Fathering myself; or, three lessons from the kitchen
The unfortunate thing is that I tend to learn from my father what not to do; he's not a person I look up to, or even respect, for that matter.
I know that one of the keys to figuring my life out and becoming my own person is to develop a sense of the fatherhood I did not grow up with. This involves extending grace, patience, and kindness towards myself, while holding myself accountable. For the most part, I'm happy with how I am as a person when I relate to others—I'm not perfect, but I try to be a good friend to those I decide to keep in my life (for my friends are the family I've chosen). What's difficult is being good to myself, but I've been learning.
Several times since the start of 2026, I've stayed over at my best friend's place so that we can watch movies and play board games and stay up late having life chats. As a form of giving thanks, I've cooked meals for us. In these moments, three insights emerged that are material for my personal development.
First: cooking for someone involves a level of vulnerability in making something and being subject to judgment. At its best, it's about putting in the effort and sharing something tangible. A person can let this dynamic produce anxiety, or else half-ass it out of apathy, or (as I deem ideal) they can find joy in the activity. As I assume that food will be a constant throughout my life, and I'm interested in the chemistry/alchemy/artistry that cooking involves, I hope my cooking never grows stale (no pun intended).
Contra my father, who in his household equates physiological support to emotional support. Here's someone who thinks that, by putting food on the table, he has met his obligations to his family. It's an outdated notion. Children need to eat, yes, but they ideally learn to become independent, in which case they decide their own meals and how to go about it. The others in my household tend to make their own meals, as his cooking is mediocre. There's no joy to my father's cooking, because he'll make what's convenient for him and leave the rest on the table. In other words: my home's kitchen is a fragmented place, and as a result there's more dishes in the sink, waste produced, time and space taken up, etc.
The second lesson: mise en place (French for "putting in place") is a term that describes preparing and organizing ingredients so that the actual process of cooking goes smoothly. It's about having things in order before the important activity. There's plenty of life wisdom in the metaphor, which I can distill as this: have the humility to slow down and anticipate how to best use your time and energy; and arrange things so that you do not find yourself rushing or missing key components. When I cooked meals for my friend and myself, I felt a sense of competence and confidence, and I owe these feelings to the setup process. Things go smoother with some semblance of a plan.
Contra my father, who has a severe addiction to screens: tablets and phones (yes, plural for both). While he resides in the kitchen (listening to news on speakerphone, which is just as annoying as if were in public), he does his prep. But he'll prep a bowl of cut ingredients, dabble in some news videos or slot machine games, and then return to his prep. It's a fucking waste of time and space and energy to have someone do this in a kitchen when living with other adults. He'll defend himself by saying he's the man of the house or that he's earned the right to do so in his retirement years (committing the error that boomers love to make, in that they mistake their luck in life for aptitude).
I look down on him because of this. If he was living by himself, that's his business, but his failure to plan well affects everyone else in the household. It's an inability to be considerate of other people—let alone his actual family.
Lesson three: clean as you go. I know I'm in flow state when in comes to cooking because my mind can smoothly go from the stove top to the sink, always tending to what's needed. When I'm sautéing mushrooms and know I have moments to spare, I turn to wash dishes or utensils. This means by the time I'm done cooking, what's left to clean is minimal. Again, there's a lesson in here for life, which is to keep a system clean/tidy. It's a form of self-respecting one's time, because to stand there waiting for a pot of water to boil or whatever does nothing to advance the cooking.
Contra my father, who when there's a lull will pull up his phone and watch news clips. On more than one occasion, this has led to subpar (if not ruined) dishes. And it leads to more dishes in the sink because his lack of preparation and disregard for cleanliness means he's scatterbrained throughout cooking.
It's emphatically embarrassing to share all this, for if it isn't obvious by now, I'm using insights from and incidents in the kitchen to generalize the dynamic between father and son, in arenas of life beyond the kitchen.
In short: I want to cultivate an enjoyment for life, be attentive enough to plan well and ease stress, and be disciplined enough to maintain personal effectiveness. These are lessons my father failed to impart onto me, and that I had to discover on my own. I'm grateful to my friend for giving me the space, time, and opportunity to learn these lessons, though there is a part of me that is sad about it.