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When I was feeling so sick last week and my husband was feeling really overwhelmed with all of his responsibilities at the time, a thought occurred to me. I wished my oldest kids, twins Allison and Michelle, could cook more meals independently. They have dinners they can make that are easy, but they don’t know how to take on our average family dinner recipe.
For a long time, my kids have been my kitchen helpers, but I now realize that all along I had been doing all the hard parts myself. For instance, my 14-year-olds had yet to cut an onion or touch raw chicken, let alone CUT raw chicken.
This quarantine has been a serious eye-opening experience to both my strengths and weaknesses as a mom.
And honestly, I had to fight every natural instinct to hand my daughter my big chef’s knife. Ahhh!! What if she cuts herself?!?! I told her I needed a picture of her perfect hands, in case we needed to show an ER doctor how to put them back together.
Luckily, Ally and Shelly are both quite used to me, and laughed. But still, I took the picture.
Matt and I had talked about it before this lesson began. I asked him if it was a good idea and he laughed at me too. “Of course our daughters should learn how to use a knife. They’re ready.”
How do you overcome the powerful mom-worry over your children’s safety and teach them new things?! (Please no one tell them they are eligible for driver’s permits in August. š)
The first cut was the hardest, and I might have held my breath the entire time they each took that first cut.
But, it was obvious they HAD BEEN READY, because they listened to my lecture about how to do it, and I could tell that they felt in control while they did.
Pictured here is Michelle, Allison did well too when it was her turn. They each chopped their onion very well.
And as a side note, I’m pretty sure both of their hands are as big as mine if not bigger.
I didn’t need to be so scared. After the onions, they went on to cut tons of chicken meat into tiny fajita sized slices.
It was a weird feeling, being the “helper” while I let them take on the main tasks of cooking our Fajita dinner. But it’s a feeling I’m going to have to get used to, because the plan is to teach them how to cook all of our regular meals – even the hard parts involving raw meats and tons of veggie-chopping.
Ally & Michelle are on their way to having great knife skills. We’ve embarked on a series cooking lessons from me that will end with my teens being proficient in the kitchen. Yay for life skills!
(And just for the record, these two can already bake almost any cookie or desert in my recipe book without my help. I guess they were more motivated to figure those out. Haha!)
From my home to yours,
Mary