Sunday breakfast, offered with love

Dec 30, 2007 at 9:24 AM
7 comments

This is the fine breakfast that my wife made me this morning. Everything healthy, everything good!

Egg beaters, small whole wheat muffins, Canadian bacon, an apple sliced up in pieces.

I am very fortunate to have such a wonderful woman sharing my life now.

There were a couple years when I didn't, when I was alone, and was ill much of the time on top of it.

Now, I am so very lucky to have her, and her love, which one of the ways she shows is by offering food. Which her mother did, also.

7 comments

Tags:

Comments

Wives are awesome. Especially when they cook meals like this. I'm only three months into my marriage, but I certainly agree that having someone to share your life with is preferable to not.

My wife of four months is very concerned with making sure I get fed! I think it is an aspect of her Italian heritage. But, as a widow living alone, she wouldn't cook for herself. Now, as a married woman she does it well and gladly.

Yes, wives are awesome, and for me anyhow, and her, sharing a life is so important!

Although at the same time, I do have an impression that there are quite a few younger women (we are now in our sixties) who don't cook, don't know how, or don't care to.

I've learned how to cook since I began living on my own, but don't cook often enough for my fiance. Thanks for the post; it's inspiring!! I'll be cooking him dinner tonight. :)

It's always great when someone shows their love through food... Thats why i'm engaged to a chef :)

Yes, wives are awesome, and for me anyhow, and her, sharing a life is so important!
Although at the same time, I do have an impression that there are quite a few younger women (we are now in our sixties) who don't cook, don't know how, or don't care to.

Perhaps it's because those women also work, and do not care much to be considered a live-in housemaid as well. Love, you know, works both ways, and it's not in having two shifts, work/house. Men can cook just as well, nothing physical stops them, as plenty of chefs show,

Well, what you say is true. Men are capable of being cooks, and now many more women are employed, including mothers with children. The way the economy is now, for many families, this is a necessity.

A few decades ago, to have a household financially in which the wife could stay home was a goal for male breadwinners, and a sign of status too. Now, it is unattainable for many couples

But, also, for many people of both sexes, cooking is a lost art. And so many meals now are just carried in, "brung home," and consumed individually. So many meals are not eaten together, as a family. Increasingly we have gone from home-cooked to junk food for our sustenance. That is so unhealthy, and of course there are alternatives.

I don't know what the ratios are, but there are employed young men who cook for themselves, and employed young women who don't. It isn't just work that gets in the way.

Time is scarce, but it there has also been a cultural shift toward denegrating the essential contributions women have almost always made, as long as humans have existed: birthing and nursing children, raising the young, being their chief protectors and teachers, gathering and preparing food.

At the same time, the products of the industrial food are massively on display, influencing women, men, and children alike.

In the US, it wasn't long ago that, for near all women, food preparation was a proud role they played. It was extremely time-consuming, and it was considered important. Its meaningfulness was acknowledged, and it was recognized as act of love.

For example, when my 97 year old Italian mother-in-law passed away recently, her family had one of her recipes placed in the funeral program. Her loving eulogy also recalled that that she had monthly sent cookies and goodies to the grandchildren who were away in college. She lived a long time in part because of the exercise she got from walking to little shops (the butcher, the baker) every day to get the materials for her family's meal. Providing for others in that and other ways is what made her life important, gave it meaning, and it was a source of honor. No one considered her a mere "servant."

But now, just as you say, there are indeed some who characterize such activities as "being a live-in housemaid," a lower status role. This is a change of attitude, a shift in our culture.

Similarly, I imagine that there are people who no longer wish to care for their children, who don't want to be a "live-in babysitter" in addition to whatever their cash employment is? I go to the factory or store or office, I don't want to have to be a nanny too!

Probably the main point is that we have greatly degraded the whole vital sphere of the household in which females were dominant--really almost controlling--while exaggerating the value of paid work, which had previously been chiefly the sphere of men. Now the "success" of a woman is, to a far greater degree in than the past, being judged by how competitive she is as an employed laborer--as a wage slave, to state it negatively. (I assume Marx said something similar to that, although really I don't know). Many in the seventies came look down on women who "only" stay home, caring for their home and the people in it.

I speak best for my own self, and my own wife, and not others. She very much wants to cook for us, and would not for just herself, as a widow--not ever! And it is important to her to see that I am fed, or at least that I feed myself. It is one of her forms of love. It is important to her that we have dinner together, at the dining room table, and that we say grace and then talk, without the tv being on.

Which reminds me, I better at least eat a banana, or else she will be angry! If she calls in after church, she will ask.

I doubt that you will find these positions persuasive, but it is how the world seems to me--from a side road, as I have indicated.

PS--My wife did have a thirty-five year career as a teacher, and still provided meals for seven (including a husband and five children), just as she does for herself and for me, only two of us, now. She did not consider herself a "house-maid" then, either. Really, to me, a negative characterization like that is pretty insulting, not just inaccurate.

The work women do should be appreciated and respected, even if it is "only" (sic) in the household. If you are a person, alive on this planet, it is because someone birthed, raised, protected, taught and fed you when you were young, Over the long run of history and pre-history too, this has been almost entirely the sphere of females. And it so much more important than whatever work men typically do! It is the bedrock foundation of any human society.

PPS--Connie did come home, and checked on two things immediately: (1) had I eaten something, and (2) had I taken morning medications. Of course I can do those things myself--I am capable of them--but being sure I did so is an aspect of her love. Just like when she travels alone, I want to know she arrived safely. It isn't that she isn't capable of driving. Knowing she is okay is an aspect of my love for her.

[das ist gut]

Your post made me think about my father.
He is in his late 50s and he doesn't look out for his meals. Frankly, I think he is too lazy for preparing some salad, caring about housework when he's home from work and thus he appreciates my mother's dedication.
There might be some reciprocation (<-- had to look it up) to it though. ;-)
(I love them both very much.)

But, also, for many people of both sexes, cooking is a lost art. And so many meals now are just carried in, "brung home," and consumed individually.

...this is very much true, unfortunately. :-(

I am glad that you feel lucky to have her.
Bests.

Sunday breakfast, offered with love

Comments

Post a comment

About Me

My Groups

Neighborhood

Archives