"...The word "dynamic" also recognizes that feeding our families is a dynamic process, meaning it is flexible and changes with your family. For example, I had a hard time cooking the kinds of meals I thought I “should” during stressful times, whether we were moving, health reasons, or just being overwhelmed with the needs of an active infant and an over-worked partner. I relied more on take-out or pre-prepped meals at the time, but I “forgave” myself, meaning I let go of the guilt. I think that positive attitude helped me get back to feeling good about cooking more regularly again. So much changes with kids – their tastes, different feeding challenges depending in your child’s temperament and developmental stage, or your home situation with jobs, schedules etc. So you might eat dinner at 5:30 when your child is younger, but change to a seven p.m. dinner when your child starts after-school activities. It’s about being flexible, forgiving, fluid, and dynamic with your approach to doing your job with feeding."
Thanks for helping spread the word Dawn!
ALWAYS cool -- take your words and do what you will, baby! I really appreciate how nice you've been to the commenters, too, answering so many questions. Some of my in real life friends were talking to me today about how much discovering you has meant to them!!! Thanks for doing such great work and sharing it with us! :)
ReplyDeleteCame via Dawn's fabulous blog and wanted to say hi!
ReplyDeleteAm looking forward to reading more here -- Family Feeding is right up my alley :)
I love Dawn too, Katja. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteLove Dawn's question and it is so helpful to see your response explaining this fluidity and forgiveness in not having to be perfect. I'm always promoting this concept as the perfectionism can breed such dangerous behaviors such as eating disorders.
ReplyDeleteThanks for bringing sanity back into feeding!
Beckky Henry
I recently came across your blog, and feel you may be a kindred spirit regarding the incorporation and importance of food, cooking, and food preparation as an interaction modality for families.
ReplyDeleteI am writing because I am in the dissertation proposal phase of a PhD program in Counseling Education & Supervision (with a marriage and family focus) at the College of William & Mary and am developing a research design to study the relationship between couples' cooking habits, communication level, and marital satisfaction (in hopes that food preparation can be used a counseling forum in the future).
I was wondering if you have come across any similar studies, information on couples food preparation habits, cooking to facilitate marital resilience, etc. I am finding limited information on the applications of culinary lifestyle to couples.
Thank you for your time!
You have great interesting ideas and awareness (i personally suffer from several dietary limitation so i love to see awareness for allergies and gluten-free cooking:)!
Katie Hermann
kmhermann@email.wm.edu
"Find something you're passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it." - Julia Child
Nice definition of dynamics, Katja. Flexible and changes with your family and life circumstances. It seems to me that flexibility is a part of coping well and enjoying life, no matter what you ar traling about.
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