The most selfless act is cooking for your family.

I thought about calling this "The most selfless act is cooking for others," but I soon realized that such a title would include single people cooking special meals for their friends and even real chefs cooking great meals in restaurants. But those are lifestyle/career choices, with their own built-in rewards. No, what I'm talking about is cooking for a spouse and children. Year after year . . .

When I was a poor graduate student/father -- poor as in food stamps -- I made grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup for my kids day after day, to the point that they can't stand to eat either one now. But I was doing my best to provide for them and using up lots of time to do it -- time I could have spent reading books and studying.

Later, when I could afford better food, I tried to come up with a better menu: pot roasts and grilled chicken breasts and potatoes and veggie side dishes. The result? The kids pushed the food around on the plate, hoping for take-out. So once a week we went to McDonald's.

And then came the food problems. First it was a daughter who declared herself a vegetarian.
No more pot roasts. No more take-out. Not even fish ("They have faces, dad!"). Then a son who had acid-reflux, so that he couldn't eat anything fried. Again, nix the take-out. We were down to mashed potatoes -- but hold the butter. And, of course, no one, including the vegetarian, really liked vegetables.

What the hell did they expect to eat?

These children are now, more or less, out on their own and having to find their own ways in the world, including meals. But this begs the point, actually.

Suppose all your kids ate naturally, ate whatever was served, and had no eating problems. You gave them macaroni and cheese and hot dogs when they were little and packed their school lunches with sandwiches and fruit and a snack. Suppose you cooked your spouse his favorite meal involving meat and potatoes and maybe some hot rolls but not much else.

Did you get any credit? Probably not.

You may have gotten praise when you cooked a Thanksgiving/Christmas dinner, but what about all the routine meals you dished up over the years? What about all those school lunches? What about all the hours you spent in the kitchen when you could have been at the club or reading a novel or shopping or riding your bike or anything else? Any gratitude? I'm guessing not.

So why did/do you do it? It can't be because you're hoping for thanks, so what is it?

I think it's just a basic instinct to keep the damned family fed. Just as we try to keep our kids -- and maybe our spouse -- warmly clad in the winter and away from dangerous things (no sky-diving, dear), it's a natural thing to look after those we love. So much we do for them will never be rewarded, no matter how much we wish it would be. Which means, in the end, that we do it for ourselves. We feel better for having done it. We did what we thought was right.

On the other hand, it would help if one of the ingrates would occasionally say "Thank you."