Skylar: If I have to hear, one more time, that you did it, for the family-
White: I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And, I was really ... I was alive.
(Season Finale, Breaking Bad)
Last year, during a Q&A session between the prep parents and the childcare parents, I naturally asked about food. How much time they get to eat, how much food we should prep etc.
One parent's advice was to let it go.
She said some days your child would come home with the lunchbox untouched. Get used to it. They are preoccupied with peer pressure to play. They have only 10 minutes to eat. Don't take it personally.
We nodded in agreement.
Cut to three months later, the core of the family is breaking apart due to unfinished lunchboxes. I could tell if the day would end smoothly or not based on the negative space in Hana's lunchbox.
It's hard, man. I mean, if there's anyone doing a psychology degree, I'm sure there's a paper to be written on lunch boxes.
Ultimately, it's about control, expectation, self-perception, reciprocation, rejection, and fear of the unknown.
You think: If you love me, you'd finish all the food I make for you.
And she thinks and sometimes she says the worst five-word sentence a child could ever say to a parent:
I didn't ask you to.
Wah.
Emotional Damage.
Believe me when I say the lunchboxes I've been making for the last three weeks are a watered-down version of what we used to have.
I wouldn't call what she had - a triple-layered, thermally protected, vacuum-sealed device in a bag - a lunchbox. It was almost like a brainteaser before she could get through to the food.
For example, we would have one layer of bao / rice balls / pasta, one layer of fruits / vegetables, and one layer of dried fruits / yoghurt.
It's our own fault for setting up triple layers of suspense right?
You pray each time as you twist the cap off each container.
Please, god.
Qiu qiu ni, buddha
Krpya, annapurna.
I was having lunch with this soon-to-be-COO friend, and people who are COO materials don't ask mundane questions like 'did you see the coffee price has increased to $5.50??’
She asks about your life goal, and how close you are to achieving it.
Why don't you start a magazine, you should target the Asian tiger parents, you said you were thinking about teaching kids how to cook, how's that going? It doesn't have to be monetary, it could be your health, it could be spiritual.
Short term and long term life goals, motherfucker, DO YOU HAVE IT?
Some of that energy might've rubbed off.
One morning, the first week of May, I woke up at 6 am, partly due to daylight savings and partly a sore toe. (I still don't think it's gout.)
I glanced at the benchtop, and realised we'd forgotten to wash that 3-layer cutesy pinky plastic cylinder tower of depression with a detachable spoon, and thought: you know what, I can't do another six years of this.
Let's go back to a single-layer, easier-to-wash stainless steel lunchbox.
Let's use the microwave instead of the steamer.
Let's use leftovers.
Let's get this done before everyone wakes up.
If she really only has 10 minutes to eat as she claims, then let's make 10 mouthfuls of finger food.
A piece of leftover kuih, two broccoli stems, leftover fried rice into two rice balls, leftover crumbed pork, persimmon, and a piece of cookie to sweeten the deal.
I finished making the lunchbox at 6.40am, with spare time to shop at Victoria Market, back at 8.30am to take her to school.
I mean, the day has just started, but I've felt like I’d achieved something.
She didn't finish the rice balls and crumbed pork, but hey at least she ate something.
I'd take 'something' rather than 'nothing' anyday.
Kyara-bens, also known as Chara-ben, is a conjunct between the words 'character' and 'bento'. You get it right? Bears and rabbits and Hello Kitty in bento boxes.
I don't see it as cute; I see an invisible peer pressure in the shape of Sadako pushing an army of Japanese mums to bend over the kitchen with seaweed scalpels because if they don't do it, their kids are going to get teased at school. (An Aussie mum in Japan told me she was called into a meeting to be told that an avocado sandwich was not acceptable.)
So please, I'm not making bento boxes to make other parents feel shitty about themselves. I’m doing it because I find it fun. If you have not noticed already, my household just really, really HATE overpaying for food.
If anything, find comfort that in Australia, at least the teachers don’t give a shit about your child's lunchbox. They don’t even care if your kids have COVID.
Chances are you don't have time to make lunchboxes because you have more important things to attend to.
I'm just repositioning leftover food - it doesn't make me holier than thou.
It's been three weeks.
One Sunday evening, we were making spring rolls, and Hana made a poignant observation: this is like a letter.
Yes, and like letters, we communicate with food, I told her, with tears in my eyes.
It's all psychology, yea?
I stopped taking the 'not eating' as rejection and start to listen and have a conversation. The edamame falls apart? Let me mix it with rice. Not a fan of cold, melted cheese? Let me just cube them up. A wrap is too difficult? Let me make them into flat quesadillas.
A back and forth.
I wake up automatically before the alarm clock, and I try to go to bed early.
My short-term goal, for this month at least, is to keep this dance for as long as possible, to treat this as an internship, a university subject.
And you know what, you don't get to make lunch boxes for your daughter forever.
Who knows when the next big shoot, the next distraction will be.
I'm not doing this for her.
I'm doing it for myself.
So pardon my absence, I'll be sharing all my lunchbox learnings in June.
Moving forward, I will make all my posts public*.
I lost it at a stage - thinking I’m some hotshot published writer, deserving a paywall content, segmenting my readers and subscribers to VIP and non-VIPs.
Wondering if I’m offering the right value became a mental obstacle, defeating my willingness to write.
From my observation, people who want to support me, will support me.
Lovers gonna love, haters gonna hate, freeloaders gonna freeload.
I mean come on, it’s less than a cup of coffee per month now.
*Dont’t worry sugar daddies, I’ll find different stimulations for us. xxoo