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| my daughters wanted fry bread one day, we all benefited |
By learning how to cook, my kids have been able to contribute to the general welfare of our family. When my twins were born, my son was 7 years old. For the first few months, my son and I survived on his cooking during the day. That probably sounds unbelievable to many folks nowadays. A seven year old doing the cooking every day. From 6 AM to 6 PM, I had my hands full with 2 colicky newborns, for the first 3 months of my girls' lives. Chris, my son, cooked pancakes, scrambled eggs, frozen veggies and kept our glasses full of juice.
When Chris was five years old, he was like most kids, eager to make stuff. I just carried this over into cooking. He loved standing on a chair at the stove making pancakes. I would mix up the batter, then let him do the rest. He soon progressed to scrambled eggs. He loved cracking the eggs into a bowl. So what if a few shell pieces got into the eggs. We'd just fish them out and all was fine. By the time he was seven, he was following recipes that I clearly and simply printed onto recipe cards just for him. By age 8, Chris had a repertoire of chocolate chip cookies, hot fudge pudding cake, and lentil-vegetable soup to add to the pancakes and scrambled eggs. He was proud to contribute his efforts to sustaining our family.
My two daughters, Julia and Grace, also started with pancakes, standing on chairs at the stove with the bowl of batter I mixed for them. By age 7, I pretty much stayed out of the kitchen on Saturday mornings, after I'd mixed the batter. So long as the house didn't catch fire, we were good. I think it would've frustrated me to actually watch them, as they so carefully made all the pancakes doll-sized. I kid you not, all our pancakes were the size of dimes. And this took them up to 2 hours on Saturday mornings to make the family breakfast.
When they were about 9 or 10, they were allowed to mix up the batter themselves. They had many, many mishaps with the measuring, mixing and general remembering to add ingredients. One week, all the pancakes had to be scraped out of the skillet, as they'd forgotten to grease the pan first. Other weeks, large clumps of flour riddled the pancakes. And they often forgot to add something. But we all sat at the table, with smiles on our faces, as we ate those pancakes. Maple syrup has a unique quality, in that it can turn the most inedible food item into something very close to palatable. And, as with my son, preparing food for the family gave my daughters a great sense of satisfaction and pride.
Allowing my kids to make mistakes along the way has been critical to their learning. They learned how to fix something after a goof, as well as now have that mental reminder of what not to forget or do for future reference in the kitchen. Once you've forgotten to butter the skillet for pancakes, you never forget again.
On Tuesday afternoons, I feel like a queen. This summer, Tuesday has been my daughters' day to cook dinner. I have the long hours of the afternoon stretched out before me, to do as I please.
My two daughters are 17 years old now, so I just give them free reign to prepare what they want. They will run their menu by me, mostly to make sure we have what they need, and to prevent them from using an ingredient that I have planned for something else. Otherwise, they understand basic nutrition. They know they need to include a carb, some protein and a couple of servings of fruits and/or vegetables.
Last night's dinner consisted of sausage and vegetables in pasta sauce over spaghetti, apple-rhubarb sauce, and cole slaw. They also made Ritz-style crackers in the afternoon, just because they wanted to.
I have no doubt that all my kids will be able to cook for themselves when they're on their own. They won't be part of the generation that eats cereal for breakfast, lunch and dinner, because they can't cook anything else.
These last couple of generations of kids, are the first in the history of man, to not have daily food preparation responsibilities. We are becoming such a specialized society, that we are failing to teach our children basic self-care skills, like cooking, basic carpentry, basic sewing and mending, and growing or raising food. While it's true, we can procure any of these services in such a specialized society, there are some very good reasons to learn to do these things ourselves.
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| homemade Ritz cracker, anyone? |
My kids have an advantage in learning to cook that I didn't have. They have the internet. There's a recipe online for just about anything one could want to make. I was limited to what my mom knew, or what was in her cookbooks. Not so, today. My kids wanted some Ritz crackers, so they made a batch. Julia and Grace want to make Hostess cupcakes next. I told them "sure, when we've gone through some of the treats in the house". The only drawback we have here, is too much food, ready to eat at all times. Oh, the life of a queen is a tough one.
In addition to teaching our children how to do things for themselves, there's a side lesson in all this. We adults could learn from kids' enthusiasm and lack of intimidation, when it comes to cooking new things. Kids see something. . .they want to try it. They don't think, "oh I could never make that" or "that looks too complicated". They see, then they try. And they tend to laugh off their little kitchen goofs. It's just all part of life to them.
