The Dark Side Of Nutella

This post is not about the ingredient list or nutritional content of Nutella. Nor is it a diatribe against junk food. If you are here searching for fuel to justify your latest diet, sorry to disappoint. But, stick around.

If you are here because you have a complicated relationship with Nutella, you are welcome to stay.

This post is for the one who has found herself in the role of carrying the primary load of meal planning/food prepping/kitchen cleanup whether by choice, necessity, or cultural design (or all three). To the mom of young children, the mom of older children, the woman who doesn’t have children but has a domestic partner who has somehow managed to get out of kitchen duty, and the woman who is trained to strive towards “having it all”. And, to the woman for whom none of these descriptions fit but finds herself looking at the above women in judgement or disdain. This post is for all of us.

It started out with a butter knife coated with Nutella. A mess of my own creation. Not full-on wreckage, just the small remains of a simple breakfast meal made in haste. 

If only slapdash was really an option.

Nutella. 

On the surface, this word evokes the joyful thought of a perfectly toasted bagel coated with the warm, gooey chocolate-hazelnut spread; happy and contented children gathered around the kitchen table, full of gratitude, beaming with love. 

Cut to half a second later when a more sinister thought shoves its way into my consciousness. Warm and gooey morphs into sticky and invasive, the brown globs dripping from bagel, to hands, to school uniform shirts, and, ultimately (somehow), to couch and hallway wall. 

If I leave the dramatics out of it, a realistic thought reveals itself from the part of me that keeps the household running smoothly, keeps the family afloat. It's the thought of the dirty knife that ultimately derails me. Fueled by the constant simmering rage that burns slow and constant just below the surface. That dirty kitchen utensil threatens to send up a spark, searing the fringes of the worn-torn fragments of family togetherness my family members and I have  managed to stitch together. 

How can a Nutella-smeared knife be the linchpin that has the power to unravel everything during the precarious time of day that is the weekday morning routine?

The thing about that sticky mess on the end of the butter knife is that it takes a bit of the enjoyment away from the pleasure of eating the Nutella. It can’t simply be rinsed off like mayonnaise or mustard. It boils down to this: extra work. The entire clean-up process might only take 28 seconds of time (yes, I timed it): turning on the water, running the knife under the water, gently (not even requiring vigorous effort) rubbing at the Nutella with fingers. Placing the rinsed knife in the dishwasher. 

But, during the gauntlet that is the morning routine, those 30 seconds are significant. It could mean the difference between a pace that feels comfortable and measured and an energy that turns frantic and turbulent with you leaving the house with boob sweat, your own packed lunch forgotten on the kitchen counter, and a back seat of kids with their psychic backpacks full of fresh material for future therapy sessions. 

Those precious thirty seconds need to be preserved. Protected. Exchanged only for restorative, intermittent sips of warm-enough coffee or cashed in to sign the permission slip or find the missing shoe. As mothers, we collect and protect 30 second increments like a squirrel saving nuts to survive the long winter. 

Here’s the thing about time. If you are raising children, there never seems to be enough of it. You are in a state of constant time deprivation. Or, a sense of deprivation, anyway. 

I guess the reason I hate Nutella is that it reminds me that time is precious and finite. Also, it highlights that I’m not good at asking for help. Or, I feel I can’t ask for help. Or, don’t have the energy to teach my growing children how to help.

At first glance, this post might seem to be about the silly, overly-dramatic woes of an overwhelmed mom and a Nutella-laden knife. That is a partial truth. But, what this post is also about is that feeding people is a form of labor with a lot of invisible work that begins long before the physical action of cutting and chopping and extends long past portioning out the finished product onto dinner plates. 

Feeding people is a form of labor with a lot of invisible work that begins long before the physical action of cutting and chopping and extends long past portioning out the finished product onto dinner plates. 

If you find yourself dreading meal time, you aren’t alone. 

Here are some solutions:

• Sit down with your family members on a day that the energy is calm-ish and people are in a good-enough mood (Saturday at 1pm for us). Ask each person to offer 2-3 meals they would like to eat in the coming week. Send them off to play. Sit with yourself for a moment and call upon the quality that is your most impatient and tired self (for me it’s my 5pm on a Wednesday night self). What would she need to get the aforementioned meals on the table? What roles would other members need to play? What ingredients need to be on-hand and prepped ahead of time?

• Read The Tyranny and Misogyny of Meal Planning to find out what journalist, author, wife , and mom Virginia Sole Smith is saying on the subject.

• Turn to pre-made and partially made food items to supplement your family meals. This is about ease, nourishment, and getting out of the house on time. Processed food *gasp* is fine and don’t let anyone tell you it isn’t. I picked up these the other day and everyone seems satisfied. 

• I appreciated this article How to Get Your Kids to do Chores (Without Resenting It). 

• There is an entire book called Fair Play and a support deck of cards that has come out of the dilemma of how to divide domestic responsibilities. I picked up the deck a couple of months ago.  These colorful cards have come handy when my family has completely fallen off the sharing-the-load-of-household-chores wagon (about every third day).

Moving away from dieting is more than “eating what you want, when you want it.” 

A complex set of circumstances lead us to dieting in the first place. There are more variables than we could ever count that lure us back into the dieting mindset again and again. Even when we get really committed to the work of practicing attuned/connected eating (ie “intuitive” eating), the empty promises, pre-set gender roles, high standards of parenting, and expectations of “a good family meal” of our culture beckon us (or shame us) away from any new-found values that go along with food freedom and body liberation. 

That’s why this work of healing your relationship with food can feel so hard. That’s why we need help (from toddler hands, and teenage hands, adult partner hands, best girlfriend hands etc.) along the way. We need to be explicit about the labor (invisible and visible) that goes into getting us fed on a day-to-day basis. This is an invitation to share the load, set boundaries, eat the food, and celebrate the moments where we leave the house sweat-free.