I'm sometimes surprised I survived childhood. Don't get me wrong; my mom was a wonderful person, but not a very good cook. She knew it, too, and would often joke about it. More often than not, dinner began with the phrase, "C'mon boys. Get in the car," and we would head off to some restaurant, usually one of the two diners in town. Dad was a travelling salesman (no joke) and was not home much during the week. He was pretty good with a grill, so we had steaks or burgers on the weekend when he was home.
My mom could put together a meal from a can or a box. We had a lot of mac & cheese and hamburger helper kind of meals growing up. She could also make a decent pot roast with canned soup. We didn't eat a lot of vegetables, because my brother was very picky and the only two vegetables he would eat were corn or green beans, and then only from a can. I don't remember mom ever using fresh vegetables, unless you count a head of iceberg lettuce.
So I kind of looked forward to the restaurant dinners, because I could order whatever vegetables were on the menu.
When I was about 10-ish, I expressed an interest in learning to cook. So mom bought me a copy of the "Joy of Cooking." We would plan it out so I would occasionally make something under her supervision. By the time I was 13, I was not only cooking meals unsupervised at home about 3 nights a week, but also responsible for putting together the grocery list. Some of my meal plans were vetoed ("Spinach Souffle?... try again," dad said). My younger brother also cooked. In fact he ended up cooking for a living for about 25 years.
The one thing I will say is that, even though dad wasn't always there and we ate out often, we still ate together as a family. Us kids were expected to be home by 5:30 sharp every night for a 6:00 meal. Despite everything, I actually have a lot of good childhood memories of dinner time.