Though I'm well into middle age, decently beyond in fact, I have only cooked one Thanksgiving dinner in my life. The expectation is of course being female and a mother that all of a Thanksgiving meal is on me to prepare. I appreciate some men proudly cook, and that's wonderful, but the stigma still remains for women.
My parents divorced the summer I turned 16 and it was about as tumultuous and bitter as they come. My father was insistent on having us the actual day of all holidays and my mother gave this to him to keep the peace. I walk in the door to my father's house, say "Happy Thanksgiving", and he turns to me and says, "When are you going to start cooking?". Sure I could put together basics for myself; boil some noodles, toast, heat a pizza, but I didn't have a clue as to what an entire Thanksgiving meal would entail. Did he say I should know because I'm female or was that the undertone of it all? I can't recall but I walked into the kitchen in tears with all of Thanksgiving resting on me.
My brothers were watching a parade or football on TV while my father hung with them though coming into the kitchen to critique my work. "The turkey doesn't look right." "How are you going to mash those potatoes?". I was incensed with nowhere to put it. Being the only one with a uterus there I was expected to inherently have this skill in my back pocket. I held it together and somehow pulled it off. It wasn't good, it looked worse than something out of a school cafeteria, but it was edible enough that none of us died.
By the next Thanksgiving my father had remarried as getting a wife to take care of all the "women shit" was first and foremost on his agenda. I managed to go between their house, my mother's, and eventually my in-laws only having to bring pie, rolls or salad. Basically things I could buy and not have to cook.
It was around this time that I began hating all holidays. If it involved family or tradition it became a day of pain, stress and anxiety. Getting married didn't help things as I married into as much dysfunction as I had with my family. I ate over it, drank over it, and popped any pill the doctor would give me to shove down the agony of the day.
When I see pictures of beautifully cooked turkeys I still think about my father and I peering in on that ugly dead bird in his oven and cringe at how I felt I had no choice. I was indoctrinated to believe that being female my worth was in my homemaking skills, having babies and being subservient to a husband. I sucked at all of these. I have friends today who are living huge lives, no children by choice, and striving towards their hopes and dreams, and while happy for them there is envy that I didn't feel I could do the same. Now I'm thrilled that I have my son, he was deeply wanted and is the reason I've stayed alive many times. But I didn't see that I had choices. I didn't see any other way.
I am here today happily single, no turkey in the oven and a little hungover from the night before where I laughed, danced and lived out loud. At this stage of the game I know I'll never have to cook a Thanksgiving meal again and I couldn't be happier about that.
