Gen X Thanksgiving Roll Call: What’s your most 'Kids-Only Table' Memory?

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OakandIvy_9586@reddit

My grandmother insisted for years that kids eat first. The kids table got bigger over time and it became clear to those doing dishes and those eating last (the same ladies in the family, coincidentally) that kids loaded up plates, ate a small amount and wasted the rest. They tried to put a stop to it every year. I remember sitting at the kids table waiting for my cousins to finally finish food they didn’t want so we could go play. The next generation of kids at that table did the same thing.

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tuna_safe_dolphin@reddit

The kids table was loud, messy and fun. I recall once in a while, one of my cool aunts or uncles would join the ruckus at the kids table. Not the same but another thing I used to love doing when I was young (like kindergarten-ish) - I'd go under the grownups table when everyone was eating and just hang out there. Sometimes my little brother would join me. This was also a good time to "mess" with one my cool aunts or uncles, like untie theirs shoe laces. It was kind of like a clubhouse under the dining room table. I loved it when any of the adults would notice and fake yell "hey what's that under the table!".

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Sitka_8675309@reddit

We tied the grownups’ shoelaces together. They pretended not to notice until they got up.

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GenerationX-cat@reddit

Yes! I did this too. It was so much fun😀

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Girl77879@reddit

Umm... Sitting at the regular table with the adults? But, I was the oldest grandchild by about 12-15 years, and it was only ever our immediate 3 person family, plus whatever friends my mom invited because they had nowhere to go for the holiday. Other than that, watching Oliver! on TV. They used to show the original musical every Thanksgiving.

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Middle_Raspberry2499@reddit

Being seated there when I was 25 and married :-(

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Hilsam_Adent@reddit

...biggest memory of the kid's table was sitting there nearly thirty, with my own kids next to me before enough of the family had died off for me to finally get a seat at the adult table.

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scream-and-gobble@reddit

I remember pointing out that if my uncle and his 2nd wife were there, she would have to take my spot at the kids' table.

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Repulsive-Handle8561@reddit

Table of five boys, aged 5-9. My brother used his plastic spoon to fling some jello mold, which stuck to the cabinet, obviously hilarious. My cousin laughed so hard he threw up all over the table,the rest of us ran in separate directions like rats. I tried to find solace in my room, but couldn’t shake the image of the contents of my cousin’s stomach slowly rolling across the table, so I sprinted to the bathroom but alas, I lost my own meal in the hallway just outside it. The girls’ table (4 of them aged 4-7) were all crying. Our parents sat stunned over the carnage we created in about 45 seconds.

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SuburbaniteMermaid@reddit

You literally lived the Barf-o-rama scene from Stand By Me

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Expert_Habit9520@reddit

This story gave me the best laugh I’ve had so far today. I can totally imagine the scene.

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Repulsive-Handle8561@reddit

It comes up (pun intended) every year.

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SuburbaniteMermaid@reddit

My cousin ate Parkay with a spoon. Somethin' wrong with that kid.

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Kitty_Mombo@reddit

The “kiddie cocktail” we were served. We were 8 year old toasting and clinking glasses like royalty.

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BadLuckIsMyLuck@reddit

I sat at the kids table at one Family Thanksgiving and at another Thanksgiving dinner in Friday.

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dm21120@reddit

I sat there into my 20s…… 😂

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Hilsam_Adent@reddit

I see you, brother. Damn those long-lived relatives! The worst part about being an adult at the kid's table: no booze allowed, so you have to deal with your cousin's feral brats, stone cold sober.

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watchwatertilitboils@reddit

The table was so wobbly, if anyone touched it, it would make they drinks spill. And then the kids would get blamed for spilling the drinks, but it was freaking Aunt Doris heading to the bathroom for the twentieth time that hit the freaking table.

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Ok_Abacus_@reddit

As a kid, you just wanted to leave so bad. But as an adult, you just wish you could go back...

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mlo9109@reddit

Unless you're single and childless and still sitting at the kids table. I'm perimenopausal and sick of having to hear Gen Z and Alpha brain rot at Christmas.

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Ok_Abacus_@reddit

Damn, your family is rough. Do they punish all the childless spinsters in this way?

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GenerationX-cat@reddit

Sending hugs your way🤗 I feel your pain.

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lup98@reddit

Love the user name. Long live the KINKS!!

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Evening_Drummer_8495@reddit

That one year my cousin said “I’m a whitehead” then proceeded to stuff his mouth with mashed potatoes, smash his fists against his cheeks, and spray everyone at the kids table with said mashed potatoes. Hilarity ensued. Hated stuff like that when I was a kid. Oh how I miss those times now. All I can do now is giggle at the memories.

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Mister-Spook@reddit

I refused to sit at the kids table. Didn’t like my cousins that much.

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Dobgirl@reddit

Sipping champagne. I was so young- maybe 8. I have no idea what the family was celebrating that thanksgiving but the kids were allowed sips of champagne

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-DethLok-@reddit

Uh, what? Are you aware that 8 billion+ people can read this sub - and only a tiny fraction of them are USAnians? Because over 90% of the planet does NOT celebrate whatever it is that Americans do Read the planet, please.

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Medium-Mission5072@reddit

When my aunt use to do thanksgiving I was the oldest at the kids table at 21 because my family treated me like I was still “a little kid” and they still do and I’m 46 now. I was dating my wife for 2 years at that point and she got to sit at the adult table but I still had to sit at the kids table. She sat with me at the kids table on our 1st thanksgiving (which she said was awkward). The next year I finally “graduated” to the adult table.

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dstarpro@reddit

My cousins and I holding up our glasses next to each other and bugging my aunt if one of us had a centimeter more soda than the other.

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DerpyBoxer@reddit

Instead of the booze the adults were drinking, the kids table got sparkling apple cider, and my cousin thought that was his cue to try to burp the alphabet.

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genericusername11101@reddit

Kid sounds cool

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External_Side_7063@reddit

Yeah, the day I left the kids table is the day I had to cook every goddamn Thanksgiving since

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onekinkyusername@reddit (OP)

This is epic!

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HotTakes4Free@reddit

I remember a certain precocious teenaged cousin showing up in a suit, and being pissed off he had to sit at the kid’s table.

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Tndnr82@reddit

I feel for this cousin in my soul.

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onekinkyusername@reddit (OP)

Outstanding!

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droppingrumpeez@reddit

I got promoted to the adult table when I was 12. My dad remarried and my stepsister is a year older. The next year I got demoted back to the kid's table and she sat at the adult table in my place.

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ItzLikeABoom@reddit

At the kids table at grandma's we always made fun of the adults griping and complaining about work. We'd imitate them by complaining about school.

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SuperRaccoon17@reddit

I got kicked to the kid’s table in my teens! Something about being inappropriate. Was never allowed to return to the adult’s table as if the kid’s table was some punishment! 🤘🏻👍🏻😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

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La_Mano_Cornuta@reddit

Mom putting on Arlo Guthrie’s [Alice’s Restaurant Massacree](https://youtu.be/WaKIX6oaSLs?si=otluCvkLDtewqUtK)

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-HEF-@reddit

I loved the cousins table. The 4 youngest of us got a card table in the dining room next to the main table. We had our own jug of kool-aid, salt/pepper, butter, basket of rolls, corn, stuffing and mashed tates. We only really had to go to the main table for meat. While my older brother was stuck at the main table listening to my great aunt talk about her bunions, the cousins table would break out a board game after we were done eating. Absolute heaven.

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mystery_biscotti@reddit

I was 22 before I got to the adult table. And then, in spurts. My two and a half year old was not ready for the kids table on his own.

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Dakittensmittens@reddit

You only got promoted to the adult table when you had a child. Even if you were a 14 year old (or her other siblings who also had babies before they could drive at night) who had a baby. Those of us who waited until after college to have kids never sat at the adult table.

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IceSmiley@reddit

My extended family was so big that there wasn't a kids table at all, like I usually sat on the carpet and ate OR waited for a seat on the couch to open up to watch football at least until an adult physically lifted me off to take the seat 🙁

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LollyGoss@reddit

I was still at the kids’ table when I had my own three kids!

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Vulturev4@reddit

I remember thinking I was such hot stuff after I graduated from the kids table to the adult table. Being the oldest, I was so ready to get away from the younger cousins and my siblings.

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sickboy6_5@reddit

the funny thing with my family, we did thanksgiving at grandma's house. all the adults ate in the living room on chairs, sofa, etc. everyone had their own tv tray. they would watch tv and chat, and smoke. the kids were relegated to the actual dining table way in the back of the house.

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OreoSpeedwaggon@reddit

I remember one Thanksgiving when my super-religious grandparents took my sister and I with them to have dinner at their church. We were only two of four kids at the kids' table, accompanied by another brother and sister around my age. We got done eating early, so my sister and the other girl went to play in the church nursery. The older boy took me out to his grandparents' RV in the parking lot to "show me something," which turned out to be his grandfather's stack of Playboys. I was about 10 years old and it was the first time I ever saw a nudie mag, let alone several, and it was my first introduction to actual pornography.

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Friday_arvo@reddit

You guys have memories?

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shesinsaneornot@reddit

My brother and I were usually the only kids so we never had a kids' table. A few years after he got married and had kids, there was a need for kids' table, and I (in my late 20s) sat with them for the whole meal. Much better company than the main table.

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refreshing_username@reddit

When we had just moved into our first house in 1994, my wife and I assigned seats to everyone. We put our parents at the small breakfast room table and all the people from our generation (siblings and some friends) at the big dining room table. Everyone thought it was funny except my mom and her dad.

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sashaprivateside@reddit

It’s wild how the ‘cool’ cousins always seemed to get stuck with the same fate too

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BigFitMama@reddit

Inevitably in our very verbal family we kids were called upon to say what we were thankful for (no matter our mood or feelings.) And thusly we learned early to craft heart warming performances. And pretty much after pie we were on our own for hours to play Super Mario or learn to use the VHS camera or play outside.

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Bug_Calm@reddit

Being so small I had to sit on not one, but two telephone books to reach the table.

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Necessary-Peace9672@reddit

Lots of burps and dirty jokes!

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somePig_buckeye@reddit

We never had a kids table. At my mom’s parents all 12 of us sat at the dining room table (it has a lot of leaves). It was a potluck buffet at my dad’s parents. There could be up to 50 people there. We sat wherever we could. The men mainly sat in the garage at picnic tables.

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high_throughput@reddit

We reached the point of having alcohol at the kids' table before they relented

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No_Adhesiveness2229@reddit

I’m tired of adulting. Can I sit at the kids table please? 😉🤪

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HelendeVine@reddit

We wanted a kids’ table, but everyone ate at one big table. I was so envious of friends who got to eat at a kids’ table and not have to listen to the adults, just blah blah blah the whole meal, interspersed with those unanswerable questions to us kids: How is school? Fine. What do you want to be when you grow up? (Whatever answer seems least likely to elicit another question.)

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AvengingTaco@reddit

I always had Thanksgiving at home with my mom and sister because none of my mom's family gave a damn about us. That circle would later grow to include my sister.

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Cats-n-Chaos@reddit

My “cool uncle” taught us kids how to bang our fists on the table and start a chorus of “WE WANT FOOD!” My grandma was not impressed.

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SettleDownAlready@reddit

2019 because my son stole my seat during the meal when I got up to help and I moved to the kids table. We all had a great time I just am sad that it was the last big family Thanksgiving but happy my son got to experience it as I remembered.

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versionii@reddit

I prefer the kids table, cuz it's not with the miserable adults

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External_Roll1046@reddit

When we would go to my Gradpa's house, there was no "kids" table. Everybody would come and go at different times and his dining room/ kitchen was too small for all of us at once. So we would just fix a plate and find a spot wherever we could to eat. Some would be at the table and some in the living room. But we made it work.

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bizoticallyyours83@reddit

The kids table was always more fun.

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Crafty_Original_7349@reddit

I was the only kid, and I wasn’t allowed in the same room as everyone else. I am staying home alone today and trying to forget about it altogether.

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Tndnr82@reddit

I am the oldest of all my cousins, so from as far back as I can remember I was the ring leader of the group shenanigans. Once I was a teen I was struggling with being on the edge of adulthood, and not being with the adults.

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MaximumJones@reddit

Thankfully my brother and I are twins so if you fucked with one of us you had to deal with both of us. We always got the turkey breast. 😁😎

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SalamanderTight5378@reddit

Like others have said, the rule was you needed to finish the food on your plate. I took exactly what I knew I could eat (even the foods I hated, because it was required). Then one of my aunts came around, saw what I had on my plate, and dumped more food on it. :( I was a teenager at the time, I think I know my own body and food tolerances.

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Good_Queen_Dudley@reddit

Getting my young Catholic cousins to drink beer out of the cans my Irish drunk uncles brought and taking a picture so I could show their mom for years to come...

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Malapple@reddit

In a very real sense, the year you move from the kids table to the adult table probably marks the end of the easy part of life for many people. Certainly did for me. At the time, I loved it. Looking back... a job, responsibilities, rent, utility bills, harshly limited free time... Nah, coach, put me back at the kids table.

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SurviveDaddy@reddit

The rule was you had to finish everything on your plate. There was four of us at the kids table. Myself, sister and cousin all decided to pile what we didn’t want to eat on the younger cousin’s plate. We thought we were geniuses. Instead, she got to walk, while we all had to share her plate.

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