EVERYTHING
FOR YOUR FAMILY
KID
QUIPS
During last July’s 5.8 earthquake, 3-year-old Bronwyn told her 1-year-old sister, “We’re going for a wiggle.” READ MORE
Mother Knows Best
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I baked a lemon cake for Sunday dinner, topped with pale yellow lemon frosting. After a busy week, I felt accomplished putting a homemade cake on the table for our weekend meal. I had managed to "do it all" and had the baking pans and measuring cups to prove it. "Hmmm. Smells good," my husband said as he walked by, eyeing the cake. "Did you use lemons from the tree in the back yard?" Lemons? Was he asking if I had picked the lemons off the tree, washed them, and squeezed them? Does he seriously think I have that kind of time??? "No," I answered, bubble burst, after facing a reality check on the definition of "homemade." If this cake was homemade, I'd have sifted flour, measured baking powder and squeezed those lemons. Who was I fooling with my fraudulent cake? My mother baked from scratch. Not me. "It's from a mix," I confessed. "Everything, including the squeeze-packet of lemon essence, was in the box." No, it wasn't from scratch. But, neither was it store-bought, I wanted to say! It was, I admit, in that category that requires minimal effort on our part but that makes us feel as if we've given more of ourselves. Cakes are like greeting cards. Both homemade cakes and homemade cards are uneven with not-so-perfect decorations. However, they take the most time to make and are a real expression of love. Cake mixes and store-bought cards are the middle ground, requiring just enough effort to bake or send, that the receiving party feels you've tried. Then there's the expensive bakery cake and the dot.com greeting card you send online. They're both flawless, but require no real effort from the sender. I have a theory that our kitchens reflect the rest of our lives. Just because I heated Costco lasagna and paired it with a bag of prewashed lettuce, have I served a home-cooked meal? Have I really baked cookies if all I did was break apart store-bought cookie dough? We're getting good at passing off convenience foods as the real thing. What about the rest of our lives? We pay top dollar for the best child care for our kids, when all they really want is us. We purchase expensive pitching lessons for Johnny when he'd rather just play catch with dad in the front yard. We buy annual passes to amusement parks where we drop our kids for hours at a time, instead of taking a walk with them and just talking. So, are we being "real" parents or simply buying our kids a more perfect version of ourselves? With all the demands on women these days, we'll never go back to sifting flour and squeezing lemons. Sadly, before long, a generation of kids raised on store-bought cakes and email greeting cards, won't even know they're missing the most valuable ingredient of all. Our time. Kimberly A. Porrazzo is a senior writer for Churm Publishing, Inc. and author of "The Nanny Kit." She lives in Lake Forest with her husband and two teenage sons. She can be reached at: kimberlyporrazzo@cox.net. |
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