Women, food, and families / Nickie Charles and Marion Kerr.
- Nickie Charles
- Date:
- [1988]
Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
Credit: Women, food, and families / Nickie Charles and Marion Kerr. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![Proper meals: proper families 35 Women were very much aware of the distinction between adult and children's food; one woman told us that when her son's grand-parents came round to celebrate his birthday she 'made more adult type food then because it was j ust a tea. He had a cake, sandwiches and things, but it was just a Sunday tea with a birthday cake.' It is interesting that in some of the women's comments on birthday celebrations there was a distinction being made along lines of gender. Some regarded birthday parties and party food as more appropriate for girls than boys: 'Adam's had two birthday parties. The last one was a nightmare, I said I'd never have another one . . . And I don't think lads are all that bothered anyway, it's more a girl's thing.' We quote at length from the next woman's response to our questions about birthday parties as she clearly articulates the gender differ¬ ences that many women assume to exist between boys and girls: Last year for John's, for the boys' party, I did them fish fingers, beef¬ burgers, oven chips, sausages, fish fingers and oven chips and he had to have crisps as well, he said it wouldn't be a party without his crisps. Then they had the usual jelly and ice cream for a sweet and then I do all sorts of fancy cakes, meringues. [Did he have a birthday cake?] Yes, I did him a Superman. I'm into icing, I like it, I used to go to classes and it was just a long oblong cake and I made a run out of the Superman from his comic in icing and painted it all and iced it and he had this Superman with his cape in blue zooming through the air. We always have a fancy cake. Lucy had a little cottage, that was really nice. It took me about 3 hours to do. I piped it with roses and everything. I love doing it though. [And what sort of food did Lucy have at her party?] I can't quite remember ... usually things on sticks, you know, sausages on sticks, cheese on sticks. I have little cut out shapes and I do sandwiches in little shapes and they've got no crusts or anything, and put currants for their eyes on ducks and rabbits - they like that. They think sandwiches are sandwiches - they don't like them do they? It's all crisps and that. We always leave the sweet things for after, always have the savouries first and then they'll eat those and then they'll have the jelly and what have you and then I bring the cakes in 'cos otherwise they'll have cakes and crisps altogether and that's all they'll eat... They like these little shapes, they like them. It was great at John's they all ate everything, all their fish fingers and all their sausages and all their oven chips, it was really easy 'cos I just put them all in the oven you see so I'd certainly do something like that again. Perhaps hot dogs or something like that next time. Gender differences were not, however, apparent in the food that was provided for children, although this may reflect an inade¬ quacy in our methodology rather than the absence of difference.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b18028706_0048.JP2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
