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On any weeknight you can see them - parents and kids of all ages dining out in a packed sushi joint or low-key Italian bistro - and it's not even a celebration. It's just ... dinner.

We are the restaurant generation. Many of us have raised our kids to think that eating out in restaurants is no big deal, something you do, well, when you're hungry. But in a rising tide of consumer debt, how can we all afford it? And more importantly, how will they continue to afford it once they're on their own?

When I was growing up, it took a special occasion to get all of us into a restaurant. We dressed up, we fidgeted nervously. In fact, I still remember each outing, especially the one where there were little flags inserted in our steaks to indicate rare, medium or well done.

As more women started working outside the home, domestic meal planning took a dive. You had to be disciplined to do a thorough food shopping at the start of the week and then of course actually feel like cooking after work.

We used to raise our eyebrows at the pizza boxes piling up outside one woman's house, but gradually it became more socially acceptable not to cook on a regular basis. My daughter reported once in wide-eyed wonderment that one family she visited regularly never - ever - ate home-cooked food. It was either go out or order in. That did shock me. At least they could afford it.

But many parents of more modest means have also become hooked on the restaurant habit. As Gail Vaz-Oxlade, host of the self-help television series Til Debt Do Us Part on the Slice Network, said in an e-mail, "It starts slowly - KFC on the way back from karate, McDonald's on the way to soccer, pizza when we get home too late to figure out what else to do. In no time flat, we're eating out four nights a week."

With teenaged children, eating out also became a way to connect - let's grab a bite and talk about your courses. (Though some parents balked at what I call the sullen surtax - you know, kids are in a bad mood and you sit there thinking: I'm paying for this privilege?)

My now grown kids couldn't begin to count the variety of restaurants they have been taken to over the years. Let me see, there's sushi and Thai, Chinese and Italian, rotisserie chicken and upscale burger joints.

Even with, at most, a restaurant meal every two weeks or so (I actually did cook), our children became such discerning diners they would occasionally moan and say, "Oh, let's not do Greek again," sounding alarmingly like soigné Cole Porter characters singing: "I get no kick from souvlaki."

The good news is that kids today have sophisticated palates, and, despite all the considerable whining from the child-free set, many very young kids do know how to behave in restaurants, politely ordering, and, as they emerge into adulthood, dutifully tipping.

Yet I often look around and wonder about the financial health of my fellow diners. It may seem like a cheap outing - $10 entrees - but with tax and tip, it adds up.

Credit counsellors wonder that too: "There's no doubt individuals and families are eating out in restaurants about 30 per cent more than they did 20 years ago," says Laurie Campbell, executive director of Credit Canada, a not-for-profit counselling service.

Ms. Campbell says that a "midweek cheapie" can cost a family $40, which when you think about it can buy groceries for at least two meals. She suggests replacing habitual eating out with "specific goals, like a trip to Disney World."

The cover story of the current issue of Toronto Life magazine, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Money," features a somewhat depressing conversation among seven young professionals, whom the magazine claims to have gotten drunk so they would tell the truth about how they spend their money.

It's depressing, not just because one male lawyer thinks you need a $250,000 income to "live comfortably" in Toronto, but because none of them seems to have any real insight into how and why they spend. And they all spend too much on eating out: "I don't think I've been to a supermarket in five years," a developer brags while several others said their restaurant habit is a major money-sucker.

Of course, when you're professional, child-free and in your 20s and 30s, eating out is all you do.

But food costs are escalating, the $40 entrée is not uncommon in the most fashionable restaurants, and more consumers are going into serious debt, often because of their entertainment costs.

I expressed concern recently at my kids' habit of celebrating each friend's birthday at a restaurant. "You'll go broke," I admonished.

But telling people they might go broke won't change their habits, according to Ms. Vaz-Oxlade. Here's what might: "Telling them what they could have if they put away $60 a week (a meal out) for their kid's education; or, better yet, how much debt they would not have if they made an extra $60 payment against their credit card or their mortgage."

However, that siren call of sushi - or any restaurant outing - fulfills the emotional side of the balance sheet as well. It's fun. And easy.

Still, we need to recognize it is taking a big bite out of our bank accounts. If you're wondering what I'm doing for dinner tonight, I'll e-mail you the recipe.