Good cooking requires time and patience – neither of which my mother has. Born and raised by Chinese parents in New York, aggression, assertiveness, hostility, hard work, and short-temperedness are inherent personality traits built into her blood. My mother stops for nothing in order to achieve success. Except for in the kitchen.
In Japan, a child’s early relationship to food is thought to influence their future- the obento playing a role in easing the transition from home to school. Anne Allison explains in “Japanese Mothers and Obentos: The Lunch-Box as Ideological State Apparatus,” it is the mother who carefully constructs the obento that the child will later excitedly eat in the cafeteria, inspiring them to be a good student and, by extension, encouraging a promising future (Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 64, No. 4, 1991, p. 199).
I was sent to school lunchless, forced to eat rubbery hot dogs, flavorless mashed potatoes, and mystery taco meat (only on Tuesdays, of course) served on a red plastic tray. I watched in envy, disbelief, and amazement as my classmates pulled out steaming, buttery noodles from shiny thermoses, flawless turkey sandwiches that made cling wrap look like wrapping paper, and napkins scribbled with Sharpie written notes. They’d turn red and roll their eyes, quickly burying the note under their other goodies or tossing it into the trash like it was nothing. It shocked me–how those tiny acts of love were no longer special because they had become so routine, so expected, and that made my stomach boil with hot hatred. Why couldn’t my mom be more like theirs? Why couldn’t she care enough about me to leave a note? Why did she have to be so bad at being a mom?
As my mother’s career took off, her cooking exponentially dropped. She’d turn the burner all the way on high, throw a barely seasoned filet on the pan, and cook it until it was black (crispy as she calls it) on the outside and still raw (medium rare as she calls it) on the inside. Similarly, she would crank up the toaster oven, throw in a frozen pizza, forget about it until she smelled the smoke, and run over to see her incinerated creation.
I would regularly compare her meals to my father’s, thinking if only she dedicated the same kind of time and care he does, what a great chef she would be. For whenever she did cook, it was always a race to see how quickly she could complete the task and move on, proudly boasting that she made dinner in under 20 minutes—cutting 10 by using microwavable Trader Joe’s rice instead of just making it herself. The food would then go uneaten, and she’d be upset: “Why do I even bother cooking for you girls if you don’t touch it?” But she kept going, making pastas, and salmon, and chicken, and steak dinners, and when she made something decent, she wouldn’t stop bragging about how great of a job she did: “This could really be in a restaurant.” “How good is my salmon? How amazing is my marinade?” Comparatively, when my dad cooked, he would talk about all the things he could’ve done better: “I completely overcooked this. It’s too dry. Next time, I’ll take it out 5 minutes earlier.” My mom didn’t think about the next time she would make a certain meal or how she could improve upon it. She didn’t strive for success in her cooking; she was simply satisfied with being able to say she made dinner for her kids.
It wasn’t until recently that I realized my dad’s cooking is so much better than my mother’s because, being remarried and living in a two-person household, he actually has the time to enjoy it. For my dad, cooking is a hobby, but for my mother, cooking is a chore. That’s when I stopped asking who was packing my lunch, who was cooking my dinner, and started asking who was cooking for my mom.
A single woman in finance, my mother provided for me in ways that were untraditionally maternal: working nonstop, unintelligible hours, constantly typing away at her computer, and checking incessant emails. She neglected hobbies, boyfriends, traveling, relaxing, comfort, her marriage, and chose to prioritize and support her three daughters instead. My mother can’t be both the breadwinner, Wall Street bro, and the kind of mom who dedicates hours to making homemade sourdough bread and various other pastries. She can’t be expected to embody both masculine strength and motherly love, so often, one of those was neglected.
My mom is never going to be the kind of mom who puts notes in my lunch. She will never be on the PTA board, or bake cookies for my entire class, or do all my laundry and clean my room plus the whole house. Most school plays, chorus concerts, and lacrosse games, I’d look into the crowd searching for her, but knowing I wouldn’t find her face because she would be working. But that doesn’t mean my mother didn’t show up.
Teary-eyed, she once told me she knew I couldn’t hear a word when I was swimming underwater a hundred feet away from where she sat in the bleachers. But she still cheered, screamed, and poured her heart into every shout, as if somehow, the louder she was, the closer her voice could reach me. These are the moments I never saw or heard for myself, but they are the ones when my mom truly showed up–when her love was loud enough to make up for the silence.
Before, all I could see in my mom’s burnt and uninspired meals was a lack of effort and patience. But now, I recognize her refusal to give up on a project that she is not good at, does not like, and finds frustrating and tedious, is her unique process of delivering conventional maternal love as an unconventional mother. So no, she may not be the best chef, but she really is the best mom.
Writer, Artist | Olivia Tennant ’27 | otennant27@amherst.edu
Editor | Mackenzie Dunson ’25 | mdunson25@amherst.edu