I came across an old post yesterday about an interview with designer and entrepreneur Tina Roth Eisenberg, in which she talks about something her parents did that seemed remarkable to her…
“About three years ago, I looked back on my own childhood, and I thought, what are some of the things that impressed me as a kid? What did my parents do that really shaped me? And I remembered: they had dinner parties. They’d invite their friends; there were lots of interesting conversations. As a kid, I wasn’t necessarily participating, but I was absorbing what was being talked about.
So I decided to do that for my daughter. I started with one dinner a month, and I invited people I admire, people who’ve done interesting things. A few months later, I asked her, ‘do you like having these parties?’ I wish you could have seen the look on her face. She said, ‘Mom, I love them.’”
This might seem an odd time to come back to this—sadly, none of us can have dinner parties right now! But it made me think about how this is a time when kids all over may be absorbing, and not necessarily participating in, some of their parents’ activities. It’s like one long (never-ending) bring-your-child-to-work day.
It made me think about things like reading the newspaper at the breakfast table, or following a recipe—and coming up with substitutions. It made me think we should set up some virtual dinner or dessert parties with the kids and not just drinks after they’ve gone to bed. And making these a priority again once all this has passed.
Do you have something like this that your parents did and that you’d like to carry on? Now or in the future, when normal days resume? What did your parents do that impressed you as a kid?
P.S. The catastrophic happiness of parenthood.
[Designer and entrepreneur Tina Roth Eisenberg, photographed by Nicole Franzen for an interview by Shoko Wanger for Freud von Freunden.]
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