When did we stop eating real food, stop moving, stop gardening, and start thinking that Wal-Mart really cares what they sell us? I’m probably not a good person to answer that question because I was raised by a mother who went through her own “back to the earth” movement in the 70s and 80s. We had a garden, animals, and we baled hay and worked hard. My parents worked harder than we did, but there was no sleeping until noon for us when we were teenagers, no Nintendo DSIs to occupy our time in the car, no internet or cellphones to keep us occupied. Even if they had existed in that time, we’d have not been allowed to focus as much time on them as teens today do!
So when did all this happen? I know for me, it was when I left home, left behind the garden and farm-raised meats and milk and eggs. When Wal-Mart and Kroger became my only choice for groceries, and when I had to start making my own choices for meals. It became easier to buy those frozen meals, or frozen vegetables, or canned whatever. I could go to school, or later, work, then come home and eat a quick dinner and move on with the rest of my day. Doing homework, going out with friends, etc. Occasionally I would cook — I do enjoy cooking quite a lot, but when it was just me, I usually did something quick.
But again, I was raised a different way, and eventually made my way back to it. When I got married, I tried cooking a lot more, even though I married a man who was raised by a mother who didn’t enjoy cooking and tried not to when possible! I remember meeting his parents for the first time — she cooked a huge meal and we ate at the table. It seemed very normal to me because that was what I’d grown up with, but my (future) husband explained that he rarely ever ate at the table and that his mom rarely cooked! I soon found out he was right — she cooked only on Sundays and everyone just sat in the living room! He loves my cooking, though, so we have no issues with food!
How did we as a society get to the place of having families that eat that way, though? That only have meals together once a week, who eat in front of the TV, who cook from boxes most of the rest of the week, or pick up fast food? Weren’t we a people that worked hard, ate well, and did it all again the next day?
I asked my husband and his immediate response was “It went wrong when women had to take on jobs.” He said that to rile me up, but he has a point. When women “had” to leave the farm, leave the garden, and take on a job in order to help pay all the bills, did we have time to come home and cook and clean and weed? It wasn’t just necessity that lead women to take jobs. Yes, we needed the income, but just as we wanted the right to vote and attend school, we deserved to use our brains in jobs.
Can we then blame men, saying that it was their fault because they couldn’t any longer earn enough money to support their families? Or are we all to blame because we want so much? Is that where we went wrong? We became a society that just has to have everything? Can we blame the fact that we no longer eat real food on the fact that we fill our houses with so much stuff? What a conundrum this has become.
It might be a puzzle we never solve, or that we never agree on. What I hope, though, is that we all agree to some degree that this is not the way we want to live any more. We need to do less running around on needless trips and start staying home more. If we stayed home more, we’d have more time to do some of the things that we are currently expecting others to do — like cooking real food and sitting at a table to eat. We’d have time to go out and play with the kids or enjoy the outdoors or take a nice long walk. Do we need to spend tons of money and time on convenience items? It’s making our life a lot less convenient, don’t you agree?
Join my project and start cooking again. Go to farmers markets and buy real food from people you know. Stop buying from Little Debbie and Lean Cuisine and learn how to make real dinners!
75 Days of Summer 