Kitchen is not a Dirty Word

Making Sense by Michael Reagan

We are rapidly becoming a nation whose distaff leadership is allowing radical feminists to redefine the role of motherhood.

Our moms are being all but ostracized by a raging cadre of radical feminists should they dare to consider cooking for their families to be a major part of their traditional role as wives and mothers.

In modern America, the feminists would take Mom out of the kitchen and put her in the drive-thru lane at the local fast-food chain (ironically, that’s verboten also). They have eulogized the nation’s First Lady for assuming the role of a food czar who instructs us on what chow is good for us and our children, who should cook it, and what foods should be kept off the national menu.

Mothers are looked at with withering stares should they teach their daughters how to cook, and fathers get the same treatment if they concern themselves with their daughters’ future role as wives and mothers.

If mothers would once again start teaching their daughters the time-honored role of family chef, and fathers would make sure that their wives are honored and cherished for making the kitchen one of their principal domains, we’d be a lot better off.

Instead we have a First Lady who sees her role as First Mother not only to instruct us on what we victuals we should eat, but warns us that the menu at the local fast food emporium is the diet from Hell.

She goes so far as to dig up patches of the White House lawn, formerly the site of the so-called Easter egg hunts, and plant the seeds of what she tells us are the staples of a healthy diet — a diet regimen in the White House kitchens one doubts includes whatever puny edibles grown on the lawn of the Executive mansion.

If she and her fellow radical feminists would devote more time to praising and defending the produce farmers and retailers bring us, and less time playing the role as diet dictators, meals would be family celebrations instead of burdensome chores for the moms who cook them.

Moreover, giving Mom a day off from cooking dinner by a making a family trip to the nearest hamburger joint would be seen as a gift to her rather than one of the mortal sins in an imaginary list of dietary commandments.

Their menu may be fattening, and viewed as one of the Lord’s practical jokes on his children by making such fare lip-smacking good, but enjoying it is not a flagrant violation of the dietary Ten Commandments. Slathered with mustard and ketchup it’s just plain tasty — fattening but tasty.

A happy home is one in which moms teach their daughters how to cook tasty meals for their future families and dads teach their sons that one of their roles in family life is drying the dishes and otherwise doing chores around the house to lighten Mom’s burdens.

Finally, women should understand and act on the time-honored truth that the fastest route to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and not always through the drive-in window at the nearest fast-food restaurant. That’s one way we can begin to put the family — and America — back together.

Bon Appetit!

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Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan and a political consultant. He is the founder and chairman of The Reagan Group and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Look for Mike’s books and other information at Reagan.com. E-mail comments to Reagan@caglecartoons.com.

©2010 Mike Reagan. Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by: Cagle Cartoons, Inc., newspaper syndicate. For info contact Cari Dawson Bartley. E-mail Cari@cagle.com, (800) 696-7561.