My mother started early teaching me how to cook. She was convinced, even when I was a child, that I would likely grow up to be single and alone. Fortunately, at least for the larger portion of my adult life, she was wrong. However, her lessons have been valuable as frequently I have been the one responsible for the family’s meals.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to pass that trait on to my own children. At least, not the oldest. I’m not the only one from my generation to have made that mistake, either. As a result, there is an entire generation of people who don’t have the first clue how to take care of themselves. This is why many of them are still living at home. We don’t necessarily want them to live at home, but we’ve not given them the skills to survive so we’ve left them with little choice. If our children don’t live with us, or at least with some other reasonably skilled and responsible adult, they will die.

We have to fix this situation. I’m sure I speak for many parents when I say we want our lives back. We thought we would get them back when the youngest of our children turned 18. No, that didn’t happen. There’s still a 25-year-old living in the basement. While there are admittedly times when that extra set of hands and feet come in handy, for the most part, their presence is that level of intrusive that keeps us from being able to have sex during the day while the little ones are at school. Not cool.

While there are actually a number of survival skills a young single person needs before they can successfully leave home without boomeranging right back at us, I’m choosing this morning to start with teaching them the basics of feeding themselves. This is important because young adults are well known for eating their weight in food every four hours or so. Not only is that rough on the ol’ food budget, but it’s time-consuming when they are constantly asking, “Hey, parental unit, can you nuke me some food or something?” Saying “no” that often really does eat into my productivity.

So, while we’re not risking any serious culinary feats, what we provide here is a set of basic instructions that, at a very minimum, keep our children from starving. This isn’t an especially healthy menu, mind you. If they want to bulk up or adjust their weight one direction or the other, or if they feel compelled to eschew meat and go vegan, they’re going to have to figure out those details for themselves. My time and willingness to help is limited. I’m just covering the basics for now and if they can survive that without burning down their house or apartment then they can move on to more advanced culinary concepts.