Once you become a mother, it becomes obvious that you are ‘supposed’ to be able to cook. Whipping up a batch of delectable cupcakes, perfectly decorated for a kindergarten party somehow heightens your ‘mom status’ and is a grandiose source of self confidence for far too many moms. I don’t cook. Well, I cook but I don’t cook gourmet stuff. Not because I cant or don’t want to – but rather because all that effort in the kitchen is lost on a family who will gulp down the food in 5 minutes flat.
In the beginning, I felt compelled to cook. I can remember when my kids hit second grade and had a chocolate party at school my cooking career came to an epiphany. They wanted something homemade to go in the class cookbook, to serve to the entire school. The only thing chocolate I could ever cook was brownies and didn’t feel the need to compete with super moms who would stay up for hours until their brownies were perfect. And for what? To gloat, to say that you had good brownies. So, I meandered my way to the local store and bought chocolate donut sales because they were on sale and because I doubted very seriously that any of the other moms would be baking donuts. So I was at least original.
The kids were so embarrassed. I had to listen to the ‘every one else’s mom” is making blah blah blah – and we are just brining donuts to chocolate day. Okay, I admitted I am a shitty lazy mother. I have to admit I felt pangs of not meeting up to the standards of motherhood. At any rate, around noon I checked in to chocolate day. You could smell the cocoa and cinnamon the minute you walked into the school and I was immediately intimidated. Would my donuts hold up? I at least put them on a fancy plate with a doily underneath to make them look authentic. When I walked into the classroom I was surrounded by all the typical moms who try to hard, wear their hair to fancy for a school appearance and chat about menial and stupid things. Looking to my daughters, I noticed that the donut holes I made (well bought) had already been happily swallowed up. There wasn’t even a crumb and my kids were very proud to be the first table whose food was gone!
The point is….you don’t have to cook to be a good woman or mother. You can buy premade donut holes. I realized on that day, I would quit pretending that I wanted to be Paula Deen. Sure, I read her cookbooks – but if there are more than 5 ingredients I refuse to even try it. If the directions say anything about cook in a pot for over 3 hours, I don’t even consider. My life is too important and busy to stand over a boiling pot for 3 or more hours per day. Especially when it might come out tasting like crap and if its good, it will be gone in 5 minutes flat – leaving me feeling frustrated and taken advantage of.
My kids may never grow up remembering what a wonderful cook I was – but they will always remember that they won the chocolate day dash by bringing the tastiest dish.
Be who you are and do what you love, not what you think you are supposed to love or do. Pretending to be something you are not to impress others, only takes time away from pursuing the things in life that you really love. And some times – store bought chocolate donut holes will do just fine!
