A mess in the kitchen.

Sorry - things were so bad in my childhod that I cannot - even now- discuss this time of my life. Just popped in to say hello. HELLO!

I don't want to sound like I am repeating wha others have said but I wasn't allowed to cook at home Mother had her weekly menu and that was it - period! We did have cooking classes at school and my father would always welcome anything that I learnt to cook there but I was never allowed to repeat the recipes at home. We learnt to knit at school too. Mother thought I would not have the patience to knit anything big so I was told I could make some mittens. Everyone had a pair of mittens for Christmas that year because I learnt and loved knitting so much that I would finish one hand every day

Naw, my parents were just distant and set an awful example. But mom definitely taught me to cook. That way, about when I turned 12, she didn't have to any more!

Sounds like u had a really fun childhood about like mine. I could write u a book but want bore u w/my crappy childhood. It makes us good moms tho, doesn't it?

well not really. only such experience i've had is... me and my brother live with my grandma as my parents live abroad. now my grandma does the cooking, so she usually makes things we eat. my brother like rice with potato curry, and i like to add lentils to it. but since making lentil is one extra thing, my grandma makes potato curry and rice when she's cooking for just the two of us, and lentils when she's cooking for us 3. so neither my brother gets what he wants to eat, and nor do i. sometimes, for dinner, i have to eat something even if i dont feel like eating it, just because my brother wont eat something else... i dont know who's fault this is, me my brother or my grandmother...???

I guess that I will have to say that my mom and dad was pretty good to me. The only thing is that they didn't teach me to drive a car. I think it was because I was the baby of the family that they was trying to keep me that way. I did learn how to drive at a later age in life. I will tell you something funny. When I first got married I thought to myself.."Alright now I dont have to do those darn dishes"..well after about two or three days and the dishes was still sitting in the sink I realized then that I did still have to wash dishes.LOL I was ready to go back home..LOL

I pretty much grew up living with my grandmother and she did teach me a few things about cooking but i didn't get a lot of chances to cook. for her it was just easier for her to do it most of the time. She did teach me about canning and cleaning chickens though. We had to heat the water before doing dishes. We only had cold running water in the house. I always tried to get her to put the potato masher in water to soak because you know how hard it is to get dried potatoes off it. She didn't believe in soaking any thing and some time those dishes were hard to get clean. I did let my kids learn to cook. Even when I went to work out side the home. I would come home to some strange things trying to hide in the trash can. I once found black bread in the trash. The kids had tried to make it and had the oven set at 500 degrees. It was black on the outside and raw in the middle. That daughter hated to read instructions. Now she is a very good cook.

I can't say I learned anything from my mother - except how NOT to bring up children. I certainly didn't (thankfully) learn any cooking skills from her. One thing I wouldn't have minded learning from her - something which can't be learned - is how to stay young looking. At 60 she looked no more than 30. At 80 she easily passed for 50. Even at 100 she retained her facial beauty. She never wore makeup in her whole life. Messy kitchen. I am an organised, time management person, so I clean as I go. Even when cooking for a camp with 40-50 kids and teens, by the time the dinner was ready, there was no mess to clean up. As soon as something has done its job, it is washed and put away.

I think both men and women should learn how to cook and do the basic stuffs in the kitchen area. In this way, they would be able to do lots of things even when mommies are not around. Bachelor living can also be crucial if one does not know how to even cook a porridge. I know a lot of things, I learn a thing or two from my momma, but my case is different. I'm just lazy and oh yeah, too pampered.. LOL..

hi thea I did not have anything so dramatic in my 'youth that prevented me from doing something perfectly normal'wxcep that my mom always cut a large hunk off the end of a ham before she put it in the roasting pan to roast in the oven. So at first I did the same thing as a newly wed then' I stopped and thought why am I doing this? this ham has'plenty of room in this pan so why cut a hunk off the end of it? So as a point to find out why mom always did it that way I called'her .she only lived two blocks away. she laughed like crazy then said, my roasting pan was too small so I always had to trim the ham to fit in the pan. Dont do it unless you have to, as'thats a waste of time. okay live and learn, I felt really stupid not to'have realized that that had nothing to do with the right way to roast a ham. oh yes the one about oatmeal I learned to hate oatmeal as my mom made it the way my dad liked it,cooked for forty minutes until it could stand up in mounds. yuck. well this time I made oatmeal my way once I started house keeping and this time I actually liked the stuff. It was not stiff and yucky and I only cooked it for a few minutes. wow what a difference.

What a shame I think that is. I had a sister-in-law like that. She would never let her children play with their new Christmas toys if they might break them...look but do not touch. What is that about??? And the lovely clothes that were brought for them to have their formal portaits taken in...they never wore them again lest they stain or tear them. I was raised to use common sense and responsibilty, but our parents encouraged us to learn things, hands on, with their guidance and teaching and it has served us all well in our adult lives. I raised my own daughters the same way with the same good results. karen

Boy, can I relate to this all of this! My mother was the exact same way...she never taught the two daughters she had how to cook, because she never wanted to pick up after us....So we learned only after we were married, and we had to get the step step instructions from her over the phone. Milk...I hated it TOO! But every meal, they poured me a glass and made me dring the darn thing before getting off the table. My father used to say that if I didn't drink it, he would pour it down my pants. Funny thing is...now I love it! Milk is my favorite drink. I craved it when I was pregnant for my son, and I have never stopped loving it since. One of the memories I am still left with, is my mother's consistent ritual of stripping the beds and cleaning the sheets every Saturday morning...she couldn't strip them on Friday nights, so they would be ready for the wash on Saturday morning,no, she had to strip them on Saturday mornings, so she could allow the beds to air out all day Saturday. Therefore when every other kids was sleeping until 10:00 or later, my sister and I had to bounce out of bed by 8:00-9:00, so my mother could strip the beds and wash them. I resented this for a long time, because it seemed she never wanted to change her habits. I have no idea why she couldn't have done this on Friday morning, so they would air out while we were in School.

Hi Thea, I was always encouraged to cook. During my pre teen days it was like a very refreshing thing to make something on my own. On most occassions it was out of necesity that i had to cook coz I disliked something my mother cooked. But later on I noticed that my mother never had anything I cooked, whne we ate together she just took micro servings of teh stuff I made nd wouldnt comment on it be it good or bad. That was very discouraging...even now she hasnt changes...last month, she came to stay with me for a week and she disliked every single thing I made!!! I to love experimenting and I remember making ghee(clarified butter)cake and it was a disaster. It was a night mare that evening when my mother came back from work...:(((

I have nothing against my mother - may her soul rest in peace - but she only let us do the chores in the kitchen but never the real cooking. So after I got married I learnt to cook from books and friends and even used to phone my mother while something was on the burner whether I was doing it correcly. Nothing like Mom's recipes!!

My childhood memories are never good. This may be one of them, and I suspect the reason why I hate cooking so much. Being the only girl in a brood of four, and the youngest, it was expected that I learn to do things "girls" are supposed to do. I remember at age eight that I was expected to know how to cook rice, even if no one taught me how to do it. From then on, I was expected to know everything. I hated cooking, especially frying fish because there would always be the snide comment that I never cooked it right. I would be left at home because my brothers are all off to college, but living at home. They expect the house cleaned, dinner cooked when they got home. And I was still in high school then. My mother never said anything or took my side. So it is the opposite for me, that other mothers want their children out of the kitchen, I was assigned to the kitchen and I was never asked if I wanted to.

Nope....my mother worked outside the home so I learned how to wash and iron...cook and bake...sew and all the other things a person needs to survive...she encouraged it. And I did the same with my kids and grandkids...even the youngest who is 4 loves to bake!

Other then the standard "You have to do it this way" and I think maybe even "you have to do ti this way or do it again" thing... No. Sad to say I was never really made to clean, even when i was made to clean, I somehow got out of it. No I regret being the brat I was, as while I do enjoy cleaning it's more on a whim, and thus I have to teach myself to want to clean and not sit on my behind! Doubletime now that I must clean at home and at work!

Hey thea! If I was to list all the perculiar things that I had to deal with in my childhood we could be here forever! My mother still has me wash dishes before putting then in HER dishwasher! I don't even have a dishwasher! And I have melamine dishware too because I am always dropping things so I use them for my "everyday" dishes! But, when I have company I use my glass dinnerware! I used plastic cups to drink out of for myself for the same reason! I am a great cook, but a very messy one! So what! I just have to clean up afterwards! I made fried pork chops for me and my boyfriend last night and the stove was a mess! I also made spaghetti and sauce! And he cleaned up! Everything tasted great! And everything got cleaned up! My mother made a mess too when she cooked! Doesn't everybody?

Oh, that's me to a T! My mom was the cleanest of the clean freaks and I was never allowed to cook growing up. When I moved out on my own I would constantly be calling her with the most basic questions (like how to cook a potato) because I was never taught how to do it. The same went for things like cleaning, laundry and yard work. We might have done it 'wrong' so my mom preferred to do it herself. I could count of one hand how many loads of laundry I had done on my own prior to moving out. And still to this day I have never mowed their lawn. While I did/do appreciate growing up in such a clean house and having such a minimal amount of chores I will not do the same thing with my kids (when/if). If they want to cook, they will be allowed to cook. And as soon as they are old enough they'll learn all things domestic so they aren't totally lost once they're on they're own!

It sounds like you mother was a bit difficult.My mother openly encourage me into the kitchen .We always cleared up afterwards and had great fun making cakes and preparing the evening meal.I ended up cooking for a living and also learnt more cooking at school.Melamine cups are awful ,we had a set of cups for the caravan but I ended up throwing them out as they stained so bad.I had no idea milk stopped them staining,we put our milk in last but even so I love to drink from mugs,or cups.Parents did have strange ways in the old days.I guess I was very lucky to have the parents like I had .