Kids and cooking

[mamadeb]

1. I started making french toast, scrambled eggs and toasted cheese when I was eight or so myself. Unsupervised. On a gas stove, too. And, yes, I did burn myself, but that was being stupid about a toaster (they were advertising frozen "toaster pizzas", so I tried it. With a non-toaster pizza. Ouch. Very, very ouch.)

2. The kids of that time period (Late 19th C US) were raised with open flames - unscreened fireplaces, wood stoves, coal stoves, camp fires, candles, and oil and kerosene lamps. Candles wired to Christmas trees. They understood the danger and knew their way around them. And fires and bad burns were still common.

It still gave me pause to think of a nine year old girl doing this unsupervised. What I wrote was my immediate reaction to kids doing things like that, and as I said, it was with my modern eyes. And maybe we watch our kids too much.

Comments

[gittygiggles.livejournal.com]

i didn't know how to use a stove until i was 19.

i feel the same way you do :)

by the way..i got little women AND little men from the library