For those of you who know us, you know that last year Barb went through a bit of a health scare. She was in the hospital for a little under two weeks.
During those days I got a small glimpse of what life as a single parent might feel like.
In the beginning, we agreed to pretend everything was normal for Justin. Mommy was just going in for a small procedure, like the one he had last summer. Last summer he had butt surgery. It was very painful, so we told him this was basically the same thing.
I took some time off from work so I could do the school drop-offs and pick-ups like usual. In between hospital visits, I would stop by the grocery store and try to keep up with things at home — laundry, dishes, the small chores that normally disappear into the background when two adults are around.
Typical me — on the first night I made three dishes with rice. Then I sat with him to finish his homework and barely made it through the cleanup. By the time I got to bed, I was exhausted.
The next night I made two dishes.
By the end of the week, dinner had turned into a one-pot situation.
Before this, I never gave much thought to how hard it must be to be a single parent. By the end of the first week, I looked around the apartment. Dirty dishes in the sink. Clothes scattered everywhere. A pile of clean laundry waiting to be folded.
I remember thinking to myself, I can’t do this alone.
A few months ago, after my noon workout at F45, I stopped by my usual Korean restaurant for a quick lunch. At the next table was a mom with her toddler daughter.
The mother was dressed in a tight, stretchy bodycon mini dress, a la Kelly Bundy. Her hair was a bit disheveled. She was drinking a beer while her daughter wandered around the restaurant going table to table in curiosity, occasionally coming back to her for attention.
The kid had food smudged across her cheeks that no one had bothered to wipe.
The mother seemed to switch between being visibly annoyed about something and then drifting into a thousand-yard stare, followed by another sip of her beer.
Then suddenly she got up, grabbed the child, paid the bill, and headed off to wherever she had to go next.
I remember thinking to myself, I wonder what’s going on in her life that led to this moment.
Since becoming a parent, I’ve tried not to judge other parents.
But yes, I was judging.
Just a little.
Even though my father and I grew apart toward the end, looking back now I have to give him credit for all the years he took care of me while my mom was away in Taiwan. She would fly to the U.S. for a few months at a time, and those were great months as far as food was concerned.
My father wasn’t much of a cook. When my mom was away, the one-pot dinners would appear more frequently — noodle soups, dumplings, things that were simple and easy.
But even better than those, at least for me as a kid, were the TV dinners.
We would sit around the television watching Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune. He didn’t understand much of it, but he loved watching the contestants spin the wheel for big money and guessing how many letters would show up.
In my mind, that was what an American family looked like — sitting around the TV, eating microwaved dry turkey breast and that thing that barely passed for a brownie.
When the TV dinners ran out, we were back to the one-pot dinners.
The problem with one-pot dinners is that they don’t just last for one dinner. If you make a big enough pot, they can last for days. My dad always made big pots.
His signature dish was a Fujian noodle soup called Lor Mee — noodles with meat, vegetables, and seafood in a thickened broth. It was pretty decent on the first day.
This is from the famous Singaporean restaurant Putien. My dad’s version resembles this but obviously the Michelin restaurant version executes it much better
By the third day, it was a different story.
The meat was dry, the noodles were soggy as hell — if they hadn’t already dissolved into the soup — and the shrimp had more rubber than the Michelin Man.
Sometimes my dad would throw in new ingredients to stretch it out even further so he wouldn’t have to cook something new. After a while it stopped being a dish and started to feel like a forever pot.
Fortunately, we didn’t have to cook much during the second week. My mother-in-law and my good friend Myo both brought us food. On some nights we just ordered pizza when I didn’t have the energy to cook.
It made me realize something.
Choosing to cook and having to cook for sustenance are very different things. I don’t enjoy having to cook. Normally I like to spend time thinking about what to make, where to buy the ingredients, and how everything will come together.
When you’re limited on time and choices, dinner becomes something else entirely.
It becomes pressure.
This weekend I have Justin to myself again. Barb is away traveling with her parents. Before leaving she did the usual — asking if the two of us could get along peacefully while she’s gone.
I reassured her I’ve got this.
I found myself thinking about the mom at the Korean restaurant again. Not about how tired she looked or how she seemed to be struggling, but about the moment she suddenly got up, grabbed her kid, paid the bill, and headed off to wherever she had to be next.
Whatever she was going through, she kept moving.
That’s what Justin and I did this weekend too. Despite his protests, we kept on trucking, practiced piano, homework, chores, etc. The schedule held. Nothing fell into chaos.
And most importantly…
no one-pot dinners.