I used to brag that my kids rarely watched TV. This is now a lie, though for exercise I’ve started letting them use the living room couch as a trampoline, if they neatly stack the cushions against the wall first. A few weeks ago, my four-year-old son called me outside to show off a game he and his twin sister had invented. Holding up the garden hose, he sprayed it into her eye. He told me they do this until one of them yells “Stop.” “Okay,” I said, and thought for a minute. “But can you not aim for her face?” Look, I know there are lots of good reasons that laissez-faire ’70s parenting has aged about as well as ’70s cuisine. But like Tab, it works in a pinch.
The stated goal of the Junior League cookbooks was to raise money for charity, but there were less tangible benefits too. Like a precursor to Instagram, these collections gave readers a rare glimpse into their neighbors’ kitchens and gave contributors—whose names grace each recipe—the chance to show off the kind of homes they had. Or, maybe more accurately, the kind of homes they wanted to look like they had. In keeping with the times, women submitted their recipes under their married names—with the exception of one category: hard alcohol, which often went under the husband’s name. While Mrs. Jim Geisler may have wanted credit for her Herbed Spinach Bake, and Wild Rice and Sausage Casserole, her husband took the fall for the Refrigerator Martini, although I strongly suspect all were mailed in on the same stationery.
On social media now, my friends’ posts fall into two categories. Some put up pictures of their kids collecting shells on the beach, or their husbands dragging a telescope into the backyard to teach the whole family about constellations. Others are more honest. Earlier this week, a guilt-ridden friend shared a story on Facebook about her son watching TV for an entire day. A dozen fellow parents replied, commiserating. And then at the bottom was a reply from her mom, who wrote, “Do you know who also watched hours of TV? You. And I couldn’t be more proud of how you turned out.”
Last weekend, after the kids decamped for their week with my ex-wife, my girlfriend and I decided to make our own pitcher of refrigerator martinis. Turns out, the ladies of the Monroe Junior League do not mess around—and martinis are usually shaken with ice for good reason. An hour later we were still nursing our drinks. But they’ll go down faster once the kids get back this weekend.
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