As a single parent and working mom, I have my routine down to a science. Here’s the rundown on a typical workweek evening:
My daughter must be picked up by 5 p.m., when her caregiver finishes for the day. From 5:15 to 5:45, I prepare supper while Ava paints, plays, or practices ballet.
We eat by 6:00, so there’s ample room for a bath, cuddles and storybooks before her bedtime at 7:30. Any later and she’s impossible to rouse at 6:30 a.m. the next morning.
There are no time slots for spills, extra ingredients or burnt inedible messes in this schedule.
And that’s a problem, because my five-year-old girl loves to cook.
“Can I stir it, mommy?” she says. “Here, I’ll pour it in, mama. Let me do it. I want to.”
My few attempts to include her in helping me cook pasta (okay, I really mean Kraft Dinner) or bake chocolate chip cookies have been disastrous. Orange cheese powder blankets the stove top. Flour covers the floor and sticks to feet like sand.
So I’ve done something I’m ashamed to admit. I’ve discouraged her – my budding sous chef – from “helping” me.
To find out exactly how much damage I’ve inflicted on Ava’s inner kitchen whiz, I contact Calgary-based author Karla Heintz.
With a BSc in nutrition, Heintz is the brains (and the beauty) behind Nutrition with K. It’s a website dedicated to healthy eating, specifically for children.
I ask Heintz about what affect my kitchen ban might have, and she responds just as I imagined:
“You have no idea if you have a culinary chef on your hands,” she says.
“Why would you want to hamper that?”
Heintz’s tone is gentle, but her words still sting. I adamantly believe in encouraging kids and teens to pursue their passions. This belief is the reason I tolerate the Ballet Moms – who make me feel like I’m back in Grade 8 and still not one of the cool girls – at Ava’s practice every Monday. This belief is the reason I ooh and ahh over every one of her crafts, paintings, and drawings as if each is a masterpiece.
How could I discourage her from cooking when I know she loves it?
“Why would you want to hamper that?”
I’m already submerged in a sea of mother guilt, when Heintz says something that makes my heart sink even lower: cutting Ava off from the kitchen could even impact her health. Including children in decisions about what to buy, eat, and make helps form healthy habits.
”Your goal is to set (children) up for a healthy lifestyle. Teaching them how to make food on their own, you are setting them up for a lifestyle (that includes) cooking homemade, kitchen-based meals, rather than eating out,” says Heintz.
That’s probably enough to convince many moms – including me – to cook with their kids. But Roselyne Donaldson, co-owner of Young Chefs Academy (YCA) in Sherwood Park, Alberta, says there are even more benefits.
Like Heintz, Donaldson is passionate about giving kids culinary savoir-faire. After years of raising two boys and fundraising for the Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton, Donaldson opened the only YCA franchise in Canada last year. Along with her business partner Dianne Young, she teaches cooking classes for kids aged four to 14.
“Before we were raising money to help sick kids and now we’re helping to prevent them from becoming sick (by eating healthy),” Donaldson says.
“The kitchen is the center of a home.”
Donaldson also says cooking also helps kids build confidence, develop communication skills, explore their creativity and connect with loved ones:
“The kitchen is the center of a home. Celebrations often revolve around food.”
That statement resonates with me. I remember helping my mom bake buns for community functions. I remember my aunts and uncles teasing each other while they did the dishes after an extended family dinner that fed more than 40 people.
There are only two people in my house now, but there’s still much to celebrate.
I asked Heintz for some suggestions about how to ease Ava back into kitchen duty. She says kids don’t need to be up to their elbows to enjoy cooking; even setting the table engages them.
“Get them to mix, pour, grocery shop,” she says. “A lot of those things won’t take more time.”
Even I can’t argue with that.
To begin the process of absolving my mother-guilt, I borrow several kids’ cookbooks from the library for my budding artist/chef/ballerina to browse.
Glossy pages display photos arty enough to entice adults, but simple enough to salivate kids. Ava turns some pages slowly and flips past others with nary a glance. She knows what she likes.
Finally, this discerning cuisine diva selects her menu items. The main course: linguini alfredo with peas. And for dessert: lady bugs on a stick with green grapes for heads, plump strawberries for bodies and dark chocolate chips for spots. We attach sticky notes to the pages, and I promise her a Sunday dinner date for two.
“This occasion is perfect for Ava to cook.”
Except it doesn’t work out that way.
Our first chance to make a meal together falls on the night before my younger sister is moving to Costa Rica for her job. Until Ava was about three, we lived with Erin. As a result, they’re more like sisters than aunt and niece. I think of Donaldson’s comments about celebration and food, and realize that this occasion is perfect for Ava to cook.
While I toil over thick cream and butter in kitchen, Ava and her auntie skewer fruit on tooth picks at the table. There’s a hilarious moment when Ava finds a real bug in the berries (I washed them I swear!). Her shrieks make Erin giggle. And I feel incredibly lucky.
Even though Ava and I are about to say goodbye to someone we both love very much, there is indeed a lot to celebrate.
