3 Generations of my family couldn’t disagree more.

When Erin White confessed in her New York Times essay that she “made dinner for my family because I wanted to and because the world told me I had to — and then, three years ago, I just stopped,” I nearly dropped my fork. Stopped? Dinner? The family dinner? The sacred nightly ritual that has kept generations fed, sane, and mildly annoyed but still talking to one another?

White goes on to reassure readers that “your family will remain connected and whole; your kids will still grow up to be well-adjusted humans” even if you skip the nightly sit-down. That may be true in her house, but I will defend every family dinner we have ever had.

I grew up with family dinners as a non-negotiable part of the day. Every evening, no matter what chaos life had thrown at us, we gathered around the table. The television was never on. I may have missed out on hearing about the day’s events from Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley, or David Brinkley, but it gave me time with Mom, Dad, and my sister Linda. We were our own nightly news.

When Barb and I started our own family, we didn’t even have to discuss it. Family dinner was just what we did. And I kept my rule: no television. Vanna White was turned on after we were done. Instead of Wheel of Fortune, we talked, we laughed, we argued, and we invited friends over for Taco Tuesday. No one got a free pass; no one wanted one.

In her opinion piece, White worries that the pressure to produce nightly family dinners is overblown, writing, “The messaging on family dinner is intense! Family dinner will make your children smart! It will keep your children off drugs!” Sure, that’s a lot to ask of one Chicken Kiev. But she’s missing the point. It’s not about the meal’s miracle powers. It’s about the moment.

Dinner was our family’s daily reboot before rebooting was a thing. It might not have lasted more than twenty minutes, but it was where the kids learned to tell stories, disagree politely (mostly), and learn our family history and our ethos. Sometimes it ended in laughter, sometimes in frustration. But it always ended together and resumed the next day.

Did it matter? Here’s the kicker: our grown kids now do the same thing. Both our son and daughter have carried on the tradition with their own families. Dinner together. No screens, no exceptions. I take that as proof that something about those dinners stuck, maybe even meant something.

So, with all due respect to Erin White, I’m for keeping the family dinner alive and well. It’s not a performance. It’s not a punishment. It’s just the one time of day we all show up, sit down, and actually see each other.

And if sometimes the chicken’s a little dry or the mood a little dark, that’s family. And Vanna White is still hanging around.