thanks for sharing your personal story and experience. I find your grandmother’s words to be wisdom: “if you love to eat.. then you should learn to cook..She then would say that you have to put love into your food or it will taste bitter!” Both my grandmother’s were amazing cooks and whenever I would travel to stay with one of them for a couple of weeks (she lived in another state) I would return home bigger! It’s funny that I noticed that as child and some of my greatest memories are the love I felt from their cooking. Interestingly, their culture said “I will be offended if you don’t eat all of your food.” And yes, food was a celebration! And a tasty one at that!

All the best,
Patrick

I love to cook for my man! and my children. It is an expression of love. And i think was one of the things that he was impressed by when we first met. He comes from a traditional Caribbean background where food is very symbolic and central to family life. For men in the Caribbean cooking is seen as a tool, skill, and most fathers do much of the cooking. However, To serve him is not submissive it is appreciation, and i love it when he serves food for me. my Jewish grandmother said. if you love to eat.. then you should learn to cook..She then would say that you have to put love into your food or it will taste bitter!. i really miss her cooking. Both of my children cook passionately and i hope they continue the role of feeding people you love and care for.
thank you
Lisa

thanks for sharing your insights and opinion.

I recall many years ago, the first time I was traveling in Europe (from Australia) I was passing through Italy – San Remo – and I noticed that the people were not just eating, they were celebrating. To the Italians, food was a celebration. Today, as a result of our stressed out lives and our shift in priorities, we do not view food as a celebration and we now view it either as a burden or a necessity; we get annoyed that we (or our employees) need to eat because it is interrupting our work or we view it as a bare neccessity when we refer to having just eaten by saying “that hit the spot” or “that filled the hole.” Notice that many people also refer to food as “fuel’ thus removing the enjoyment of the ritual of eating. I have lived around the world and I noticed that even in Africa (The Gambia), food was a special occassion – familes gathered and the ritual of eating was about the social connection, the sharing of food and the enjoyment and celebration of food. and yes, the Latins and Mediteranneans follow the same ritual and significance.

Accordingly, for the majority of the rest of us, we swallow the food as fast as possible so we can get on with the rest of our day and we do not listen to our body about what it needs.

My finall point is a critical issue – women who refuse to cook because they are either punishing the man in their life or because they simply do not have any desire to care for or nurture him, and I believe this to be a sign that she does not love him or there is some resentment on her part towards him.

Again, thanks Ramon for openly sharing with us your insights and cultural experiences.
All the best,
Patrick

They have been sold a pack of lies. Women who do not know how to cook are basically missing an essential part of running a household and taking care of their family.

Hispanic women know that taking care of their husbands implies cooking. Our culture revolves around extended family who drop by and visit and yes food plays an important role.

It is considered rude in our culture not to offer a guest something to eat and drink. Usually coffee, soda or juice. THERE IS ALWAYS FOOD AVAILABLE, and 9 out of 10 is homemade stuff freshly cooked.

It is regrettable that women do not learn how to cook from their mothers or grandmothers. Cooking is a basic skill, but feminist indoctrination has made it anathema for women.

I learned how to cook by watching my mother (she only had boys). I would go to the supermarket or the butcher and get the ingredients for her.

Watching her has served me well. In today’s economic climate, an easy way to save money is to cook meals at home.

for the $7-9 dollars people spend at a fast food joint, I can prepare a beef, pork, or chicken dish that can feed me for 2 days without all the chemicals, etc.

Do these women think it is ok to feed your kids(if they even have them) fast food, processed crap like chef-Boyardee or those maruchan soups??

to me that is child abuse!!!!

For me a woman that does not know how to cook is a deal-breaker. As they say in Spanish “mejor solo que mal acompañado”

if you have read any of my work, then you know that I promote balance in all situations; and in yours, there is a huge imbalance. What you described above has nothing to do with gender but rather character, morals and values. Your husband is acting completely selfishly, irresponsibily and lazily. It doesn’t matter who makes more money or who is the man or the woman. The key here is being thoughftul, loving, caring, giving and forming a partnership. You might be right that he wants a mommy, but I feel the issue is deeper and he was possibly never taught to give but rather to only take and quite possibly he might resent you because he does not make as much money as you and he feels inadequate and thus he is finding a way to expresse his resentment, punish you or sabotage the marriage.

Solution?

I suggest you sit down and have an open discussion. Express your feelings without attacking him and ask a lot of questions such as what does he believe the role of a man and woman to be? Does it matter if a woman makes more money than a man? (If he is such a patriarchal man, then it will matter and annoy him!) Does he believe that a man and woman should share the chores and responsibilities of the household? If not, why not? And if not, and if the woman makes the most amount of money, should she do less work around the home and the man do more?

I believe you will be shocked by his honest answers.
Please let me know how it goes.
All the best,
Patrick

The problem is that usually both people in a marriage work full time now and it is really unfair for the man to expect his wife to come home after working a full day and cook for him while he loafs on the sofa.

I do think men are hard wired to get as much as they can for as little effort possible from them.

I am newly married and my husband is trying to get me to act like his mommy. I simply won’t do it. I’m his wife, not his mommy.

I worked a full day yesterday and have an hour commute each way. My husband won’t drive so he has a workmate to take him to and from work. So my husband gets home an hour before me and what does he do? Loaf on the sofa playing online until I get home and then I am supposed to haul him over to his old house to clean up and the cats are out of food so I have to go to the grocery after I drop him off to shop and then I get home and the laundry is still sitting in the washer so i put it in the drier and then I finally sit down and about 10 minutes later he calls wanting me to pick him up cause he is done and then he has the nerve to ask me to cook him dinner!

I said no way. He should be waiting on me hand and foot since he is home before I get home and I make 3x as much as he does!

Its selfish to expect protection but to not even cook a meal in return?

She says men give materially and women don’t. So how is it a partnership if a man has to give materially also known as providing for the family and also share every other duty?

I wonder if Sandy even gives the men in her life birthday gifts since women are not wired to give in this manner.

Maybe men find women who don’t expect protection and money and don’t whine about cooking much more attractive than women who selfishly expect all these things.

As a woman, I don’t feel an innate desire to cook just as many men that I know don’t. I view it as a survival skill, a chore, a necessity that needs to get done by someone, whoever it is, so that we can get nourishment until the next time we have to eat. And, to speak to your point about men wanting to receive things as an expression of love since that is their way of showing it, too, I disagree with that, too. Yes, men show their love by giving–usually in material ways. But women, who also show their love by giving, do so in non-material ways. They give emotionally. They nurture, support, advise, etc. But they do not give materially. Therefore, giving food is not how women are wired to show their love to their husbands. Yes, it’s how women show their love to their children, but not necessarily their husbands. So for a man to desire that a woman cook for him, to me, shows that he wants his wife to play, to an extent, the role of HIS mother and NOT the equal partnership of his wife. This, to me, is indicative of deep-seated issues stemming from the man’s inability to lose dependence from his parents–specifically his mother. Oftentimes, mothers, as loving and giving as they are towards their children, refuse to “cut the cord”, especially with their sons. This is the root cause of the problem and an issue that deserves a discussion entirely on its own. Furthermore, the fact that wives don’t see this behavior for what it is and allow these types of men to continue to place “motherly” expectations on them to make up for their lack of independence just makes the trend more widespread and accepted.

What really needs to happen is for women to stop allowing themselves to be pigeonholed into these mother roles towards their husbands. The wife is the mother to the children, NOT to the husband. And the husband is the father of the children, NOT of the wife. The husband and wife are partners who must work together to provide for their children. That is the biological purpose of a marriage–to create and nurture offspring. When either the wife or husband places their needs in the same category of those of the children, that is when dysfunctional marriages occur. Yes, some people may be happy in these types of marriages, and those who think similarly along those lines would match well. But for those of us who understand the optimal roles that women and men should fill for one another, that of partner, we will have to just keep looking for like-minded folks and try not to marry the other type. Hopefully, over time, it will be easier to do this because, although progress has been made, we’re still a long ways away from that reality!

I hope you didn’t take offense! I am from a culture that has a lot of “mommas boys” so it’s an issue that I come across pretty regularly and it aggravates me to no end. I find independent, strong men so much more attractive and, in fact, I think that most women would agree!