Reggae Pancakes
On trust, taking the long view and participatory family life
Wherever and however you celebrate Mother’s Day, this is my way of sending love and gratitude for all the mothers—not just those with biological children or the ones still with us. May we center their creativity and hard-won wisdom. May we spend more time honoring them, supporting them, learning from them, resourcing them, designing better for them, electing them into positions of leadership, and empowering them to live joyful, healthy and fulfilling lives.
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On Saturdays we make pancakes. We call this ritual Reggae Pancakes because when my first daughter was a toddler and we were living in Brooklyn there was a great reggae-based radio show on Saturday mornings on WKCR. We all loved dancing around our apartment, mixing the buckwheat with whatever fruit we had on hand and pouring it in the hot skillet, all to the bass-driven, one-drop beat.
Saturday morning Reggae Pancakes have followed us to various homes and cities, providing a weekly touchstone for my three children. They are now 12, 8 and 4—an age range that is inconvenient when it comes to consolidating weekday routines, but incredibly precious, grounding and revealing when it comes to pancakes.
My eldest’s abilities, interests and physical form have morphed dramatically as she’s gone from a chubby, nursery rhyme chanting toddler to a steady young person with long legs and muscular shoulders, and who knows an impressive amount about water systems, YA historical fiction and the care and rearing of hedgehogs. She’s still very much herself, and she’s mastered so much.
When it comes to pancakes, I’ve watched as she’s mostly danced around the house as we do the cooking, to wanting to stand on a stool and help stir the batter, to pouring the batter into a hot skillet and facilely flipping my breakfast with a spatula.
These days, my eldest wants to sleep in so she can show up to the table in her pajamas, and it’s my middle daughter who has taken the baton as chief pancake chef while their little brother supports with the occasional stir.
Each of my children are unique and temperamentally quite different, but seeing them each participate in Reggae Pancakes is a bit like watching a flower garden in various stages of bloom. Some like to cook, some like to dance, and some want to arrive at the breakfast table after a bit of extra shut eye. All forms of participation are embraced, though it takes real trust to know their petals will unfurl in their own time and in their own way.
Mustering this trust muscle isn’t always easy. Refusal to help set the table, for example, tempts us into future projection. What if our kids turn into helpless, ungrateful beings incapable of even the basics of decorum? What if we are contributing to the status quo because we didn’t do enough to combat misogyny at the breakfast table?
Certainly this vivid imagination is a downside to our biologically evolved big adult brains, the ones on the lookout for dangers lurking outside of every cave. Staying in the moment and trusting our children’s basic competence and mastery to unfold in perfect time has been a practice I’ve worked on for over a decade now, which again, is not to say it’s easy. But applying mindfulness to parenting, though difficult, is worthwhile. We return to our breath. Observe what is actually unfolding in the present moment. Trust. This moment is it. Be with it. As the great Sufi/Indian poet Kabir implores, “Don’t let an opportunity like this go by.”
Basic trust is embedded deep in Dr. Emmi Pikler’s work and her imperative to care fully. It is also at the very top of Magda Gerber’s RIE Basic Principles. (RIE is an organization founded by the Hungarian-born Magda Gerber who simply and brilliantly articulated Pikler’s ideas for an American audience). As Gerber writes, we must summon “basic trust in the child to be an initiator, an explorer and a self learner. Because of this trust, we provide the infant with only enough help necessary to allow the child to enjoy mastery of their own actions.” Practicing this with our kids when they were infants, however imperfectly, gave us the strength and courage to continue this practice as they grow. But while sometimes it looks messy or chaotic, trust is an important foundation in our home.
This morning, my son, age four, sat down to a plate of Reggae Pancakes, holding the knife and fork awkwardly as he hacked away at his breakfast. Just last week he cut beautiful tiny squares inside the pancake’s circumference, one at a time, just how he likes it. Last weekend he held the fork tines down, and gripped the base of the stem between his first finger and thumb like he’d been doing it his whole life. But today was different. We had slept in a bit and the kids were hungry. He had very little patience for fine motor challenges and elegant slices. He just wanted to eat.
“Turn your fork around and put it between your fingers, like this!” my eight year old offered, illustrating her dexterity and graceful pancake slicing.
“Noooooo!! I can't! I can’t!”
“Hmmmm.” I nodded. I waited. Observed.
“I’m hungry! Help me cut my pancaaaakes!”
In that moment my son was sitting in front of a plate of warm pancakes in his pajamas asking for help. I knew he could cut his own pancakes, but I also knew that this moment might not be the one to remind him of that. I made the choice to let the pressure out of the valve, deflate the balloon rather than let it pop.
“Okay, you’re hungry. I’m going to cut your pancakes. I know you’ll be able to cut them yourself when you’re ready.” He wiped his tears and took a breath as I sliced his pancakes.
“Thank you.” he mustered with a little sigh.
Breakfast moves on. We talk about the day, about swimming and the future of work. We eat pancakes together. Did I do the right thing? I’ll never know. Maybe staying in the moment simultaneously acknowledges the granduer of the given moment, but also how infinitesimal it can be. I do know he will have lots of opportunities to try again. Maybe by next week, he’ll be slicing his Reggae Pancake into rough squares and easily feeding himself. Or maybe not. That kind of sustained confidence might take another year or so to build. We’ll take the long path together. The slower path. One day, he’ll cut his own pancakes. But today, in this moment, I choose the dance of trust and connection.
Beautiful, Amber. As my children are 11 and 9, I feel so so much of this and I too worry I am not doing enough to combat misogyny at every meal! ha! Thank you for sharing these snippets of your life here.
"Mustering this trust muscle isn’t always easy. Refusal to help set the table, for example, tempts us into future projection. What if our kids turn into helpless, ungrateful beings incapable of even the basics of decorum? What if we are contributing to the status quo because we didn’t do enough to combat misogyny at the breakfast table?" YESSSSSSSS. My thoughts EXACTLY. 😘