Researchers have reported that most women don’t mind cooking – but they resent being responsible for “What’s for dinner?”.
Years ago, few women worked outside the home. These days, most do, with current data showing the labour force participation rate among Australian women is 61.5 per cent, slightly less than 71.4 per cent of men.
As women added working outside the home to their lives, food companies saw an opportunity to increase sales of fast foods and ultra-processed foods (UPFs). Sales have soared. I am not blaming busy women for buying these foods but the fact that UPFs now contribute 42 per cent of the average adult’s kilojoules and more than 50 per cent of children’s kilojoules, doesn’t bode well for many aspects of health. (I’ve written about UPFs before, but basically they include foods that contain lots of additives that you’d never find in any domestic kitchen as well as a high content of unhealthy fats, sugars and salt.)
The most recent Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey reports that men spend an average of 12.8 hours a week on housework, exactly the same as they did in 2002. Women do less housework than in 2002, but they still manage to average 18.4 hours a week, along with more hours of paid work. In heterosexual families with children under 15 years of age, men also average just half as much childcare as their female partners.
Averages don’t apply to all men (or all women), but the current situation for most women leaves them as the one who must respond to the daily “What’s for dinner?” question.
A role for children
Many children leave home without knowing how to take responsibility for a meal, other than to buy fast food.
Steve Biddulph, noted psychologist and author of Raising Boys and Raising Boys in the Twenty-first Century, suggests that by the age of nine or 10, boys should be able to prepare a meal for the family. Biddulph says this is part of teaching boys to be responsible, independent individuals who think of others. I’m sure he’d suggest we should take the same attitude to girls.
Many young children actually want to help with meals, even before they reach school age. Young children can tear leaves for salad, learn to butter their own toast, collect eggs if you have hens, set the table and help clear dishes from the table. Most will also love to help making something like pizza – starting with the fun of the dough, and also choosing and adding toppings.
If you have a vegie garden, children soon learn when and how to pick vegetables. If you don’t have a garden, you can get them to help you choose different vegies at the supermarket.
I hear some people say that letting children help takes longer than doing it yourself, but children learn quickly. And when a child can deliver a meal or even part of the meal to the table, it also encourages them to sit at the table and eat as a family.
Plenty of research shows the importance of family meals – at a table and without devices (phones or TV). Family meals are a time when children learn to share the day’s joys and problems.
Studies also show that young children who eat at the family table have better speech development, while older children are less likely to have behavioural problems if they eat at the dinner table with others. This is also a place to learn various social skills, including not only sharing food but also how to share conversation and express a particular viewpoint. Many a child who argues against a parent at the table later adopts the parent’s argument as their own viewpoint when discussing issues with their peers.
As well as encouraging children to help with meals, when they have developed some food skills it’s important to trust them to prepare a meal for the family. Following Steve Biddulph’s suggestion, a good time to start giving a child responsibility for preparing a meal may be a weekend lunch.
Benefit of gardens
On the topic of vegetables, literally dozens of studies show the best way to encourage children to eat vegetables is for them to have access to a garden – home, community or school. This was put into practice in Australia by Stephanie Alexander, who believes that children who learn about food early in life through example and positive experiences make better food choices throughout life.
Her programs involve teaching primary school students how to grow, harvest, prepare and share healthy nutritious food. They’ve been a great success. And not just for the children! Once children from these programs learn how to cook, some then encourage their fathers to also take a turn at preparing dinner for the family. (Disclosure: I have been an ambassador for the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden program since it started more than 20 years ago.)
Putting plan into action
Depending on the age of children, draw up a roster, giving children and parents a say in which day or days they’d like to decide ‘what’s for dinner’ and actually prepare the meal. Invariably there are going to be unexpected failures and flexibility will be needed when someone can’t take their rostered turn. In such cases, it’s that person’s responsibility to organise a ‘sub’ and then repay the favour the following week.
For an evening meal, you may need some rules – for example, the meal must contain at least two vegetables (other than fried chips). However, the child can choose which vegetables to include. And remember that frozen vegies are fine, and vegetables can be cooked or served as a salad.
It’s also reasonable to expect the ‘cook’ to clean up the kitchen. That’s possibly a separate issue, and could be negotiable between individual family members.
Fantasy?
I’ll admit that this article may seem fanciful for some readers. And I haven’t included many ideas to get men to take a turn. Many are happy to man the barbecue (which in our case extends to a wood-fired pizza oven, when the weather is willing). Perhaps remind men that some vegetables are great when barbecued: asparagus, corn on the cob, mushrooms, red capsicum, home grown tomatoes, sliced eggplant, butternut pumpkin, sweet potato or cauliflower slices are all good, while zucchini sliced lengthwise, brushed with a little olive oil and barbecued, morphs into something delicious.
Even if it doesn’t always work, I’d recommend having a go at sharing dinner decisions. If it all seems too hard, maybe start by listing the next seven days on a sheet of paper, stick it on the fridge and ask all residents of the house to choose a night to fill in what they’d like for dinner. If that takes off, then suggest they actually prepare their choices. And perhaps add a rule that anyone who fails to take a turn or make a sensible suggestion gets an extra chore of clearing the dirty dinner dishes!
(Disclosure: I have achieved only partial success for sharing dinner decisions since the children left home.)
Dr Rosemary Stanton OAM, Nutritionist
