Today is National Homemade Bread Day. I don’t know why these days keep popping up but they do. I guess people need holidays to bring them together.
I love baking bread, it is such a comforting thing and the smell of baking bread makes me feel nostalgic. As a single parent I often long for a simpler time and that’s what bread making brings to mind for me. It makes me think of a time when families stayed together, mom stayed home and raised the children, and baked bread. I think those images come from television, I’ve certainly never lived that life or even known anyone who lived it.
My mother spent much of my childhood as a single parent, she certainly didn’t have time for bread baking. My paternal grandmother worked full time long before women did that sort of thing and my maternal grandmother did not bake, at least not to my knowledge. Even without that example in my home baking bread brings those thoughts and ideals to the front of my mind.
I wish we could go back to a simpler time where bread came from Mom’s oven instead of from a store in a plastic bag. Hailey loves homemade bread, when it comes out of the over she doesn’t even wait for it to cool, she just rips pieces off and eats the warm bread fresh from the oven.
I hope she remembers those days, I hope it makes her feel special and taken care of, I also hope that she will bake bread for her children one day. Maybe the tide will turn, maybe this generation will get back to what’s important. I hope that my daughter’s generation can slow down a little in their quest to have it all. I hope they work harder to keep their families together. I hope they spend time with their children and bake bread.