I learned early in life that the stricter your standards, the more you’ll end up doing everything by yourself.
When I was young, my mother didn’t have the time or patience to teach me how to bake and cook. She gave me some play dough—the real thing before Play-Doh came along—and let me mess with it on a corner of the kitchen table while she did the real work.
I didn’t learn how to cook or bake until I was living on my own and had to.
Whenever I visit my sister Laura—and I did recently—she always complains about the “help” she got from previous houseguests. Evidently my brother Donny got water all over her floor when he did the dishes—and he didn’t rinse properly.
When I tried to help by putting the clean dishes away, she complained that I needed to dry off any remaining dampness before putting glasses and mugs in the cabinets.
“Ok,” I said, complying to make her happy. I never thought of doing this in my own house, but I guess it was a good idea.
Laura waited on me a lot. It was easier for her than trying to give me the exact instructions on how to do things and making sure I carried them out properly. I helped whenever I was sure I knew what she wanted. When I wasn’t, I let her do it.
“You know,” I said one day, “you wait on me a lot more at your house than I wait on you at my house.”
That was true, she agreed, and we both knew why. I let her do things her way at my house as well as at her house.
I’m the older sister by four years, but as soon as we became adults, she assumed the elder position.
Once in a while I rebel, but eventually I come around to her way of thinking. For example, I made my bed every morning at her house and generally tried to keep the guest-room looking neat, especially when we were having company for dinner. But then I noticed that she had re-made my bed a different way. Evidently I wasn’t making it correctly, according to her standards.
This pissed me off, and I complained, but she asked me to think about how beds are made in hotels. The pillow is supposed to go on top of the covers, she said, not underneath them.
Wow, I’ve been making beds wrong all my life, then!
Making the salad was my one job at suppertime, and Laura told me I was doing that wrong, too. Finally near the end of my stay, I tried it her way and had to agree that it did taste better.
I like to do things fast and my way was much quicker than Laura’s. She has more Zen patience in her kitchen than I have.
I don’t remember whether I let my daughter help me in the kitchen when she was a young girl, but I certainly learned to do this by the time grandchildren came along. So what if they make a mess and things don’t come out perfect? It’s a chance to share your life with them.
Now that the grandchildren are all in high school or college, I know how precious those moments were.
Laura on the beach with jellyfish in foreground.
