The Lie: You’re going to cook us dinner? That should be fun.

The Truth: That should be prohibited. A child’s natural tendency for experimentation and discovery might be innocuous enough when the materials are crayons and paper, but when he or she proposes to use my hard-earned food as a medium for amateurish personal expression, that’s where I have to draw the line… eggs are really expensive. Also, there’s the question of self-esteem: while it’s easy enough to mask my disappointment when reviewing my kid’s artwork, a feeling of repulsion is bound to be more difficult to hide when the source of it is in my mouth.

Maybe I wouldn’t have such low expectations if my kids possessed any culinary acumen whatsoever, but these are individuals who regularly pass up my expertly-prepared dinners in favor of a hellish, mass-produced cocktail of re-constituted cheese powder mixed with microwave-boiled macaroni noodles (“mac-n-cheese” is the name it calls itself). Sadly and inexplicably, my scions are gastronomical philistines. I’ll choke down a child-prepared meal once a year – on Father’s Day – and that’s it. (What a misnomer, by the way. The way my kids cook, it ought to be called “Father’s [going to feel queasy all] Day.”)