Every day, I wake at 1100hrs the earliest. Sometimes as late as 1230hrs. Jen has to prepare meals for both of us. Not just lunch but my dinner in bento form as well. Jen couldn't cook for nuts. But that was in the past.
In just 3 weeks, she has improved tremendously in her clumsy way. The meals has improved significantly since the first day she took up the frying pan. I'm proud of her. A real woman must be able to cook. There are solid reasons why I believe so and none of them are sexist.
First reason, the benefits of home cooking. I can try as I want but there is no way I can articulate this better than this Singaporean. I don't know who he is and I don't know what he does. I read his article many years ago and it is not exaggerated to say his article made me consider migration seriously. I hope you guys enjoy this article as much as I do.
Secondly, there is a profound bond through generations a family in cooking. If blood ties are the hardware of a family, cooking will be the software. There is a reason why some food businesses everywhere in the world are so proud of their family recipe that started decades or even centuries ago. As the saying goes, the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. There is some truth to it. A day will come where Jen takes over our proud Hakka Yong Yau Foo's family recipe, better than anything you can get from the streets of Singapore, of course.
Thirdly, cooking is not a chore. Humans are animals. Cooking is feeding, not work. Feeding is bonding, not work. Does it make sense if a lioness outsource feeding to another lioness?
But we are intelligent humans, not wild animals. Maybe it doesn't matter. Besides, life circumstances have changed. We can't manage without our maids.For some, the above is fact, the reasons, the excuses. To me, the above is the problem we failed to recognise. If we have to outsource cooking to the maid, the family is not functioning right. Someone is not doing what they should be doing. The grandmother, the wife, the daughter. The grandfather, the father, the son. Someone could pick up this role or even on a rotational basis. If circumstances did not allow it, we are living around the wrong circumstances.
Our young in Singapore could barely cook, unlike past generations. It is a viscous cycle. When they grow up, they hire maids like their parents did. Maid expenses fall under the 'need' category along with mobile and internet charges, not applicable 2 decades ago. With more fixed costs to run our lives, we will never be able to achieve the freedom that everyone hopes for.
Not being able to cook, our young would never be able to settle down elsewhere. Taking moving to Australia for example, many Singaporeans balked at the thought once they saw the prices of food the eateries offer. Even if you show them each meal will cost AUD$1.00 per person if they did it themselves they would dismiss that and put food prices under the 'CON' category in the PUSH/PULL factors table. That's because they cannot cook so it is a realm unavailable to them.
I am not advocating migration. The point of this post is to share that cooking grants us freedom.
The freedom to choose.
The freedom to reject.
The freedom to move.
The freedom to survive.
Moreover, it's a very cheap skill to pick up, yet more people of the next generation chose not to. What a pity.
another of mom's teachings that was deep seeded into my heart: Even if you've the capability to employ a maid, you STILL have to know to run things, otherwise you will not be able to call the shots.
ReplyDeleteThat's why I've picked up cooking, house chores whether it's a maternal thing i'm not sure. I guess if you want to have the best for your family, you'll do it. The less savvy ones look upon it as a job, those that like food and experimenting makes cooking a hobby. Some are lucky to feed adventurous mouths, others (like me) have fussy eaters...so whether cheap skill or not, it's essential to me.
I find cooking is one of the most satisfying thing to do. Especially when the results are not half bad and when you see others enjoying the food too.
ReplyDelete@chinchilla: Sis, remember to teach Aaron or Amanda how to cook when they grow up. It's an under-rated, liberating skill.
ReplyDeleteWhat I was trying to express in this post is that, even if we have the ability to employ a maid, we shouldn't. There is no need to elaborate why, I'm sure you understand.
But circumstances in Singapore are such that there is no flexible schemes for the woman of the house to keep a healthy balance between work and family commitments. And it is illogical for an highly educated woman to stay at home and bear opportunity costs.
So families are faced with 2 illogical situations. The wife works and the family has to get a maid so that they can cope vs not having any children at all.
In the long run, the country will suffer because couples are unable to form families properly. These foreign imports will eventually face that problem as well and stop producing babies. We will be left with a worse case of aging population with no young to support the economy.
By then, the old strategy of getting more people in will not be as effective, as the aging population is too large. Neither do we have the space or infrastructure to support much more 'importing'.
In short, we are heading for trouble.
Sorry I have strayed so far from the simple topic of cooking.
@ Patrick: I can see that you love cooking. Thanks for visiting again. Hope to hear good news from you about your job. I'll send you my resume for you to 'condemn' soon :) thanks for offering to help.
ReplyDelete