I’d originally labeled this piece “No Alternative” as I’d just read an article my husband forwarded me entitled How America Lost Dinner.  It’s hyperlinked there if you’re curious, it was a pretty good read.  However the end of it I came to realize how it, and other articles like it, bothered me as they highlight our issues with food yet continue to give absolutely no solutions or light at the end of the tunnel.

Yup, there’s your problem.  Now let’s all head off to the bar and drown our sorrows.

At first it feels good to read similar articles, we feel not so alone and perhaps a little justified in not giving food it’s due justice (but we kinda know deep down we should, even if we’re not alone, and still feel guilty for not though, right?).  In the end, at least for me, knowing that I’m not alone in any of my bad habits doesn’t make me feel better about them in the dead of night when I’m laying there the dark and everyone’s asleep; I still disapprove of myself even if the whole world “does them too.”

Solidarity seems to be just a temporary bandaide, which is why we keep looking for the next article and the next.

So it got me thinking about drilling down a little further into this issue of the challenges of making dinner in our society today.  They mentioned in this article there are food order boxes that go un-picked-up for days…  if the food is right there, then why not use it?  Time is always the first answer, but I’m not sure it’s as simple as just reprioritizing.  Human beings need to have a reason to reprioritize, and a reward.

I’ve noticed as a mother, when it’s getting later and the kids are all playing outside (mine is still at an age where she can’t be entirely left to her own devices for hours on end outside, though I will say she’s very independent for her age), that the witching hour of dinner is a strange affair.  Earlier in the afternoon, perhaps after school, is ok, it’s a safe time.  We all laugh and chat if we’re out, the kids play, life is grand.

But then it gets to be later, and the parents (especially the women) kind of start to look at each other… who’s going to drag their kid away from fun so they can go cook?  Or leave them out under someone else’s mindful eye (and then feel guilty about it)?  Is anyone else leaving to cook dinner?  It seems like we all want to do this tip-toed balance of making it seem like we all have it together for a dinner plan and staying out as long as we want, but do we really?

I’ll tell you honestly on the days I’ve elected to stay out longer for either my daughter or myself, I come in, I’m scrambling to finish even if I’d prepped in advance, and dinner is late, which pushes bedtime, which pushes everything else back and I find myself somewhat frustrated.  Does everyone else just elect to scramble and we don’t dare admit it?

But when you say, Ok guys I need to go in and cook dinner, the reactions are mixed as well.  They range from, oh you’re cooking dinner, fancy you, to why aren’t you letting your kid play longer to oh what are you making (when if answered with anything other than something very simple you get glares) or various explanations as to why that person(s) isn’t going inside to make dinner.

Do you know what the answer rarely is?  Good for you!  Awesome!  Or any other even slightly supportive or positive response.

Let me be clear here.  I don’t need a cheering squad, but I don’t need a shame and guilt battle every time I choose dinner and real food over anything else either.

Think about your answers lately in that situation; when someone says they’re going to go cook, do you immediately answer with, “oh we’re just having leftovers tonight” or something in that vein?

Why?

Are your dinner plans relevant to the original statement?  Hmmm, but there’s an underlying catch here isn’t there?  There is something about our basic need of food, and our inherent knowledge that we’re not doing as good as we should in that arena, that makes us feel like we need to explain ourselves.  It makes our initial reaction one of irritation when someone says they’re going to go cook if we weren’t planning on cooking that day.

Interesting huh.

This isn’t just an at-the-playground thing; when you ‘re at the office, do you say, I need to leave to go cook dinner?  What would your co-workers say?  Is dinner more important than your job?  I would have been laughed at in previous jobs.  As a woman these days you probably wouldn’t be caught dead saying that depending on your job; and we’ll come back to that point because it’s very important.  (If your job is supportive in this arena then that’s awesome!  Cherish and perpetuate it.)

On the whole, the answers on all of these planes tell us something; we have in this country de-valued food and the time it takes to prepare it.  That’s not new news, but why?  In most cases it’s not that we don’t have time, but why spend our time on something that (besides our immediate family, and sometimes not even then) we get no social return from?  Why spend time on something you have to fight uphill to do?

And as a woman especially, do something that we’ve come to associate with weakness and forced labor.  

Before I go any further, I will state now as I often have that I have benefitted from woman’s rights/women’s lib; whatever you want to call it.  Almost all of my careers and interests wouldn’t have been available to me even 50 years ago, and most are still somewhat but not completely accepting of women.  But I still have the opportunity, and for that I’m grateful and lovin’ it.

However the thing we don’t like, or are pretty much not allowed, to say out loud is that there have been some crappy side effects of this progress; and one of them has been to cast in a negative light any job that we were once shoe-horned into doing.  No free, independent, liberated woman these days wants to be seen in that image of the 1950’s retro lady with an apron in the kitchen.  That person had no choice.  That person was walked all over and weak, and let men make all the decisions.  Or so our perception goes.

So we have this subconscious idea now, as a society, that if you cook dinner you’re weak.  You’re less than, because that’s what those women did.  We judge a person’s character, their personality, their goals, on whether they want to and heaven forbid enjoy, cooking dinner.  We lace it with barbs like, “oh wouldn’t it be nice to have the time” and other such slicing bullshittery.

Mostly it’s not that we don’t have time, it’s that cooking dinner doesn’t have a priority slot for our time.  We don’t put it above other things because society doesn’t reward us for it, and sure as hell doesn’t make it easy.  I mean at least if you go to the gym and end up losing weight or getting super fit, people compliment you.  Strangers may stare approvingly, which we’ll all never say we like but we do.  We are social creatures who willingly live in a society, and societal approval is very, very important; it’s one of the things that got us into this mess in the first place, so don’t tell me it can’t affect the very core of how we act (because it already has).

What if there was a tax break for people who cooked at home?  Would we respect it then?  I’m not advocating for one, but I’m throwing out an example to provoke thought.  There is an underlying reason why cooking isn’t something we make time for, and until we air it out we’ll never “have time.”

The people that chose to do it work hard, and encounter resistance every day.  It means leaving things earlier, planning longer, carrying food with you instead of eating out all the time.  It means enduring the comments and the looks when you’re just trying to do something you know is good (especially if you don’t like doing it), but you get little kickback in return; and we have to repeat daily to survive.

Maybe if we got a break from it it would be different, but it’s a basic need.  Which means it has to be done even if you don’t enjoy it.  So why aren’t we all in this together?  Why isn’t there more, yeah it’s gotta get done so go get some!!!  Great job for pulling another one out today man!  Do you need help?

Cooking dinner is providing for your family, just like going to a job for money.  And that’s all it is on a base level; our romantic view that we have to enjoy cooking to do it well is folly, and a trap.  You, man or woman or any other combination now, are providing a basic need for your family.  You are preventing chronic disease and giving your family the energy to succeed and create, to thrive, to live.  The more you do it, the healthier everyone will be– that’s a really, really direct correlation.  It’s like brushing your teeth, do it and don’t lose your teeth.

Don’t let the fanfare of cooking shows and blah blah cloud this, it’s really that simple.  My solution here I’m offering is to invite you to take a look at the reasons you may not cook as much.  If “time” is one of them, be honest and ask yourself if that’s really it.  If it is, what can you move?  We all choose how we’re going to fill our own time (truly); is what you’re filling it with worth not executing this basic need?  It is really worth it?  Will it be worth it in 30 years?

My solution is to help the people around you.  Encourage someone on the fence about cooking dinner to go do it; that they’re respected and won’t “miss anything.”  Stop with the biting, undermining comments.  Be kind to someone who needs to leave to go cook.  Be positive.  Let them know how strong they are to plan a good meal despite everything else we have going on.  Be ok with your choice to not cook that day even if someone else does, and don’t take it out on them.  Even if you don’t get it back initially, do it– because you will start to get it back after a while.

If you do cook, don’t stop.  Don’t let the weak and shame bullshittery get to you, because cooking a meal has NOTHING to do with whatever perceptions we have of a time that happened seventy years ago, and we really need to move away from that and break those ties.

Look I’m a trained cook, I actually enjoy cooking, and even I think cooking and planning dinner every night is a pain in the ass.  There is no “you enjoy cooking so you don’t mind doing it” pass; we’re all in the same boat.  I don’t have the time to cook the way I want to either, and that’s frustrating as well.  

We’ve just got to start lifting each other up though.  If you’re not the cook in the family, support (I mean really support, positively) the person who is.  Help them make the time to help you, don’t treat it as “their job” and wash your hands of it.  Encourage the people around you, let them know there is nothing bad or shameful about choosing to contribute to your home by cooking a meal.  Frankly, nothing else is going to work until we get past this mental barrier, and it starts with each of us and the small decisions we make.

Finally, it’s irrelevant if you like to cook or not (although it helps); it’s a basic need and it can be crucial to you and your family’s long-term health.  I know that’s harsh, however it’s the base truth.  We want it to be fun… and it can be, but that’s not the reality of the situation most of the time.  And it’s not the reality we’ve been sold, and that’s what really sucks.  Ever wonder why the women in the 1950’s memes were always smiling?  Because we needed to sell it enough so you were the “odd” one if you weren’t happy cooking every day, so peer pressure would take care of the rest.

Even cooks aren’t happy cooking every day; even the ones that get paid for it (and they don’t get paid much).

And that’s that.  But, that doesn’t negate the fact that that every meal decision counts, everyday, because the food you take in is an accumulation system.  This is the long game.  This is your life.  Your child’s life.  Your family’s life.  It has to get done, so instead of unrealistically expecting that it should be some happy event every single time or shaming the people around us, let’s help each other get it done in any way we can; and since we have to do it anyway, try to enjoy some of it along the way.

That’s a real solution we can all do, right now.

 

**this is an article written about my general experiences over a long period of time and does not reflect specific people or places**