Eves Who Cook?

A few days ago a friend told me that for her 12-year-old daughter’s birthday they invited some of her little friends over to teach them baking. The girls, amazed and delighted to be let loose with the ingredients, said their mothers didn’t like cooking because it made a mess of the kitchen and, besides, “it ruined their nails.” That business about nails reminds me of a woman who said at a gathering that she couldn’t live without domestic help, because just the thought of her hands smelling of garlic would give her a heart attack.

And here is another story: a friend told me that recently her daughter (who learned to cook with her at home) invited some friends over and started cooking for them with her best friend. The boys, surprised, began taking pictures of them with their BlackBerrys because they were “unusual”: they were so happy cooking for them and serving them. The boys said: “I hope I marry someone like that.”

Another story I was told several years ago, which I will never forget, is about a young woman who said with great pride that she had put a microwave in her son’s room so he could heat up his own food and eat it there without bothering her.

These days, saying that a professional woman has to spend some time in the kitchen seems outlandish. Today, well into the 21st century, many men and women have become famous as restaurant chefs; but saying that a woman cooks every day for her husband, her children and her children’s friends is like saying she has a mental problem.

But thank goodness (and I won’t bring God into it, or some commenters will jump on me), society has realized that the kitchen is one of the most wonderful places to share Love with the family. Now it is common to see newly married young women who never learned even to fry an egg taking courses (with their husbands) here and there, because they know that without tasty, well-served food the atmosphere at home is not the same. Besides, today’s budget doesn’t stretch to paying for domestic help.

Some months ago I saw a CNN report about how important it is for a mother to be at home when the children come back from school and to involve them in household chores, because it helps communication, especially with teenagers. A recent American study also found that eating together at the table “like in the old days” (without electronic devices) greatly benefits the family. According to that study, children who eat that way suffer less depression and fewer eating disorders. Other research on this subject has shown that children who eat with their parents fewer than five times a week are twice as likely to use tobacco and almost twice as likely to drink alcohol. According to these studies, the conversations that happen around meals, in which children can tell their parents what is happening to them, are fundamental for the healthy development of children and teenagers.

So after many Eves abandoned the kitchen and the home, life itself has taught how important it is for children that someone “be at home.” And something that didn’t happen before is the help Adam gives his spouse, because a 21st-century couple knows that raising a family with children takes a lot of mutual support in order to build that fundamental foundation of society, which exists to form good men and women who can set right so many values that have been turned upside down.

P.S. Since I’ve been talking about cooking, I thank the television channel and the kitchen brand that withdrew the commercial that used some symbols of our faith disrespectfully. A thousand thanks!