My elder child frequently tries to bring a novel to the dinner table, as I'm sure I did at their age. But we don't allow it. Of course, the image of the paterf

My elder child frequently tries to bring a novel to the dinner table, as I'm sure I did at their age. But we don't allow it. Of course, the image of the paterfamilias at the breakfast table with his nose in the newspaper, ignoring his family, was a constant in the 19th and 20th centuries.