A Lesson I Never Learned

My mother and father have failed as parents. Parents are supposed to be your guides through life. They’re supposed to prepare you for adulthood, right? That’s their responsibility. So why is it that I’m a little more than a year away from turning 18, a legal adult, and I don’t feel prepared at all?

My older siblings have grown past the stage of being one of many employees of our parents. I don’t have that same independence. (Not to say I ever want that amount of independence). Ever since I learned English I’ve helped my parents translate documents and mail when my siblings couldn’t. When I showed interest in helping in the kitchen for the first time, I was immediately put on dish duty, until my sister took over. When I learned how to mop, that became my set job too. I was conditioned to think that learning a new skill meant a new responsibility would follow. Learning new skills is fun and all but I don’t tell my parents about everything I know how to do.

I was 12 years old when I first noticed how the ways my parents were raising me was quietly shaping me as a person. That was the year I discovered the key to mole, my favorite dish at the time: chocolate. I was shocked. I mean, can you believe it? Two of my favorite things blended perfectly together and no one ever thought to tell me. But it was also on me. How could I not have known something so obvious? How did I ignore all the signs? Where did I think all the Abuelita chocolate, that we never used but somehow always needed to restock, was going? How did I overlook the rich, enticing, chocolatey, smell always filling the air? That’s when it sank in. I had my first epiphany. I realized that for someone who bragged about having been cooking since the age of seven, my mom had never taught her own children how to cook. 

 Cooking is a basic survival skill, yet I didn’t know a single recipe behind the meals that I had been leisurely enjoying for the last 16 years. I was stressed and overwhelmed, and my realizations spiraled into something bigger, what it would actually mean if I learned to cook now. I wanted to and needed to, but in my head I couldn’t stop focusing on what I stood to lose. 

Knowing how to cook meant I’d start having to make most of my own food. Sure, my mom would still prepare dinner for everyone like always, but my family doesn’t eat together for breakfast or lunch. That meant that during those meals I would be in charge of my own meals. I wouldn’t be able to complain about being hungry without someone else chiming in  “then go cook yourself something” or being forced to cook a light snack for everyone else. 

Cooking was a step toward independence, toward being capable of doing something on my own and little by little breaking away from my parents. I wasn’t ready at 12, and honestly, I’m not ready right now. Back then, I had time, so I didn’t feel pressured. I turned my back on the art of cooking without hesitation because staying ignorant was easy. But I blinked, and four years passed like nothing. I can’t stay ignorant to the world around me or stay sheltered under my parents’ protection, because it isn’t easy now. At 12, I saw my faults as my parents’ failures, but in truth, I just shifted blame onto them because that was easier. 

I blamed my parents for what I lacked because I hadn’t realized that growing up was a door I had to choose to open myself.

Yareny Morales-Camargo, Grade 12

Food & Lit