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<p>So O7DAD, it only counts as “quality time” to you if everyone is in the kitchen preparing the meal together AND eating it? What about people (like me) with a kitchen so small that only one person can comfortably be in it at a time? What about families with busy teenagers who go straight from school to sports practice or lessons or a part-time job and don’t get home till 9:30 most evenings? I don’t really understand the insistence on this one aspect of togetherness.</p>
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<p>A really funny scene from 30 Rock was when the Alec Baldwin character (Jack) was talking about the woman he had fallen in love with. She was a really type A news reporter and could do “everything” perfectly. “She’s smart, she’s pretty. She could tell you the Dow 40 in order of market cap. She knows how to field dress a deer. She says that flat shoes are for quitters.” Ever since, I’ve felt pretty incompetent. :D</p>
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<p>Sally305</p>
<p>As I was growing up in the 1950s and 60s, I knew families who had “staff,” so the cooking, cleaning, bed making, child transportation, yard work, car maintenance etc. was not done by the parents or the kids. Heck, until the very, very late 1960s, live-in help stayed in “servants’ quarters” and a lot of houses had internal wired bell systems to “call” the staff.</p>
<p>During the decade between the early mid 1970s and 1980s when I had a restaurant and catering service, I even got privy to this at the holidays since it was my company that put on their holiday events. Little girls in NM velvet dresses with lace collars, white leggings and black patent leather shoes.</p>
<p>In junior and senior high school, I also knew families where everyone in the family was going numerous different directions all the time and they seldom had family time to do anything, especially the dads. I felt I could spot these when they did find a moment to be “a family.” I came to notice that the kids and mom would group together talking and interacting and then bringing up the rear was dad looking like he’d prefer to be at work or somewhere else. </p>
<p>When I graduated from law school in the mid 1980s, the firm where I worked had a section that did divorce work. Seemed that life by proxy and being “too busy” for family fueled a lot of divorces. I recall to this day what one wealthy dad said to me after the divorce was final. He was discussing his failed relationship with his now college or post college kids. He said that he hated them for always having their hand out, palm up to him and they hated him for always filing the hand with stuff.</p>
<p>Since I lost both parents while I was in my 30s, I got to consider what I missed the most and how I might want to raise my son in certain ways.</p>
<p>For instance, we ate breakfast together as a family. At a table. With placemats. We limited our personal activities (parents and child) so that we never were to busy to make it to family time whatever that might be at any point intime. So, cooking together frequently was fun for us. But, to each his or her own.</p>
<p>For many years, while I was raising a child with a severe disability, we had no respite and could not go out to eat as a family. We were not invited to other peoples’ houses as a family, either, except for rare occasions. Meals at home were home-cooked.</p>
<p>Frazzled H and I took turns taking S and D out to restaurants, when we had the chance, as well as to family gatherings when we were invited with the understanding that the disabled child was not included in the invitation. We thought it was important that they have this experience as well as the experience of eating at home as a family.</p>
<p>I also taught S and D how to cook. Their disabled sibling also eventually learned how to assist in meal preparation and how to eat with decent table manners. They actually wanted to learn how to make their favorite foods, and how to improvise in the kitchen.</p>
<p>I learned myself after moving into my first apartment, and felt sorry at the time that I had not been taught by my mother, not because it was so very difficult to learn, but because I felt that I had missed out on an opportunity to be close to my mother. (I did set the table and clean up after meals.)</p>
<p>07Dad - I think you’re setting up false equivalencies. </p>
<p>Families who have full-time staff or help can be close, or can be far apart.
Their kids can be wonderful human beings who help little old ladies cross the street, or they can be lazy, entitled brats who think that everyone should pick up after them. That has nothing to do with who actually is scrubbing the toilets or changing the sheets on the beds. My H grew up with an at-home mother and full-time live-in household help, and he is the very antithesis of lazy and spoiled.</p>
<p>I’m also not sure why you’re calling out little girls in N-M velvet dresses. They sound charming, and if it weren’t for their parents’ disposable income, you wouldn’t have had a business. (Would you have rather they all home-cooked and not hired you?)</p>
<p>And if a family is indeed “too busy” with everyone going in different directions, it would seem that hiring cleaning and/or cooking help is a good way to make best use of the times when they are all together. It would be a smart decision, not a bad one. </p>
<p>It’s funny - why is cooking such a touchstone? Why is it OK to hire out car maintenance to the local mechanic, yard work to a gardener, or even housecleaning to a housekeeper, but it’s somehow different when it’s cooking? I guess some people think of cooking food as showing love in ways they don’t when it comes to mowing the lawn or changing the oil, but that’s completely arbitrary IMO.</p>
<p>07DAD, I think what you are reacting to (if I am reading your post correctly) is that you didn’t want to be like the wealthy people you knew who didn’t have time for their kids. I have known (and still know) people like that and I agree–that is not what I would want for my family either. I also feel sad nowadays when I see “involved” parents trying so hard to document every single thing their kids are doing that they spend more time posting pictures and videos to Facebook than they spend without a device in their hands, simply living in the moment with their kids.</p>
<p>Some families don’t have a choice about how much togetherness they have (military families or those with a parent who travels a lot for work are obvious examples). But they CAN make the most of the time they do get to enjoy together. For some people, reducing time in the kitchen by ordering carryout or heating up frozen food is exactly how they achieve that balance.</p>
<p>I think it’s never too late to learn from our parents–I fully expect my kids to someday ask for the recipes for their favorite childhood dishes or get me to explain how to do certain tasks over the phone. There is a first time for everything. Changing a diaper for the first time comes to mind. I’m guessing none of us would think it is important to teach our 18-year-olds how to do that, because we don’t WANT them to have to worry about baby stuff that young. That’s how some of us feel about cooking and cleaning–it will all happen in due time.</p>
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<p>Yes, exactly. Spending time bonding over cooking is only fun if … one enjoys cooking! If not, it’s drudgery!</p>
<p>There is a common trope among people who like to cook that they just don’t get why others don’t like to cook, and if they only did it more / knew how to do it better / whatever, they’d really enjoy it, just you wait and see. I find it kind of insulting. I trust that most people know whether they do or don’t enjoy camping, or fishing, or knitting, or puttering in the yard, or reading, or listening to music, or playing an instrument, or whatever. I don’t know why we don’t treat cooking the same way. Either you like it - in which case, great! go for it! knock yourself out! - or you don’t - in which case we’re lucky that we live in a society where we can still easily source healthful foods.</p>
<p>Frazzled kids did thank me once they went into apartment living for all the meals I prepared that they had taken for granted. Even though they had cooked alongside me at home, they had no idea how much planning and effort went into seeing that food was prepared for them on a regular basis until they had to do some if it themselves. (I put them on a limited meal plan so that they could purchase meals on campus in a time crunch.) </p>
<p>Both have mentioned that it has been helpful to learn life skills at a gradual pace, including apartment living and maintaining a car, at a time in their lives when they were not absolutely dependent upon being able to do these things, and where there is a built in network of support. </p>
<p>As for childcare - while there is always a first time for changing a diaper (or cleaning up after an 8 year old who has smeared excrement all over house and furniture; frazzled S and D actually asked if they could do anything to help in those kinds of situations), having experience with childcare can be extremely helpful for anyone contemplating a major that will eventually involve working with children, either typical or disabled.</p>
<p>I think you’re wasting a lot of energy here, Pizzagirl, trying to get people to think like you. If you don’t like to cook, consider it a waste of time, who cares?</p>
<p>I love to cook and entertain but grew up in a home where neither parent liked to cook but loved to entertain and knew who to call when needed. My mother always said her next house would not have a kitchen, lol!</p>
<p>If my kids want to learn how to cook from me, fine. If not, that’s ok, too. I had to figure it out and enjoyed doing so. </p>
<p>To answer the original question of this thread - I would hope my kids pick up safety/health/finance skills. I agree that cleaning/cooking/basic household chores are easily learned and I would rather know my child is considerate of others/takes personal responsibility than if they know how to change the oil in their car or make lasagna.</p>
<p>PG - I do not regard cooking and cleaning the same way I would regard knitting, camping, dancing, or playing an instrument. The latter are optional, in the way that gourmet meal preparation and home decorating are optional. </p>
<p>I have otoh found myself in a position (poor life choices? poor choice of college major?) where I have needed to know how to do simple cooking and cleaning, on top of other tasks I have needed to learn on the fly and without a network of support. I would not want my children to find themselves in that situation.</p>
<p>It is interesting to know how many of us are on so many very different pages. </p>
<p>I really do not care if frazzled D knows how to change the oil in her car, but I absolutely want her to be aware that the oil needs to be changed at regular intervals!</p>
<p>I would not be surprised to hear that she is eating leftovers from meals purchased on campus and placed in her refrigerator, but would be horrified to find out that she is either skipping meals or blowing her budget on specialty ingredients, gourmet take-out, or restaurant meals. (Or that she is spending excessive time on gourmet meal preparation; so far, no worries there.) And, I want her to be aware that food does spoil…</p>
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<p>07Dad–I come from a poor, white trash background (immigrant variety) and I knew a number of families in my neighborhood where the father would have said the same as the wealthy dad you quoted above. There are parents (rich and poor) who aren’t involved with their kids, who don’t spend time with their kids and just have bad relationships with them. I don’t think it’s exclusive to one socio-economic status.</p>
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<p>No argument from me.</p>
<p>I heard this a couple of years ago at a continuing legal education course. </p>
<p>A younger wife was being deposed as part of developing fault for a divorce. Husband was alleging adultery/infidelity. She had testified that she thought that her husband would be OK with it. When asked why, she said that anytime she complained to her husband about getting him to help get something done around the house, he ALWAYS told her to call someone to get it taken care of.</p>
<p>Lolololol.</p>
<p>“I don’t see any reason to get them into apartments so they can have more to clean and have more of a need to cook. They’ll have the rest of their lives to do that.”</p>
<p>Well, that’s certainly not the REASON I put D2 into an apartment. Not so that she would have more to clean and more of a NEED to cook. She wanted her own bedroom and WANTED to cook her own meals. And she didn’t want to pay an arm and a leg to have those things (like she would have on campus).</p>
<p>This is cheaper, nicer, more independent living, where she can put nails in the wall, and have a candle if she wants to, and just generally live more like most adults she knows.</p>
<p>Plus, she doesn’t have to drag her stuff back and forth between home and school at the beginning and end of the year.</p>
<p>“I SO agree with you. I don’t see what’s so great-tasting about homemade cooking. Even people who pride themselves on being great cooks – they don’t produce anything that’s any better than anything I could buy in the grocery store, IMO.”</p>
<p>I think it’s just a matter of taste and individual comfort.</p>
<p>With D2, she grew up with having certain dishes cooked regularly, so if she doesn’t get them in a while, she really misses them. And we’re particular about certain dishes too - and to us, eating them in a restaurant is just never as good. I’m sure it’s not the same for everyone. OR you might get lucky, and there may be that one restaurant that makes chicken and dumplings just the way you love them…but it might be 40 miles away…just saying.</p>
<p>“I SO agree with you. I don’t see what’s so great-tasting about homemade cooking. Even people who pride themselves on being great cooks – they don’t produce anything that’s any better than anything I could buy in the grocery store, IMO.”</p>
<p>Sorry I don’t agree with you there. There are some dishes that my mom makes that tasted a lot better then anything in the store. I’m pretty sure there are plenty of other people who have a relative that cooks at least one dish that can’t be duplicated in the store.:)</p>
<p>Agreed, there is some lousy home made food. One reason I cook, is because what I make is fresher, more to my taste and health preferences than most of what is in stores and restaurants. For a large sum, it can be great in restaurants. Eating out in my price range, there is reliance on excess wheat, salt and fat for taste. </p>
<p>Reading this thread, I think of the advice we give those in cardiac rehab, recovering from cardiac events and surgery. Eat around the periphery of stores, the lean meat, the produce, the low fat dairy products. If you have never learned to bake a yam, steam broccoli, cook a lean chicken breast, sans salt but WITH decent seasoning, you might be in a rather large learning curve at a difficult time. Yes, you can eat healthy food from grocery stores sans much preparation. I do it myself these days as I don’t want to spend time cooking. However it is nice for many reasons to know how to throw a few things together for a good meal. </p>
<p>Food is a large part of culture, and part of the reason we are so concerned with teaching cooking or not, is because it is emblematic of the culture we are passing on to our offspring. Yes, with US grocery stores, you can get by just fine. Will those always be there? One reason I teach cooking is because I value the ability to culturally and socially adapt. If you know how to use raw ingredients, you can usually feed yourself, no matter where you are. </p>
<p>We all choose what we value, however I do think cooking is one of the more useful skills out there.</p>
<p>Undergrads at Harvard get 21 meals and snacks. [Dining</a> at Harvard | Harvard University Dining Services](<a href=“http://www.dining.harvard.edu/residential_dining/diningatharvard.html]Dining”>http://www.dining.harvard.edu/residential_dining/diningatharvard.html) As far as I can tell there isn’t a 10 meal option, maybe if you are one of the tiny minority who live off campus? There is a small co-op house for people who don’t want the traditional house experience. (all of 32 students) I never made anything in those Harvard kitchens besides brownies and cookies.</p>
<p>I love to cook, hate to clean, learned the basics from my Mom and got my first doing it all by myself experience summer after my sophomore year. I became a pretty good cook. My older son has also been on his own in apartments every summer and lived off campus junior and senior year. As far as I know he’s never done more than make frozen lemonade and warm up Bagel Bites. He’s earned enough money to pick up food and now has a job where the company cafeteria provides great food. My younger son loves to cook and we’ve spent many hours together making pies and cakes. He’s lived on his own for last couple of summers and spent a year in an apartment in Jordan, he’s learned to cook things other than desserts on his own.</p>
<p>Personally I think it’s fine if kids spend the school year living in dorms and getting fed by the school. Managing time and roommates on your own seems like enough stress to me.</p>
<p>“I really do not care if frazzled D knows how to change the oil in her car, but I absolutely want her to be aware that the oil needs to be changed at regular intervals!” - My thoughts exactly. </p>
<p>I didn’t have any brothers and was the “go fer” on many projects at my house growing up. Yes, I know how to change oil and tires and even brakes (with a manual…at least in the old days - wow, having a spring tool was key). But frankly now I’m happy to leave that to the mechanics.</p>