Teach Your Kid to Cook
Here’s how to introduce them to the kitchen at every age
Jill Santopietro is a chef and the founder of the Children’s Food Lab, where she teaches cooking to kids ages 4 to 14. Given her profession, she was used to making meals — lots of them — with kids. But then the pandemic hit. She, her two young children, and husband began quarantining. She was working full-time, schooling, and making (and cleaning up after) every meal, every day. She began to feel she might lose it.
“I became a short-order cook,” she said. “One kid wanted a grilled cheese, and the other wanted a sandwich. It was a lot, even for me. It interrupted my day, and by the time I cleaned up, it was an hour lost. And then it started again with snacks and dinner. It was never-ending.”
Even for the most seasoned chef, the stress of attempting to support children in remote learning while balancing the demands of full-time work and maintaining the household — cleaning, laundry, shopping, and making three meals a day for several different appetites and tastes—has become unsustainable. And while all parents are under stress, studies have shown that it’s especially moms who are doing the 24/7 child care while trying to hold down a job. It’s not surprising that “mom rage” is on the rise.
