One thing I do not regret as a father

What is one thing I do not regret doing as a father? I regret many things. I regret my inexperience as a father of my first child. I was overly strict and punished him for every wrong step he took. I think it still affects his confidence to this very day. Sadly, I cannot rewind the clock and undo the wrong and the damage, no matter how hard I try to reverse the effects now. Sigh. There are many other regrets, and I may share them here on another occasion. But for this post, I like to share one thing I didn't regret: Having a family dinner everyday.

I look forward to the family dinner everyday. It is nice to see the four children and my wife seated next to me around the same table. It makes me feel like a family. But what is really nice is the casual banter and conversation over dinner. We have dinner in the kitchen, and since we do not have the habit of watching TV - the TV is in the sitting room anyway - we are not distracted from one another. Although we do not have any agenda for discussion, over the years, the chats have taken us to many topics which I think we otherwise would miss - topics such as sex, economics, pop idols, fashion, our mistakes in life etc.

There is no structure to our dinner conversation so it is difficult to describe a 'typical' dinner chat. Some days, the number 3 will dominate the conversation with her lengthy description of a nice story she read. She would go into the minutest details of the story. It is clear that the older children have no patience to hear the full-length story but I guess it is a good practice of patience and consideration for their younger sister. If it gets overboard, they might say, "Can you summarise the story?" or I would interrupt with another topic; in which case it is her turn to learn consideration for others - that not everyone is as interested in the same thing as her. The number 2 starts her piece with this usual trigger, "oh you know what? ..." she will then go into telling us her happenings in school, which is usually very interesting and that will provide ingredients for the rest to chip in our comments too. The number 1 is most reticent. His usual response to my "how's school?" is the wooden "ok". But over dinner, when he is more relaxed, and when a right topic for him crops up (and when he is in the mood), he can ask very piercing questions. Most of the controversial topics start from him, and they are usually the ones that I will harness to lead my children into a productive discussion that challenges their value system. Number 4 is only four years old so he talks the least. I guess he listens and gets inducted into the routines of our dinner chats. Occasionally, he will say something that will make us laugh and that is very helpful for livening up the mood too.

It is during dinner time that I feel we are most like a family - we share our thoughts openly; we share our laughters and our tears. Think about it, we spend about an hour talking everyday (dinner is about an hour long). That means 365 hrs of family time a year, excluding other times together. Better than going for a family trip oversees to build family bonds?