I was visiting my in-laws for some festival.
The house was full. The kitchen, fuller.
And my mother-in-law, like always, was at the center of it. Cooking. Serving. Clearing. Repeating.

And I was just… uncomfortable.

Not because the food wasn’t good. It was wonderful.
Not because she didn't look happy. She did.

But because she never stopped moving.
And no one around her seemed to think that was odd.

We could have ordered in. Picked up things from an excellent local store.
Instead, she was up early. Making six kinds of snacks from scratch. Like it was just… normal.

When I brought it up, men in the family said it, like it was obvious.
“Oh, she loves cooking. Why stop her from doing what she loves?”

Does she love it?
Or is it all she’s ever been allowed to do?

She was married at 17 or 18.
Three kids. A joint family. A house full of expectations and very little room to question them.

Her life became cooking. So of course she’s good at it.
Of course she takes pride in it.
Of course she says she loves it.

And maybe she does. Maybe that’s her honest answer.
But I wonder, would she still say that,
if she had something else that made her feel seen?
If she had ever paused long enough to ask what she wanted?
If someone had said, “You don’t have to do this,”
before she became so good at it she forgot she had a choice?

We confuse comfort with consent.
Familiarity with fulfillment.

She probably never stopped to think about whether she loved it because the world never paused to ask her. And when you never have space to explore, of course you start calling the kitchen your happy place. What else are you supposed to call it?

This is not about cooking.
It is about how quietly a woman’s life gets reduced to what is expected of her.
And how women learn to call duty love.

Maybe she does love it.
But I wish she had more than one thing to love.
I wish someone had asked her what else she could be.