It’s not exactly original to observe that mornings in movies do not in any way touch on reality. Even in the Before Times, I had no inclination to make my family a big breakfast. The biggest switch in our lives came from remembering that I had to attempt to make sure my son got fed before school, as his old school had a grant that provided free breakfast and lunch to every child in the district regardless of income—a thing that improves educational quality—and I now have to remember that, yes, he does better in class if he’s eaten and I need to provide for that. And breakfast still doesn’t look the way it does in the movies.

Again, this is not original. And even if it had looked the way it did in the movies before, it surely doesn’t now—Simon can’t grab a single slice of toast on his way to the bus if he doesn’t catch the bus. And while he might have to, if we weren’t distance learning, at the same time his dad leaves for work, as it is he doesn’t have to be online for class until over half an hour after his dad has to be at work. He’s still asleep when his dad leaves. And often, so am I, since I only have to get up to make sure he does.

But the thing here is that it feels like an additional burden the movies put on women. Because the woman making that enormous breakfast has her own job half the time, and she’s still expected to get up and make that huge breakfast that no one eats. Never mind that it’s a waste of food; it’s a waste of work. She has made that vast quantity of food, and she has to clean up after making it. And then she has to go in for a full day of work, and when she comes home, she’s going to have to make dinner, too; at least her family will eat that.

My mom was a stay-at-home parent when I was little; I don’t remember how old I was when I learned to fix myself a bowl of cereal, but it was pretty young. My three-year-old can do it now. I wonder a little bit about all those scriptwriters’ homes, if they believed this was a thing that was normal. Or maybe they wrote it because everyone else did, and it was one of those things that ends up as “movie normal,” something everyone knows isn’t real but is a movie tradition.

So okay, yeah, I’ve told my kids that, after I get my work done (including this article), I’m probably going to make beignets. This is not because of any drive for a hearty, movie-style breakfast. Honestly, big breakfasts make me feel kind of sick most mornings. It’s because I’ve been thinking about making them for days and need to do it while I still have the energy and the reduced pain level that I have early in the day. But my kids also know that, the more food they leave behind, the less effort I’m inclined to put into making that much later.

The fact is, the people who write these scenes aren’t the ones making that food. I wouldn’t be surprised to know that any number of them can’t actually cook half the foods that Mom is shown preparing in the mornings. My son, at seven, can already make pancakes, but I have met adults who can’t. It wouldn’t surprise me to know that many of the screenwriters writing these scenes are in that category themselves, and certainly I believe they’ve never made a breakfast as big as the traditional movie one. Not knowing how to do something can make you less appreciative of the work behind it.

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