I get this, but whats the alternative? Humans need to eat. Most of us cant afford to eat healthy takeout or restaurant food every day, and even fast food isnt that cheap when youre feeding 7 people (not to mention its just not a good plan to live on it.) Yes, feeding a family and ourselves can be a burden, but its also life. Instead of knocking the idea of a home-cooked family dinner, maybe we should work on some of the cultural issues that make it difficult for so many of us. I could name a few: *Long work days that make it difficult or impossible to get home in time to cook *Stuffed school and extracurricular schedules that conspire to keep us all away from the dining-room table...kids on the soccer field, parents in the car... *The ingrained idea that cooking dinner is moms job. Sharing the load makes a huge difference. Even though I cook more than half the family meals, knowing I can hand off a meal or two a week to Jon and the kids are going to do the dishes makes it manageable. *The idea that a home cooked meal has to be an elaborate affair consisting of unusual spices, difficult cooking techniques, all GMO-free organic local ingredients sourced from the farmers market. NOPE. Spaghetti made at home in ten minutes is almost certainly still better than drive-through. *Our perfectionistic, all-or-nothing tendencies that make it so difficult for us to eat well MOST of the time while still giving ourselves a break SOME of the time. (Nothing wrong with a pizza night or two every week. It doesnt mean the rest of your home cooked meals dont count.) *Kids who somehow have gotten the idea that family dinner equals individual meals catered to each childs particular taste (DONT LIKE? TOO BAD. EAT IT OR HAVE A PIECE OF BREAD AND BUTTER.) And this one is a little hard to define, but...I feel like we, as a society, have somehow gotten the idea that if we complain enough about how hard something is, or what a burden it is, or how impossible it is given our current cultural norms, we can somehow get out of it. But heres the thing. WE STILL HAVE TO EAT. So it doesnt really work, in this case. We are all going to have to eat today, tomorrow and next week. It can be mostly good food eaten with those we love, or mostly fast food stuffed into our faces over the steering wheel. The choice is ours. I choose mostly good food, eaten with those I love. So that means Im going to look at a way to change, or reject, or work around the cultural pressures, rather than throw my hands up in the air and head for McDonalds. END OF RANT.
Posted on: Thu, 04 Sep 2014 15:05:51 +0000
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