Baking By Design

Well I set myself up for a busy Saturday this week because I signed up to bring church snack tomorrow. Our church is kind of small and the ladies take turns baking or bringing stuff for people to munch on after the service on Sunday, and I hadn't done it in quite a while so I figured I was due for a turn.

What this inevitably means is that my Friday (if I'm able to do so) and my Saturday are an orgy of baking and preparation for this event. Our church may be small, but we still have over 200 people each Sunday, so it's a bit of work to get together a "snack" for everyone. Ironically it is perceived as a source of pride, and ladies who are known "bakers" will pull out all the stops for their turn, doing elaborate or fussy cookies and cakes. One lady likes to make lollipops and hand tie curly ribbon to each one, wrapped in cellophane! I mean some of them really go nuts, making sure their stuff looks bakery-made with royal icing decorations, and some ladies even like to dress the snack table. On Easter Sunday we had an elaborate diorama with Easter eggs & Easter bunnies! Very Christ-centered, haha! (that was my tongue firmly in cheek...it did look very cute but would not be my style)

But seriously, I have garnered something of a reputation in our church as a "baker". Perhaps this is because my husband and actually have *parties* and host dinners and invite folks over on a regular basis, and we do most of our cooking and baking from scratch. Never mind the fact that this is due to my inability to deal with MSG and several food additives, it means that we have a reputation here.

What this means is that if I sign up for snack, people expect that I will go all-out, baking extravaganza style, and bring a host of amazing baked goods for folks to snaffle up and the ladies to ask for my recipe and complain in the future that their attempts "never turn out as good/light/fluffy as yours". *blink*

I really do not understand this. I do not do anything special with my baked goods. I have had one woman repeatedly tell me her cinnamon rolls aren't like mine, ask what flour I use (whatever is on sale or I have to hand) and how long I knead the dough. I mean, I don't make an art of this people! This is an example of how my baking extravaganzas usually break down:

(Me in the kitchen, adding stuff to the mixer)

Kid: Oh, what are you making Mommy?

Me: Cookies/cinnamon rolls/cake

Kid: Oooooooo, can I help? Can I-can I-can I-pretty please???

Me: *grumble* Yeah pull up the chair

(Kid tries to put finger in the bowl)

Me: Stop that!

(Kid tries to sample ingredient)

Me: Stop that! Here, put this in for me.

Kid: Ok! *beam*

2nd kid wanders in: What are you making?

(1st kid rubs the 2nd kid's nose in the fact that THEY have the coveted helper spot. I break up the fight/argument. 2nd kid fetches stool to help as well)

Me: 1st kid, you add this. 2nd kid, you mix it in.

2nd kid: Can I crack the egg, please??

Me: No.

2nd kid: I'll be really careful, please!!

(Clean up mess from egg breaking while mixer runs along)

1st kid: Can I lick the beater?

Me: No.

2nd kid: can I lick the spoon?

Me: No.

1st kid: Can I help fill the cups/drop the cookies?

Me: No. Get out!
(By this point the batter has been creamed practically beyond recognition)

2nd kid: Mom, you forgot to put in the chocolate chips!

(Add the chocolate chips, grumbling)

1st & 2nd kids swoop in and steal large handful of chocolate chips.

Me: GET OUT NOW!! (waving spoon like a madwoman)

3rd kid: Mama!! UP!

Yeah, that is pretty much how it goes. So if my cinnamon roll dough is beaten to a pulp, I don't know how long I've had it on! My kids have been driving me nuts over here! There is no "secret" that I've squirreled away in my brain that makes my stuff so good to the eaters of church snack. I can't figure it out, frankly. I just throw stuff together, subbing for ingredients with whatever I have on hand. Not enough flour? Oh look, I have some oats! Just whiz in the food processor and the problem is solved. I admit to my share of food snobbery when it comes to cake mixes and such. The real source of that is I am too cheap to pay for a combination of dry ingredients that will take me 20 seconds to duplicate by making it from "scratch".

One time I took a pass on my turn and bought a bunch of stuff from Costco. People were actually disappointed. I had not realized this, but folks check the snack list to see who is bringing what each week. The fact that I showed up with STORE BOUGHT BAKED GOODS was a travesty to some! So I realized that a little realistic expectation setting was called for, and I've been dribbling in the occasional store-bought item on my turn. I am just too busy to allow for a baking extravaganza each time I do snack. I have also signed up LESS, because I am too busy to do it according to the unspoken "rules" of church snack. Tomorrow I will round out my baked goods (not lovingly, painstaking decorated with icing or in any way 'prettified') with some store bought, pre-cut fruit. Oh, the horror! Well, it's just how I roll these days.

Now if you will excuse me, I have to go get a batch of cinnamon roll dough started while my husband has mercifully taken all the urchins out of the house.

Parenting Cheaply

A friend posted a BBC article to their Facebook page recently. It was from the BBC, touting the increased pressures of child-rearing these days, and estimated the cost for raising a child to be more than £210,000! In the article they talk about how everything is about fashion and design in baby gear, how you can spend £1200 on a stroller, and that everything needs to be coordinated in the nursery. People are spending more on their kids' clothes than I spend on mine (which admittedly is not much, but still folks, your kid does not need designer baby clothes).

Then on the radio I hear parents talking about how busy they are, taking their son to baseball practice, daughter to violin lessons, both of them to karate lessons, plus piano lessons, plus language lessons. Really, this is important for a six year old? An eight year old?

I tell you what, I must be a miserable parent, because I buy my kids clothes on clearance and sometimes the thrift store, and I don't care what brand it is as long as it fits. I don't take my kids to ANY lessons. They go to and from school, and they play outside when the weather is nice and they play inside when it's not nice. They don't have Gameboys or DS's, or iPods. They don't know how to use the Wii other than to do Wii bowling about every two months or so. They don't really want to learn how to play the Wii, to be honest. Is that because my husband and I don't play it that much either? Possibly. My kindergartener can navigate around a bit on the old desktop, where she is allowed to go to two websites to play games. She does this about...well, I can't remember when she did it last.

I tell you what my kids do. They fold their own laundry (except for the baby). They earn quarters for doing extra chores, and they are expected to keep their rooms navigable and to bus their own table, so to speak. They help put away the dishes. They match socks. They even (occasionally) help pull weeds outside. They play with each other, all sorts of crazy imaginative games. They ride their bikes (very popular this year). They draw with chalk, they do their own crafts, they play with the harps or drums or keyboard, they make up silly songs, they dance around to the radio. They play with worms outside, dig in the dirt, plant flower seeds and veggies, and eat strawberries straight from the plants when they are in season. Pretty terrible life, huh?

I just look at all these kids with schedules so complicated their parents need to use their Blackberry to keep track of them, and I wonder--what the heck are those kids going to remember about their childhood? I know it's a novel thought, but what about just letting kids be kids? Yes, it is more work for parents, because somebody else isn't supervising them, they have to learn to get along with each other, and they have to be creative about how to entertain themselves or play by themselves. They have to learn to judge what is a good idea and what is a bad idea when it comes to entertaining themselves (drenching Mom with a hose while she gardens? Bad! Stacking rocks & building a rock fort? Good!) I don't think my kids are going to be deprived in high school for not doing dance, band, every sport imaginable, and music lessons from the age of four. Somehow I managed just fine and turned out to be successful, and I'm pretty sure my kids can too. So why spend the money and deal with the stress, and stress out your kids? I just don't get it!

The Ado-Man

My husband and I have noticed a disturbing pattern among some of our married friends--the ado-man (short for adolescent man). Usually this man is in his late twenties to early forties, and surprisingly he has not really settled down into any stable job or career field. Instead he has flitted from job to job, often because he is "bored" with what he was doing, or it wasn't challenging enough, or it just didn't suit his temperament, etc. Most of the time, these men are also married with young children, and tend to be quite traditional in their marriages and childrearing preferences--i.e. they prefer that their wives stay home with their children, they are the "boss" of the household.

What is really disturbing to us is that these men seem incapable of providing any sort of sustainable support for their families, but they can't seem to connect the dots to their own decisions. Losing a job is "bad luck" and not due to the fact they were bored with work and stopped giving their best. The fact their wives have to scrimp, save, buy the scratch & dent cans and shop at Goodwill for their kids' clothes (NTTAWT) doesn't register when they go out and blow $500 on a Bose surround sound system because "Hey, I haven't treated myself to anything for a while and sometimes you just gotta do it, you know?" These same guys will buy themselves a new truck every two years because they feel like it (while their wife's car, the chief family transport, is held together with baling wire), have poker night with their buddies at their house even when their ten month old is teething and dealing with a miserable ear infection, and then they don't understand why their wives get so hopping mad that they are making a lot of noise and staying up until past midnight.

DH and I have encountered repeated species of these males and frankly we are just baffled. Just when do we hit the "Grow Up!" button for the American male of the species? What is wrong with our society that we give a pass to these guys hanging on to the good old days of teendom, when they have adult commitments, relationships, and very real fiscal needs? I get the traditional marriage, but frankly if you aren't providing LEADERSHIP to your family, then you aren't cut out for the male role in a traditional marriage! If you aren't leading by example, showing your kids that yes, sometimes your job is NOT your passion, but that's okay because you need to feed, clothe, and house your family, what kind of message does that send to them? What does it say to your wife when you SAY you support her, but every action is a sabotage to your financial stability and a demonstration of your lack of respect for her wants and needs?

Now that's not to say that the wives in these cases aren't responsible too. I would probably have quite a strong argument with my husband if he weren't pulling his weight in our marriage or family. And I have to say that some of these women are not communicating with their husbands. They complain to their friends but don't actually talk to their husbands about what has them so hopping mad a lot of the time. Is it any wonder we see the rate of divorce we see in the Christian church? Yeah, all of these examples are in CHRISTIAN households.

I just really mourn the lack of good, strong male role models. In an age where marriage is increasingly irrelevant, the whole idea of "service" to your marriage and family is fast falling out of favor. One need only look at the single parent phenomenon in African American households to see how ugly this gets when the dad is allowed a complete pass on responsibility. What is even more frightening is that moms are getting in on the act now, too. It seems increasingly common for moms to be committed in early childhood years, then to get tired of solely shouldering the responsibilities for childraising and leave their teens to go solo (figuratively speaking). Sometimes this takes the form of highly structured schedules, which has the added bonus of making Mom feel like a good parent, because John and Judy are in band, cheer, every sport imaginable, Mandarin, and a host of other "college ready" extracurriculars. Of course John & Judy are so busy you never get to talk to them, and they never get a break, but that's just preparing them for the "real world". Or you just stop listening to your kids, don't make an effort to understand them any more. Hey, it's just because they're teenagers, right? Eventually they will sort it all out and move out for college--the hard part is done. Yeah, because we all know how well that absentminded parenting works for teenagers.

I think we need to be honest with ourselves. Marriages take work. Families require solid commitments. That means sometimes (a lot of the time) you are working at a job that, at its best, drives you crazy sometimes. But you do what you need to do to put food on the table. If you want to "find yourself", "follow your passion", or "find the job you love", you wait to do it when you aren't putting your marriage and family under tremendous strain in the process. If that means drastically changing your lifestyle with everyone's agreement, so that you can afford to start your business or chase your dream, great! But if that is not possible, you need to be mature enough to recognize it and postpone it until you aren't putting other people's lives and well-being at risk. I realize that flies in the face of our hedonistic society, but you really AREN'T priority #1 when you have kids and a marriage. I'm not saying you don't need to take care of yourself, but you can't take care of yourself to the exclusion and detriment of all others. And you need to be involved in parenting your kids, period. Your wife is not the exclusive caregiver if the kids are under X years of age. You ARE responsible for the messages your behavior sends to them. You DO have to sacrifice some of your personal pleasures. It's called being a grown-up--how about trying it sometime, Mr. Ado-male?