Cracked Eggs into Independence

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn’t put Humpty together again. A rhyme about an anthropomorphic egg cracking and not being able to be put back together, even with all the help in the world. I too would one day realize that cracking eggs would undo me and make me who I am today. Such is life. Sometimes the simplest of tasks have the greatest of impacts. The day I learned how to crack eggs would certainly leave a lasting mark on my life that could never be pieced back together.

I would have only been, maybe, eight or nine when my mom would fool me into helping her bake cookies. It first started with the privilege of licking the beaters. There were two after all, so she had to share with someone. Being the youngest of three and still pretty dependent on my parents, I was the obvious choice. I had not yet reached my teenage years, or even my double digit years, so I was completely oblivious to independence.

You have all eaten cookie dough by now, so you know how delicious it is regardless of all of the warnings. It shouldn’t surprise you to find out that the next time my mom made cookies, I stuck by a little closer to receive the sweet privilege yet again. Then one day, I was tricked into working for my wages. I wasn’t old enough to know how to measure out the ingredients, nor would I be trusted just yet with the electric hand mixer. I was, however, able to count past two and that was enough of a skill to crack eggs. I watched as my mom cracked the first one, and then mimicked her to crack the second.

Soon, I was able to crack both of them myself. All of my effort paying off in fantastic cookie dough. Over the years I would slowly learn how to make them all by myself with minimal supervision. There was even a moment where I got a piece of the shell in the eggs and my mom was going to teach me that I needed to get it out with the shall. In a moment of confidence, I simply reached in and grabbed it out of the goo. The shocked look on my mom’s face was priceless. These moments of learning naturally evolved into making other things. Sandwiches, brownies, pasta, and various casseroles.

Now, this isn’t a story about how I found my passion for cooking and baking. I actually don’t have a passion for it at all, and I would certainly never pursue it as a career. This is a story about something far deeper. You see, as I was learning how to cook and bake, my parent’s health began to decline. I remember making my dad’s peanut butter and butter sandwiches with the very specific amounts of each that he preferred. I even dialed in how long my mom wanted certain dishes reheated to achieve near scolding levels of heat.

Cracking eggs taught me to be independent. It taught me how to help those around me and to meet people where they are. Each person receives words and attention differently. They have preferences. I was able to take what I learned in matching the specific desires of my parent’s stomachs into how I deal with others. Asking certain questions and showing that I want to understand them and not just apply a generic response to their life. It taught me to even surpass other’s expectations of me by trying a less orthodox method to complete certain tasks.

If I never learned these skills at a young age, I truly don’t believe I would be the same person I am today. I think I would have just learned cooking as an adult as a simple skill. Not as something that would shape how I think and act. I remember being in college and watching people my age begin to learn these skills in their twenties. Cooking, cleaning, and even laundry. It baffled me that they were still so dependent, while in my life the roles were already beginning to switch.

A beater filled with cookie dough may have been a sweet treat in the moment, but it has evolved into skills that would be a sweet treat for my entire life. Even if I do feel like I was partially tricked into helping. As a child, I would have much more preferred just eating the cookie dough without any of the work. Alas, I did learn and I am far better for it. Even in the broken moments that no one could fix, there was growth and love.