Life in progress

Tag Archives: parents


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#SoCS – Grilled Cheese

I had no idea, honestly, what I was going to write for today’s prompt. Here in Canada we don’t call the thing we cook on outside “The Grill” as much as we call it just a plain old barbeque. (I spell it that way because in this household with all the sign language going on, we fingerspell it “BBQ” for Alex.) (And anyway, it’s English, damnit.) Nine times out of ten if you read the cooking instructions on Canadian food packaging, it will say “In the Frying Pan,” or “On the Barbeque” rather than “On the Grill.” Holy Hell, where am I with this post?

Oh yeah. So we do grill vegetables but we do it on the barbeque, so my idea for this prompt wasn’t to talk about cooking on “The Grill.” My idea was nothing, really, except the word “grill.”

But then my son Chris came out to the kitchen and asked me to make his grilled cheese sandwich. He has one at 11:30am every day. It’s his schedule, which can’t be deviated from. When he said it I was, like, “duh!” There’s my prompt.

When I first discovered grilled cheese sandwiches back as a teenager, I think, I was told they were made by buttering both sides of the bread. And I actually did it for a while, before I figured out I only really needed to butter the outside. What a mess! (This, by the way, is something I’ve never told anyone. You’re the first to know!) Of course grilled cheese sandwiches have nothing to do with a grill of any kind, and I have no idea why they’re called that.

I do hope my kids realize after I’m gone how much of their history (and mine) is recorded here in this blog. They stand to learn so much about their mother and where they came from before they were born. But they never read it.

I should write a memoir one day. I wish my parents had.

Happy long weekend to all my friends in the US!

This strangely reflective post is brought to you by Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Click the link to find all the other entries and join us with your own today! https://lindaghill.com/2018/05/25/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-may-26-18/


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Women’s Work

I read in the paper the other day about a man in Northern Quebec who is whining about the fact that people don’t want to bring their kids to his daycare. He advertised locally, with simply the name of his business, his address and his phone number. Parents showed up to check the place out, seemed happy, but then declined his services once they found out he would be running it and actually be the one looking after their kids.

Now, while this may, on the surface, seem like gender discrimination, the fact is that people want their young children cared for by women. It’s not a matter of ability, necessarily, but more a matter of instinct. YES, men have most of the instincts required to look after children, but many parents don’t see it that way. Then there are the stories in the news of men (what is it, 1% or less?) who have been known to abuse children in their care, in some way or another. I wish it wasn’t true, but every major city has had these stories.

The article about the daycare brought up in my memory another occupation which I found out doesn’t welcome men. At the dry cleaning business on my paper route there is a wash and fold service. They will not hire a man to do this job. It makes sense – many women wouldn’t bring their clothes, particularly their underwear, in to be washed and handled by a man. Does it make sense? No. Panties are inanimate objects. Even if the guy behind the counter is sniffing them, they don’t care. But women, like parents, are sensitive to some things.

Would you take your kids to be looked after all day by a strange man? I wouldn’t. Ladies, would you take your underwear to be washed by a strange man? …depends how strange he is.

Is it fair that men are discriminated against in these cases? Maybe not. But it makes sense.

What do you think?