew up eating Breakfast, Dinner and Supper. Lunch was something you carried to school in a paper sack. Eating dinner in the evening meant going out to a restaurant. Remind the 8yo that even Jesus ate “supper.”
Excellent point!! That one is definitely in my favor. :)
I always had a midday Sunday dinner which is what I though food should always be. Lunch, in different places I lived such as Louisiana and Texas, was often called Supper. chefjp
Well now I thought EVERYBODY knew that dinner was the noon meal on Sunday and that supper was what you had in the evenings. I can see I’ve got some work to do on that child. :-)