Mom shows love by cooking but kids insist on takeout
DEAR CAROLYN: I love to cook, am a good cook and am completely happy to adapt to individual preferences. However, with my two adult children and their families, I never get that opportunity.
Even though my kids grew up in a household where I cooked daily, they refuse to let me cook for them or my grandchildren during visits, nor do they themselves cook for their families. Both daughters came to the same decision individually.
One daughter says she doesn’t want mess in the kitchen, and the other just says it’s too much bother, even though I’m willing to do everything.
Both live in distant cities with strong takeout cultures and restaurants, and that’s all they eat. One even insisted we do a catered Thanksgiving when we visited. I requested to make just one side dish, but the answer was no.
Even more restrictive, when they visit us, they don’t want me to cook for them in my own kitchen! Too much trouble! Maybe breakfast.
How they eat when we’re not there is their own business. But when we are together, I’ve explained, cooking is a way of expressing my love for them. They still refuse. In other ways, we have a warm relationship.
When they were growing up, my cooking was just a natural part of our lives; now it seems completely like a control issue and one I can’t understand. I’ve accepted their decision to avoid a power struggle. But I feel so rejected. I’ve always dreamed of cooking side by side with my grandchildren, but we can’t share that experience either.
I don’t know if I can ever get them to compromise, even when they visit, so can you help me reframe this so it’s not an ongoing heartbreak for me?
— Sad Cook DEAR READER: I am a happy and enthusiastic reframer — come cook for me! — and I don’t doubt your kitchen talents or anything else you offer in your defense.
But this jumps out at me: “Both daughters” on their own chose not to center their family lives, or even your visits, in the kitchen. Hmmm.
It’s entirely possible they have nothing but warm memories of your cooking as a gesture of love, and their food expediency is either just about them, or a misguided attempt to give you some rest (that you obviously don’t want), or both.
But it’s also possible your expression of love through food somehow did not come across as you intended.
I’ve known excellent people myself who are excellent cooks who: are stressed-out perfectionists, make explosive messes using every pot in the house, are so single-minded in their food pursuits that they’re oblivious to other emotional or familial needs or subplots, or do marathons in the kitchen when we’d rather be with them and order food from an app.
The last one is my top suggestion for a reframe, by the way, if that’s still how you want to go.
When two daughters who grew up with a front-row seat to the issue at hand are perfectly aligned in their opposition to it, though, then there’s a good chance there’s something you’re not seeing, hearing, grasping or accepting.
So I am going to urge you to do four different things to help you feel better about this:
1. Let go of your vision of side-by-side cooking with grandkids. It’s possible the only thing wrong with it is that it’s not happening, but there’s no single problem more decisive.
2. Redirect that vision to some other version of communal food prep that is available to you, and maybe even offers a different feel-good angle. Cook with others for the needy, maybe, or a church or community group. Have the neighbors over, start a “dinner club” with friends.
3. Especially if you choose to share your talents with others, do a hard audit on your methods. Not as license to beat yourself up forever — just to check for something you missed (that your daughters may not want to relive).
4. Embrace the takeout. Don’t just put up with it. Ask them for a “tour” of their favorites.
5. Throw yourself 100%, fully, all in on the access to your daughters’ families’ lives that they’re giving you. This is the reframing I hope you do: “I am free to spend time getting to know what is important to my grandkids, and meeting them there.”
Giving you a pragmatic response doesn’t mean I’m dismissive of your heartbreak. I understand you want to show love your way. I sense you crave validation for the choices you made as a parent. I know the ache of a vision that will never become real.
But you’ve got one shot at this life. Acknowledge your grief, know you did your best and have the “warm” bonds to show for it. Then don’t waste another minute of what you have on what you wish it would be.