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If I heard that question once, I heard it a million times: “Mom, what’s for dinner?” A simple question for sure, but it was one that often left me thinking, “Oh crap! I have to cook again!” In the spirit of transparency, I have to be honest. Although I love dinner time, I hate cooking. Hate may be too strong of a word, let me rephrase…..I dislike cooking an awful lot. I think, as women, we are conditioned to believe that we should enjoy whipping up delicious meals for our family. That never was the case for me. The cooking gene skipped me for sure.
Friend, if cooking is your thing and you can cook your face off, I celebrate you and want to be your BFF; however, cooking dinner was and still is the bane of my existence. Shocking, I know! It’s shocking because my kids almost always had a home-cooked meal. And you know that they say cooking (or is it food) is the way to a man’s heart; believe me – my husbands didn’t marry me for my cooking.
How did I brave my dinner time dilemma, you ask? Quite frankly, in the early years, I did like some of us do every night – I FAKED IT! I mean, “COME ON! Do kids really need to eat every- single-evening? Do I really need to pre-heat the oven – it’s going to heat up eventually, right?”
Oh yeah, for years, I faked enjoyment in preparing these nutritious home-cooked meals for the kiddos who took delight in spreading food around the plate to make me think they were eating it; or quickly placing a napkin over the plate to try to fool me into thinking it was gone (Mishon, I’m looking at you!!).
No, cooking and me were not friends! We’re at least co-workers now. Ya’ll know what I’m talking about – We’re only around each other to get the job done and then we go our separate ways until the next day.
You probably sitting there judging me right now. How can she hate cooking?! What’s wrong with her?! Ain’t that’s what a mom’s supposed to do?! Well yeah, I do dislike cooking a whole lot, but it was only recently that my kids discovered the kitchen wasn’t my favorite place in the house.
I didn’t love cooking, but I didn’t want my feelings to distort their views about this domestic skill. I wanted them to decide on their own if they liked cooking or not. If I said on a daily basis, “Oh I hate cooking!” or if I didn’t bother to cook at all, they may have grown up hating it as well. Not because they made that decision on their own, but because my dislike was transferred to them. Kids are funny like that, you know.
I got to tell you something, though. When I was ‘faking enjoyment’ (at cooking), they learned something from that too.
Y’all know when you do something and your heart isn’t in it, most times, it doesn’t turn out well? That’s why my meals (although nutritious) would rarely win any contest. I’ve recently been informed that my cooking is “bland”. The bonus of my Jedi cooking trick is that Lyric loves cooking and can cook her face off. YAY! My time in the kitchen was not in vain! Mishon, on the other hand, is taking her time getting to know her way around the kitchen. Which is cool. We eat breakfast for dinner alot nowadays.
The thing I want young moms (& dads) to understand is that parenting is not always fun, glamorous or fair! Sometimes we have to turn on the oven and fake it.
Cheers!
