Goldfish
I just listened to the Spillover podcast, where Alex Clark interviewed Gretchen Adler. I was intrigued since I had randomly seen somewhere the post that apparently got Adler in heaps of trouble. The offense? Adler had the audacity to make homemade goldfish and mom shame all the normie mamas.
And yes, I’m serious.
Great ideas, but…
The interview was very interesting to be honest. She had a lot of great ideas and thoughts on how we feed our families. I agreed with a lot of what she had to say. I don’t think anyone could argue against the fact that she loved her family, and was doing everything she could to take care of them to the best of her ability.
As the family chef, I have tried my best to provide our family with as much homemade food as possible. What we put into our bodies is incredibly important, and besides, it helps with avoiding doctor visits (sidenote – if anyone has ideas on how to avoid pediatric orthopedist visits from sports injuries, please let me know! We’re still working on avoiding that doctor – UGH!).
Thankfully, I really enjoy cooking. And that’s a good thing, since as you can imagine, it’s a small fortune to go out to eat with 10 children in tow (although to be fair, our oldest is married and our youngest is 1, so they don’t really count for feeding on the regular). So we rarely go out to eat, we make our own desserts, our own bread, and even our own pasta for some meals. Since Adler is a proponent of cooking from scratch, she was speaking my language!
However, when she started talking about eating all organic and grinding your own flour, I started to feel a little of that “normie mom” annoyance.
What works for me may not work for you
I mean, don’t get me wrong! I’d love to eat all organic and grind my own flour. That’d be amazing! However, even considering cutting corners (which we obviously do already), ALL organic is out of reach. There’s no way. And considering the amount of flour we go through, the amount of wheat we’d need to get shipped to us would be obscene. Again, not happening.
There are a lot of people out on social media who have a lot of great ideas on how to be a better mom. Or give advice on how to improve your skills as a soccer player. Or give you tips on how to slay those business goals (all of these things are constantly on my feed). But as I tell my kids all the time, don’t compare yourself to others to feel guilty or to feel superior. That’s what inevitably happens when we have the wrong motivation, and neither of those attitudes are helpful (i.e. me comparing wasn’t bad, it was me being annoyed that was – ahem). But compare so that you can learn something from others.
And with all of the learning that we are doing, we need to remember to keep in perspective what is most important. Because really, we’re all going to die sooner or later. Whether we make our own goldfish or buy our family a few bags from the store. We need to prayerfully choose the battles we will fight, and not get caught up with what everyone else is doing.
Putting it in perspective
There are things we are going to do really well. And other things, not so much. But what matters most is that we use all of our abilities, talents, and resources to the best of our ability, all for His glory.
I can’t stress enough that I strongly believe we must be good stewards of the gifts the LORD has given us (again, abilities, talents, and resources). One possible way we do this is by making excellent, healthy meals for our family. So I’m not downplaying that. However, that shouldn’t be the focus. Our first priority is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever (Westminster Shorter Catechism). What that looks like (i.e. how that’s played out) will look different for each family. It will even look different depending on the season of life each family happens to be in.
And that’s OK.
At the end of the day, I’m thankful for Gretchen Adler and her homemade goldfish that I will never make. As I mentioned before, she has a lot of great ideas that I know I can definitely learn from (and I will choose to be annoyance-free!). Whether she means to or not, she glorifies God with all of her natural cooking and food prep because she is made in His image. And since we not only are made in His image but are His children if we believe in Christ as LORD and Savior, we of all people should be glorifying Him in everything we do (1 Corinthians 10:31).
An incredible mom and servant of God
An incredible example of someone who glorified God with her life is Elisabeth Elliot. As a mother, she parented in a very unique way. Out of obedience to the LORD, Elliot brought her daughter as a toddler to the jungles of Ecuador. She lived with the tribe that had recently killed her husband. I’d bet money she wasn’t busy making the best homemade meals in the neighborhood. But wow, what an example of a faithful, courageous servant of God.
Ultimately, I pray that whatever our lives are like, the LORD will one day look at each one of us and say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” I also pray that we use every unique and common gift He has given us to the best of our ability. And that we don’t leave this world with regrets of how we could have served Him better.
Amen?
