Eating In Time, Eating Up Time

Abstract

The fact that a woman’s role within the family has been thought to be that of primary care giver coupled with increased expectations that women will participate in the labour force, has led some commentators to argue that there has arisen a care deficit in today’s society (Putnam 2000; Hickman and Crowley 2008). This care deficit is being held responsible for a number of perceived social ills including rises in obesity and the decline of the traditional family due to women’s lack of time and therefore inability to produce ‘proper meals’. This narrative can easily be critiqued along a number of dimensions. For example family is understood as a fixed category within which certain individuals (e.g., mother, father, child) are responsible for certain roles, rather than considering the family as a set of individuals engaged in a particular set of social practices (DeVault 1991). Likewise, care is expressed as an outcome rather than as the basis or motivation for engaging with a particular set of practices (see Schatzki 2002 for more on emotion, motivation and practice).

Eating, apparently a biological matter is actually profoundly social (DeVault 1991: 35).

Thus discussion around the timing of meals at weekends are not only necessitated by the facts of family living…but they also constitute a family set, a range of people whose projects and timetables need to be taken into consideration (Morgan 1996: 141).