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One year ago this week, my cookbook Dinnertime SOS: 100 Sanity-Saving Meals Parents and Kids of All Ages Will Actually Want to Eat was released into the world. It was a huge career moment for me—landing on the New York Times Bestsellers list was not something I even let myself dream was possible. Spoiler alert: It was! And it came during one of the most challenging personal moments in my life.
This is (some of) the story of what it was like to promote and sell a family cookbook—and feed my own kids—when my family as I knew it was forever changing. It’s not the story of getting a divorce, but how I suddenly could see where I needed to drop my internal checklist of mealtime “shoulds” in order to make everything easy enough for me to be able to do every day.
Food has always been comfort and security, ritual and routine. A familiar part of our day. But I realized I’d been using our dinner table, to some degree, as a sort of proof to myself and the world that I was a “good mom” even when I was unhappy and overwhelmed. Which created a loop of pressure that was distracting at best, and really undermining my ability to be fully present with my kids at worst.
I know that these intense phases of life—job or school transitions and adjusting to a brand new family schedule, grief, a new baby (and lack of sleep), divorce, or another challenging phase—often throw us for a loop. And there can be an urge to sort of throw everything out the window, reinvent the wheel, and start from scratch when what we’ve been doing isn’t working. But I wanted to keep the core of our food life—and all of the how-to-type logistics that I spelled out in the cookbook because I knew they worked.
I just needed the emotional distance to give myself true freedom from judgement and guilt. Frankly, I knew I didn’t have the brain space for it and I finally realized I deserved more.
So here are the small steps I took to really let go of the idea that I’m “winning”—or “failing”—at motherhood based on what’s on our dinner table…or what the kids eat or don’t eat. Which was, in retrospect, the shift I needed to make in order for it to be possible for me to cook dinner and enjoy that time with my kids…when all I really wanted to do was lie down.
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This really spoke to me. I am going through a divorce and felt like you were inside my mind putting a voice to my anxiety. I’ve been in a rut for a while now and in survival mode. As we head back into the school year I am grateful to have found your work. I feel supported by you! Thank you ❤️
You are so welcome and you are doing exactly what you need to be doing in survival mode-and you won’t always be there. Hang in there and thank you for commenting!
I felt this so deeply. I, too, decided to divorce last year and it was finalized in May. And just like you, meal times were so challenging at first until I realized that I now have the freedom to make dinner more about connecting and less about the perfectly balanced meal. “Snack dinners” are weekly staple now, and my boys and I simply enjoy being at the table together. Thank you for everything you’ve shared with this community – both food and life related. Your work means so much, and I love your book!
Thank you for commenting and I’m glad you have been able to feel some of this too!
Thank you dear Amy, it’s my birthday today and the relief after reading this is the best gift I’ve received. Please keep sharing with us. The sincere way you do it makes me feel so connected and understandood.
Happy birthday and I’m glad this came right on time for you!
Thank you dear Amy, it’s my birthday today and the relief after reading this is the best gift I’ve received. Please keep sharing with us. The sincere way you do it makes me feel so connected and understandood. Thank you!
You have no idea how much I needed to hear this. Thanks so much for sharing this and making all of us moms not feel so alone.
You’re so welcome and I really appreciate the comment!
Down an adult at my table, with just me and the kids, I had more freedom to simply do what I wanted. Meals became less…”square”, is the only way I can think to explain it. I didn’t have to make meat if I didn’t feel like it. (I almost never feel like it.) I could serve a snack dinner knowing no one would ask where the rest of dinner was. I could make buttered pasta again (and again) without any care at all that we had had it two nights before.
<3 <3 <3 the dream, thanks for sharing this post 🙂
And thank you for reading it!
Thank you for writing this, it’s something I really needed to hear today! In particular, the fact that kids don’t like every food and that is absolutely OK and in no way a reflection on my abilities as a mother. Trying to let go of the guilt of the fairly limited diet my child eats despite being offered a wide variety
You’re welcome and thank you for reading. I know it’s all so hard, so for me, finding small ways to let go of some of the pressure has made a little less fraught.