Hello Moms!
I hope your week is off to a great start!
I don't know about the rest of you but over the past 9 years of being a single mom, there have been many days where I just needed a break. Between school, kids, work, dinner, cleaning, and the million and one other things that had to be done in the short span of 24 hours, it would be all I could do not to collapse just at the thought of it. And one day I did. I had worked myself so hard that I literally collapsed. After three days in the cardiac unit with the worst food known to man, the doctors never could figure out what was wrong. Diagnosis, exhaustion. What does this have to do with cooking? I'm getting to it! Always rushing me! With all the education I have, one thing I did not learn was how to delegate. I also was so wrapped up in my own independent woman pride that I didn't know how to accept help. I didn't want anyone's pity and every time someone made a promise they would break it just as soon as it came out of their mouth.
This led to me believe that the only person who could do anything, correctly, was me. Sad thing about that mentality is that if you're the only one who can do the job, you can never be replaced, and you can never go any higher than where you are. Sometimes the problem isn't that we can't get any help as much as it is that we don't know how to accept it. We have gotten so used to only depending on ourselves that we don't know how let anyone help, not even our kids. Wow that's a hard pill to swallow.
My daughter, who is now 10, had been asking me if she could help me cook for years. She has watched me in the kitchen since she was a baby and just like her mother, she loves to eat. My boys are surprisingly the same way, they love to cook. The baby, well for now, she just likes to taste test everything. Last year, after getting tired of giving her excuses that it was too dangerous, she would slow me down, its too complicated, I finally just said, "OK". I started with something simple like mixing cake mix or cornbread, beating eggs, or measuring ingredients. When I saw that she could handle more responsibility, I let her scramble the eggs, make the vegetable for dinner, brown ground beef or make the macaroni and cheese. My boys are active in the kitchen as well. They season the meat, stuff the pork chops, etc., while I handle the heavy lifting.
I enjoy cooking in general but the demand of doing it everyday can make it tedious at times. I have the most fabulous Rachel Ray cookware but surprisingly it doesn't make cooking feel like the Rachel Ray show. On some days its just another thing that has to be done, like the laundry. Letting my kids help in the kitchen has made cooking dinner less of a chore. It lessens the things that I have to do in the kitchen and gives me more time with them. I taught my older two kids division and fractions through measuring ingredients. It also provides and informal forum for conversation. Now granted they aren't teenagers, so we aren't discussing birth control while baking ziti, but I have learned about some of their friends, some instances of bullying, and other things I would have probably otherwise overlooked.
So some of you may be wondering, what's the big deal? Letting the kids help in the kitchen is not just about being efficient, its about bonding with your kids. We rarely have enough time with the kids as it is and its important to make the most of the time you have together. When you first start out, the kids are going to make a mess, they aren't going to do everything right. You are going to get frustrated because initially, its going to take twice as much time teaching them how to do everything, how to be safe, and not to leave dish towels on the stove. Brace yourself in advance.
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