My Teen Son Said 8 Innocent Words That Instantly Sent Me Spiraling. Here's What He Didn't Know.

It was an aside from my oldest son, who is squarely in his teen years, that nearly flattened me. We had just placed our dinner orders at a cozy restaurant. I’d asked him what he was going to order, and pointed to the “fried chicken and potato mash” entree on the menu. It was the restaurant’s “signature dish,” I told him.

He shrugged with a whiff of teenage boy disinterest, then said: “Mom, you don’t really have a signature dish.”

My husband and two younger sons squirmed in their seats. While I knew this was saying more about my son’s age-appropriate self-consciousness than my cooking, it touched on a sensitive nerve of mine, one that’s all too easily disturbed.

I wanted to lecture him, then and there, about the many times I’ve hosted his friends’ families for dinners — not to mention that I cook almost every weekday dinner. I could mention the journalism career I quit to be home doing all of this. Then I could double down by explaining just how hard it has been for me, as a motherless mother, to learn how to cook family meals.

My son is a kind-hearted kid. His guilt would appear with a sigh and a sincere apology. But I’ve done that before, or versions of it, and learned that I never feel good after a lot of finger-wagging.

As I’ve been noticing him do that very natural teenage act of pulling away from me, I am trying to do less of the talking. My mantra: Tell me more.

So instead, I asked him, “What do you mean by a signature dish?” I aimed for a neutral tone.

He explained that he wished I had a dish — maybe a dessert — that he could tell his friends about. Something that everyone would want seconds of.

“Right,” I said, buying time.

Then I suggested that a “signature dish” is often created by the people who enjoy it because they gush about it to others. He could do this, I added.

He nodded, then shrugged. I excused myself to go to the bathroom, where I stood in front of a small oval mirror doing box breaths and willing myself not to scream.

Cooking, like many aspects of motherhood, has felt very didactic to me — something to be learned from watching others while taking silent notes for later. It was something to be diligent and exacting about. This is no doubt because my mother struggled to be a mother to me.

She suffered from a brain injury before I was born, and, probably before that, mental illness. My father moved to a different state when I was 6 years old. Most days my mother couldn’t muster the energy to buy groceries, let alone prepare dinners. She was often moody, and at other times, absent. I ate a lot of Celeste microwave cheese pizzas when she had enough energy to go to the A&P. She died in a car accident when I was 12.

I see now how much pressure I put on myself when I was a young mother. It is a beautiful and good thing to aim to break generational cycles, and it is also very hard and at times awkward. Cooking and entertaining always felt central to being a good mother for me, perhaps because it is an outward display of what we often equate with caring love.

Food is nourishment and attention. I wanted to prove I was all in on caring love.

Years ago, when we hosted other families while we had babies and toddler children — which would have been ambitious if I’d just ordered takeout for everyone — I swung for the fences. I scoured recipes online, printed out dozens, and meticulously set our dining room table as my toddler sons swarmed around me.

I was going off images collected in my mind not just on Instagram but over decades, through an amalgamation of Martha Stewart Living cover photos and Pottery Barn store displays. It wasn’t actually enjoyable, but it felt very crucial — as if the presentation of my meals and home was a measuring stick for my mothering.

Recently, I watched the “Martha” documentary by Oscar-nominated filmmaker R.J. Cutler. For my generation of women, Martha Stewart is a self-made, standout success. She took her company public when I was a senior in college. I was in awe. Stewart not only got the credit she deserved in a male-dominated business world, but she brought beauty and relevance to the domestic realm.

And yet as I watched her aim for such high levels of perfection while making it look effortless, I wondered about the damage done to us admirers. A perfect meal, which is to say one that is painstakingly crafted and presented, is quite different from one made with love and a little messiness.

I pity the 30-something me who one Thanksgiving found a Bon Appétit wilted kale salad recipe online and hovered over bunches of the stuff, wringing out the water she’d soaked it in overnight. Were her children going to eat kale salad? No. Did anyone give her an award for her culinary feat? Also no. (The wilted kale salad, alas, did not become a “signature dish.”) Was she exhausted and short with everyone around her after making the thing? Most definitely.

It would take me years to learn that, for me, happiness at home often means doing a lot less. Sometimes it means taking 20-minute naps on the couch and reading a good book. Being present is so much more meaningful and rewarding than performing.

The morning after that family dinner, I felt proud for not having lost it before the entrees arrived. Our dinner conversation bumped along to basketball season tryouts. It wasn’t derailed. I also felt compassion for my son, who is navigating friendships at that time in childhood when we all feel so acutely self-conscious about ourselves and our families.

“Signature dishes” — or any recipes we return to and celebrate — are about the positive connections they make us feel more than the actual ingredients or how they look in a serving dish. When I had a moment alone with my son the next morning after breakfast, I sat down close to him. He sighed, and apologized for the signature dish comment. I laughed, then shared an idea I’d come up with that felt positive.

“Would you be up for baking cookies with me? We both win. You get a signature dish, and I get to spend time with you.”

He smiled and said yes.

Weeks later, he told me he had too much homework to make time for cookie baking — cue box breaths — but then gave in. Soon his hands were parallel to mine as we rolled out shortbread cookie dough into logs. Remember this, I told myself.

The multicolored sprinkles lost their color in the oven and took on an unattractive grayish tone. Then our sneaky labradoodle ate a dozen of the cookies under the dining room table while we were at a basketball game.

But I got what I really wanted.

Vickie Barret spent over a decade as a business journalist at Forbes Magazine. She is currently working on a memoir about motherhood, family secrets, and the stories we tell ourselves about where we came from. Her most recent work has appeared in Literary Mama and Zibby Mag. You can follow her on Instagram, @vickiebarret.

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