202
Counsels on Diet and Foods
Mothers should teach their children how to cook. What branch of the
education of a young lady can be so important as this? The eating has
to do with the life. Scanty, impoverished, ill-cooked food is constantly
depraving the blood, by weakening the blood-making organs. It is
highly essential that the art of cookery be considered one of the most
important branches of education. There are but few good cooks. Young
ladies consider that it is stooping to a menial office to become a cook.
This is not the case. They do not view the subject from a right stand-
point. Knowledge of how to prepare food healthfully, especially bread,
is no mean science....
[261]
Mothers neglect this branch in the education of their daughters.
They take the burden of care and labor, and are fast wearing out, while
the daughter is excused, to visit, to crochet, or study her own pleasure.
This is mistaken love, mistaken kindness. The mother is doing an
injury to her child, which frequently lasts her lifetime. At the age
when she should be capable of bearing some of life’s burdens, she
is unqualified to do so. Such will not take care and burdens. They
go light-loaded, excusing themselves from responsibilities, while the
mother is pressed down under her burden of care, as a cart beneath
sheaves. The daughter does not mean to be unkind, but she is care-
less and heedless, or she would notice the tired look, and mark the
expression of pain upon the countenance of the mother, and would
seek to do her part, to bear the heavier part of the burden, and relieve
the mother, who must have freedom from care, or be brought upon a
bed of suffering, and it may be, of death.
Why will mothers be so blind and negligent in the education of their
daughters? I have been distressed, as I have visited different families,
to see the mother bearing the heavy burdens, while the daughter, who
manifested buoyancy of spirit, and had a good degree of health and
vigor, felt no care, no burden. When there are large gatherings, and
families are burdened with company, I have seen the mother bearing
the burden, with care of everything upon her, while the daughters are
sitting down chatting with young friends, having a social visit. These
things seem so wrong to me that I can hardly forbear speaking to the
thoughtless youth, and telling them to go to work. Release your tired
mother. Lead her to a seat in the parlor, and urge her to rest and enjoy
the society of her friends.