A Memorable Meal

 In the 1950s, conventional wisdom was that females should attend college to earn a degree in either nursing or teaching, so there would be something to rely on in case they found themselves alone again. The secondary goal was that getting an MRS was equally important as the college degree. Being a conventional young person, I graduated to work in education and had a toe-hold on my MRS degree by the time I graduated in 1962.

I was married in 1963 at which time I also received my PHT degree - meaning “Putting Hubby Through” - an advanced degree. My steady boyfriend graduated after I did, and when I asked him what he was going to do next, he answered, “I’m going to graduate school and marry you.” I took that as a proposal, knowing that the MRS and PHT degrees were frequently linked.

For the next four years, I worked in the schools and supported my husband until our first child, Andrew, was born in 1967. When he was four months old, he developed an extremely rare blood disorder and was hospitalized for a month in CS Mott Children’s Hospital with a tenuous hold on his young life. After his hospitalization, Andrew recovered and I, with my confidence shaken, was able to relaunch life.

The women’s liberation movement, known as “women’s lib,” was underway when I  began motherhood with plans of attending graduate school part time.  But, there’s nothing to focus your mind like holding your baby and knowing that you narrowly escaped losing him. So, I decided that I wouldn't march with the sisters in the movement and became a full-time mother.

We had a second child, Megan, three years later and began moving around the continent for job opportunities. I tackled making a home for us in various cities with gusto while my husband developed his career. Although I didn’t know it at the time, like most women, I was the backbone of our family. Our itinerant life ended when we settled in Mason in 1979.

With that move, I exhaled, looked at the landscape around me, and felt as if I’d been left in the dust. In conversation with my contemporaries, it seemed as if the value of a woman was what she did outside the home. In short, society moved my cheese by changing expectations of women. So I quit my role as a full-service wife and mom and began attending graduate school part time to get back in the game in the ‘80s.

Of course, that meant the cheese was moved for my family as I re-organized how our family lived together. We had family meetings about who would do what jobs around the house and began sharing household tasks weekly. When clothes weren't picked up or put down the laundry chute by a certain day in the week, I put them in a box until they were freed by the owner.  While I can’t say that the new way of living together was enthusiastically embraced, it did start to catch on. Resistance seemed to be minimal with little grumbling.  No outright rebellion was evident.

Over time, the last change in household functioning was the implementation of taking responsibility for one meal a week. The menu was posted on the refrigerator, and Andrew, Megan, and my husband chose the meal for which they took responsibility. Keep in mind, these meals were easily put together and didn’t require much skill. Really, this meant following a set of simple directions. Open a box. Brown some ground beef. Chop some vegetables. Open a can and warm it up. Tear up some lettuce. Set the table.

Although easy to do, the last step in changing our family’s routine was the most challenging, but we stumbled through until several weeks into the program.

Everyone was seated at the table when Andrew served the salad with vegetables and some croutons on top as embellishment. Multiple bottles of salad dressing were on the table - plenty from which to choose. I think the main dish was Hamburger Helper with some vegetables mixed in. Although I thought it looked more moist than usual, we all would give it a try.  Forks were lifted, and as Andrew was sitting down after serving us, he began howling.  He couldn’t contain himself - “Look! Look! He laughed and gasped.  It’s cat food!  You’re eating cat food!” Upon further examination, I saw that the croutons were crushed dry cat food and now we were about to eat wet cat food.

“Eewww! Andrew, how could you?!! Akkk!” We three choked, coughed, held back vomit, and left the table in a hurry. This meal had a message, and I understood it.