A few days ago I was roaming through one of those roadside junk/antique stores that would be a prime setting for an episode of “American Pickers”, and I ended up in the book section. I noticed a book that stood out to me – I can't remember the exact title, but basically it was about how rushed families are these days, how to live a simpler life, etc. It was exactly the kind of self-help book you might see today on the shelves at Barnes & Noble. Except, this book was written in the 1950's. The problems it listed, though, were the same ones discussed by David Elkind more than 10 years ago in his article, "The Hurried Child".I got to thinking, maybe this has always been a problem. Once humankind moved out of caves and into mud huts and then out of mud huts and into houses, parents probably started complaining about life moving too fast and kids being too rushed. Once again, it is all about perspective.
As a parent, I often do find myself rushing my kids. There is always, it seems, a need to be somewhere other than where we are, and to get there as quickly as possible. While I have intentionally limited my children's extracurricular activities to just one or two per child, things can still get hectic when all that is multiplied by three children, school, work, and general family/parenting obligations. Still, I often find myself longing for times when we are able to relax as a family, going camping or just hanging out at home, when there is nothing to be done and no place to be. Maybe this is how it was for the cavemen, in a much more basic sort of way. Or maybe they were just too darned tired from all the hunting and foraging to worry about such things.
Urban Garlic Chicken
In today's fast-paced world I like to try to keep my freezer stocked for those days when I know there won't be a lot of time to cook a healthy meal. This is one of my family's favorites - it's from the book "Fix Freeze Feast" by Bellingham's own Lindsay Tkacsik. I try to make 8 chickens at a time (wait for them to go on sale!) and do everything assembly-line style.
First I mix up some yummy spices and portion them out (along with cooking oil) to rub on my 8 chickens.
Then I rinse my chickens in the sink, removing the giblets. The cavemen would probably have eaten the giblets. I cook mine up and feed them to the dog.
Working 4 at a time, I arrange the chickens on baking sheets like sentries lined up for battle.d
Each chicken gets rubbed with some oil...
...then sprinkled with spices. Let the rubbing begin!
After all the chickens are rubbed...
...my hands look like this.
I carefully place each rubbed chicken into a gallon-sized freezer bag (pre-labelled with a Sharpie pen) and squeeze out all the air. Now they are ready to cook on those crazy days when I'm yelling "hurry up!" at the kids.
your blog is pretty amazing, im guessing you have done this before : ) . i have to agree that yes people have probabaly always been rushed, i feel rushed every day, i work full time and go to school and have a puppy....yeah i know doesn't sound to bad at all! : ) i don't know how people do it with children and extra curricular activities involved and dinners for more than two people. life is a lot and life is hard and yes we are all rushed, but i like how you said it is all perspective, maybe i should look at my day and say to myself it could be way worse : ) and to remember that taking time once in awhile to just relax is very important.
ReplyDeleteWe too have 3 kids and I find that we rush the oldest one a lot more than the 2 younger ones. I feel it is because he is older. I think it is very important to find time to relax and spend time as a family. My husband works shift, so we really try to take one night and just spend it watching a movie or just playing a game with the kids.
ReplyDelete