Cooking Helped My Personal Growth And Changed My Perspective

The kitchen is a sacred space.  It’s where delicious food comes to life.  But I never wanted to prepare the meals, I just wanted to enjoy them.  Unfortunately or fortunately, Simone never agreed to this philosophy. I fought this responsibility for a long time for a few reasons, but cooking helped my personal growth and changed my perspective. Embracing this shared cooking responsibility has been a long time coming.  Let me first explain.  

I grew up very privileged in some ways. One of those ways is that I never had to cook.  In fact, I was never even taught. The example I had was that my dad cooked on the grill for the summer holidays and my mom did 99.5% percent of the cooking. And boy do I love her cooking!  My favorites growing up were her mashed potatoes and her legendary dressing during the holidays.  I still think she might want to patent that dressing because it’s that good. 

As a single man, I ate out all the time.  I got a sub from Subway 7-8 times per week. 

I really should own stock in Subway, I have probably spent over $30,000 there.  I digress.  My point is that I never felt the need to cook until I met Simone. It never even dawned on me the money I was wasting at the time.

When Simone and I met, she requested that we share the cooking responsibility early on in our relationship and I would sporadically cook every once in a while.  It was never my intention to cook more than twice a week.  I did just enough to keep things harmonious. Besides as luck would have it, Simone is a phenomenal cook too just like my mother. She can flat out throw down in the kitchen!  She made my friend a veggie burger a few months ago and he said that was the best damn sandwich he has ever had! I could tell he was being genuine because his facial expressions said it all. 

Because Simone is a great cook and seemed to enjoy it, I always thought she should cook majority of the meals.  After all, this was the norm for me growing up and nobody ever challenged me to look at cooking as a shared responsibility.  

As someone that taught courses in Sociology, I’m very familiar with gender roles and I’m conscious and intelligent enough to know that a woman’s role is not in the kitchen. I strongly believe that!  My rationale was that we should always play to our natural strengths, and unfortunately, cooking wasn’t one of mine. In fact, it is one of my least favorite things to do. 

Cooking Helped My Personal Growth

Cooking is too slow of a process for me, and I really don’t like reading instructions.  I would much rather just buy some carryout and be able to eat in 5 to 10 minutes just like I did when I was single.  

Part of the challenge was that I never planned, and cooking takes planning and preparation.  But as COVID-19 gained momentum in spring 2020, we were both working from home and scrambling with two kids that needed our attention.  

This was my first time ever working from home and we had meetings that sometimes overlapped.  I usually have fewer meetings than Simone, so I had more time to cook. 

At first, I felt like this would be short lived experience like it had been in the past.  But the kids were hungry and often times Simone was too engrossed in work to even think about cooking.  Eating out wasn’t an option, so I went into survival mode and over time cooking it became a habit. 

I also began to embrace cooking because I was forced to read the instructions and I realized that the simple act of cooking was forcing me to grow in other ways.

It was providing me some structure and the practice of being more intentional.

I began to watch YouTube videos while I cooked, or answer emails.  Slowly baby girl started to say daddy, can you make me pancakes for breakfast and with fresh fruit, or can you make pasta with veggie chunks and vegetables?  And now baby girl asks to cook with me and it feels like we are not only bonding but also doing a little science experiment as we prepare each meal. 

Cooking Helped Change My Perspective

Cooking takes initiative and preparation. And it can be mentally draining. I remember Simone saying that she was tired of thinking of what to cook. I didn’t understand it then, but now I do.  Now that we share the responsibility, it prevents burnout for both of us and we are less inclined to eat out.

I have become much more comfortable in the kitchen and I’ve been consistently cooking.  The task that I use to dread, I’m embracing and slowly becoming a better cook with each meal.  And most importantly, the kids get to see be sharing this task with mom. It’s an example that I didn’t see and didn’t even think was important for me to demostrate as a father. But it is absolultey important to me now.

Embracing the cooking responsibility has certainly been a journey for me.  But I know cooking helped me grow personally and changed me into a better person, a better husband, and even a better father.  Never did I think that it would have this impact on me. My family can now depend on me to cook a meal that everyone will enjoy. That feels gratifying in itself and makes me happy that I’m not just cooking, but I’m consistent. 

What is one positive thing that you started in 2020 and continue to do in 2021?

With Intention,

Sean and Simone

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