Bacon and Eggs

On the first day of summer vacation after the end of 4th grade, my mother gave me an apron - it was terry cloth, and it was yellow and orange with flowers on it - and told me she was going to teach me to cook.   I had since I was very young "helped" her cook, by putting the butter in the bowl when she made macaroni and cheese, or tried to stir in the flour when she made bread.  This would be the first time I made something by myself.  We made bacon and eggs.

It was the summer that I was preparing to change schools.  As a child, I had emotional issues - which I am only in recent years coming to understand the origins of.  As a result, I was teased mercilessly - today you would call it being bullied.  My mom thought that changing schools would change that.  So we spent the summer cooking various things -  but what I remember the most was the bacon and eggs, which I cooked almost daily because that was the first thing I learned, and snickerdoodles.  I so rarely felt safe and secure, yet when my mother focused her attention on me and tried to include me in things, I felt part of the family.  I cannot explain why I didn't feel that way otherwise.  I suppose now that I understand everything that was going on during that time in my life, I realize that I always had a fear of being abandoned and forgotten.  My mother being available for me abated my fears for a time.

When my two oldest daughters were small, I included them when I was cooking, and encouraged them to help, however they could, when they were very small.  These days, one of them is simply a picky eater, and the other is vegan; so we don't cook together often, but then did learn a few things; not only about cooking, but about family and including each other in simple things like making a batch of cookies or making a grocery list and deciding what we would have for dinner.

I don't know if my mother realizes how much that first cooking lesson impacted my young life and my life today.  It has a lot to do with the way I raised my daughters. Everybody has a core need to feel included, to feel like they are not alone, to be part of something outside of their own selves.  I am an introvert to the core, but being singled out to be a part of something, just my mother and me, gave me something I wouldn't have had otherwise - the knowledge that no matter how much other kids teased me, put me down, made me feel worthless, that I AM loved, that SOMEBODY is always thinking about me, that I am NOT alone.