I’m Not A Good Cook And I Don’t Cook If I Can Help It. But I’m Still A Wonderful Mom!

Posted: November 13, 2016

Tags:motherhood patriarchy sexism stereotypes

Why should a mother be a good cook to be a good mom? And why are fathers exempt from this measure of good parenthood?

The dinner I made last night had a little less salt and my husband facetiously remarked – “You have been at home for a year now. Why don’t you learn to cook? Our son will be a year old now. You better pull up your socks, else he won’t be able to boast of his mother’s culinary skill and Maa ke haath ka khaana.” He laughed and I smirked. It ended there, but for me, the statement haunted through the night.

One distressed half of me was wondering, why did my cook go on a week long leave? Had he been here, I would have escaped such remarks.

But the other self-assured half was throwing questions for confrontation. Can a only a good cook make a good mother? Those mothers who don’t cook, are not good mothers? How come fathers are good fathers, when they don’t cook? Is cooking the only desired trait of a good mother?

My sanguine self woke up and assured me that a mother is a mother. No matter what the world thinks of her, she is the brightest star for her children. Her children always look upto her for the selfless love she has endowed on them. It is only her children who can feel the warmth of love and smell the fragrance of care with which their mother feeds them.

For her children, it doesn’t matter if she cooks good, bad or not at all. Because even a cook can do that for them. But a cook can definitely not understand the anxieties of children without their expressing it.

Only a mother can hear the unsaid words of her child. Only a mother can read his mind. It is a mother (if biological) who carries her child for 9 months in her womb. And it is a mother who brings them to this beautiful world.

Mother is the epitome of love, care and warmth. No adjective can justify her role and no author can define her completely. A mother’s love is as deep as the ocean and as endless as the sky.

It is only our Indian society that has defined that a girl making perfect round chapattis can be a perfect ‘bahu‘ and mother. But according to me, a family is kept happy not by expertly cooked food but by the positive aura of values, principles and respect for each other.