Family Matters
"No bra-burning for me—that was too public and I thought it was dumb." |
"That one 'small step for womankind' was the beginning of adventuresome meals..." |
"Now, nobody thinks twice about the day the earth stood still and Mom had corn instead of peas." |
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A Thanksgiving Rebellion
by Janet Tubbs
hanksgiving always reminds me of the holiday I decided to
break with tradition. As I grew up, our family 
had our own traditional
dinner: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes,
sweet potatoes, gravy, peas, cranberry jelly
(not sauce), hot rolls a relish tray with lots of
black olives, mince and pumpkin pies with
real whipped cream. When I got married, I
carried on this tradition.
This menu is imprinted on my mind because it was so delicious and
everyone looked forward to it. The year of rebellion happened when
my children were in high school, and I had found out that there was
more
to life than the four walls of my home. Yes, women's lib had
caught up with me and I decided to make a
statement. No bra-burning for me—that was
too public and I thought it was dumb. No, I
decided to do something that would get the
attention my entire family and whoever else
was at our Thanksgiving dinner table.
Are you ready for this? I decided to have corn instead of peas.
I
know, I know. I could hardly believe my
audacity myself, but you must remember that
this traditional dinner had been my
Thanksgiving dinner menu since I was a child. This was a big deal for
me, but not nearly as big 
a deal for my kids. "CORN?!!" they all said
at once. "WHERE ARE THE PEAS?" You
would have thought the sky was falling.
When I said that I wanted to do something a little different this year because we always have the same meal, everyone objected that they liked the same meal. They looked forward to it. What was I, a women's libber?
That one "small step for womankind" was the
beginning of
adventuresome meals, lively conversation, and as the
children grew up, got married and had children of their
own, of family pot-lucks where each brought one of
their special dishes. Sometimes there were
remembrances of their early "pre-corn" days,
sometimes a dish from their in-laws recipe file, or a
favorite of one of their own children.
Somehow, the turkey, potatoes, gravy and pie always remains the same, but now the wives have carte blanche and can serve corn or limas or a fancy stuffing instead of the plain, yummy one we always had. Now, nobody thinks twice about the day the earth stood still and Mom had corn instead of peas.
I remind them of the story about the newly married young lady who
was about to boil a whole ham the way her mother always used to.
She remembered to cut off several inches at each end
and put it on to
boil, when she was struck by a thought. She called
her folks and asked her Dad, "Why did Mom always
cut the ends off the ham before she cooked it?" "I
don't know," said her father, promising to find out.
An hour later, her mother called back and asked what was the problem with her ham. The new wife said she was just wondering why they had always cut off the ends of the ham before cooking it.
"Because the pot was too small," her mother said.
The moral? Peas are good. So is corn. And buy a bigger pot.
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Janet Tubbs is founder and president of Children’s Resource Center, in Scottsdale, Arizona.
She is also one of the Founders of People for Children & Animals, Inc. Her column, Family Matters, is a regular feature of VegSource On-Line Magazine.
You can visit Janet's home page by clicking on this link: