Dinner’s Not on Me: Choosing Freedom Over the Stove

I thought cooking made me a good woman — until I stopped, and everything changed

Photo by Amanda Burck on Unsplash

I didn’t grow up with a choice.

In my house, cooking was a given. A duty. A quiet expectation stitched into the rhythm of daily life.

My mother cooked every night — tired, hurried, sometimes resentful, but she did it anyway.

She fed three kids and a husband with rotating menus and unwavering consistency. No matter how tired she was, no matter how little time or energy she had, there was always something warm on the table.

And so I learned early on: cooking was love. Cooking was care. Cooking was what women did — whether they felt like it or not.

I inherited that belief like an invisible apron I wore into adulthood. Even when I lived alone, even when I didn’t have to prove anything to anyone, I cooked out of obligation.

I didn’t always enjoy it. But I felt guilty when I didn’t do it. A strange kind of guilt. Like I was slacking in my womanhood. Like I was failing at some fundamental task of adulthood.

And then, slowly, quietly — I stopped.

It wasn’t a dramatic moment, but a quiet exit. No slammed pots or final goodbyes to…