Igrew up cooking with my grandmother. She made biscuits from scratch, baked sweet potato pies, and prepared turkeys at Thanksgiving. She canned her vegetables, jelly, and chow-chow, and even made ice cream.
And I helped.
I stirred pots for her. I peeled fruit and ran to the store for forgotten half-pints of cream or to buy onions and collard greens. I watched simple ingredients become things of beauty. And I loved it. Even as a small child, I read cookbooks for fun. No one thought anything of it — or, if they did, no one ever said anything.
I only remember one instance when my love for cooking met some resistance. When I was around nine or 10 years old, I hauled out the Sears Wish Book to dream about Christmas. I pored through the massive holiday catalog’s huge toy section, using an ink pen to mark dozens of toys that I had absolutely zero chance of receiving.
What I really wanted that year was an Easy-Bake Oven. Even a Strawberry Shortcake version — I could have lived with either. Both toy ovens baked tiny cakes and pies using a lightbulb as a heat source. They came with little packages of cake mix and teeny-tiny cake pans.
I had asked for one for a couple of years by that point, and couldn’t figure out why it never appeared under the Christmas tree. There wasn’t much money in our household, sure, but I remember one year being perplexed by getting a gift that cost much more than the Easy-Bake Oven I’d campaigned so hard for that holiday season.
Now, I should say that I wasn’t the toughest kid on the block. I was bookish, I didn’t fight, and I couldn’t dribble. I may have even jumped double Dutch with some of the girls on my block a time or two. And my mother always seemed “concerned,” considering she raised me mostly alone, and there were few male role models in my life.
It might take bravery, there might be consequences, but isn’t that what being a man is really all about?
I assumed my Easy-Bake Christmas wishes were cut short because of her. But why was she so concerned? So many code words and sly, casual social cues. Why do we spread such lousy advice that stunts the happiness of young boys? All I wanted to do was learn to cook on my own.
We spend a lot of time thinking about the detrimental effect of toxic masculinity. We know it can even be dangerous to people who aren’t men. But I wish we talked as much about how limiting and harmful it can be to the people already ingrained with this messaging.
The stress of living up to a masculine ideal that limits you, that prevents you being who you are, that deprives you of joy, seems like an easy gateway to being angry and judgmental. Why is it that I have to follow a whole set of “man rules?”
The answer, of course, is that I don’t. I can choose to live freely, just like so many have. It might take bravery, there might be consequences, but isn’t that what being a man really means?
Just as toxic rules are taught, they can be un-taught. I often remind myself not to criticize my own son’s bookishness and his utter disdain for real fighting, and I don’t limit his joy. By encouraging his individual qualities, I give him the room to be free.
Like all men should be.