American Tradition: The Sunday Papers

Every household I have lived in, from the time I was born to today, has gotten a daily newspaper. Often more than one. And no paper is more important than the Sunday paper.

This is much more than an information experience. In our household, we can and do read newspaper content online from around the world whenever we want. But on Sunday at the kitchen table (or even when we treat ourselves to Sunday breakfast out), the sections are strewn among the plates and the cups of hot coffee. It is a social experience, a face-to-face, in the moment social experience. Articles and columns are pushed across the table, discussed and (yes) argued about. An amusing comic strip might even be found, though to be honest, the quality of the Sunday funnies seems to have declined precipitously these days.

(One of my favorite early photos of our son shows him in his high chair, with the Sunday funnies spread out in front of him. He is apparently reading thoughtfully, but smart as he is, I think he was just looking at the colorful cartoons. By the way, no children were harmed in the making of that photo – I hope.)

There is a movement to bring back the tradition of American families eating one meal a day, or even one meal a week, together. Research seems to show that children who grow up with those family meals thrive (of course, this kind of research often has trouble distinguishing correlation from causation, but we’ll leave that for now.)

Anyway, I want to add reading Sunday papers at Sunday breakfast to this movement.

We don’t, and can’t, keep traditions alive just because they are traditions. We can and should keep them alive if we can find the inherent unique qualities that are part of the traditions in the first place. Without those values, a call to tradition is nothing more than a stubborn unwillingness to face change, or just nostalgia.

A family sitting around eating meals together is not nostalgia. And neither is the Sunday paper at Sunday breakfast.