Not in my family its not! My wife is the daughter of a certified master chef, I eat home cooked meals allot! Most of my friends don't though, outside of my boss who loves to cook. Indeed, with most familys having both spouses working, it makes it harder for someone to get the time to cook a home style meal. But in situations where only one spouse works like my boss and my wife, its easier to get a home cooked meal of the ground since one is home already.
My fiance and I know that we will have the type of family that sits down to meal times, especially once we have children. My family never did that, and I hate that we didn't. I think meal time is an incredibly important time to share with your family at the end of the day. Granted we probably won't have sit down dinners every single night, but it won't be something that's foreign to us.
Both of us love to cook, and more importantly, we love to cook together. It makes for a fun time, even if it's something as simply as making mac and cheese or soup and sandwiches. I think we tend to make the biggest messes when we make pizza together.
Konq, you are a lucky guy! I work full time and my wife is either working or going to school, so it is difficult to arrange home cooked meals for dinner. I'll take this past week as an example:
Monday - Take out
Tuesday - Take out
Wednesday - Take out
Thursday - Take out
Friday - Home made casserole
Saturday - Take out
Pretty sad if you think about it, and pretty expensive!
Babyblues, my family also never did the sit down dinner routine either, and I had done that periodically through my married life, but as a single working mom it's really hard to maintain. Now, with my parents living here you would think that would change, but since they were never into the practice we still don't do it. I miss it, and I think I'll have to instigate a revival sometime soon -- at least with my daughter. With everyone scattering at dinner time, it doesn't exactly make it easy to have conversations with anyone.
When I was growing up, we never had take out, but we almost never had good home cooked meals. We did have allot of money so we had allot of things like plain rice and beef. Very bland, but it feeds you. But my wife knows how to cook, and I will tell you, I am the luckiest man alive! She can make anything taste good! I don't know if I could live off take out, both taste wise and money wise!
I try to cook mostly for dinner time when we are all at home. I made it a practise and tradition (that I demand!) to sit down at the table and eat every single night together. I grow up doing that and I always thought it was such a great time to talk about each other's day and just enjoy a meal together. I love it.
I agree with LDS, about the importance of a family sitting at the table eating food together.
We always sit and eat as a family, in the busy world that we all live in, it can sometimes be the only time that we can guarantee shared time altogether as a family.
Only my opinion, but I think that this is one of the things that helps to keep and bind the family unit together, and ensures proper conversation, together.