For most people, the discovery that they are going to be parents is equal parts joy and fear. Mostly fear of themselves. Not: “How am I going to afford them?” or “Do I have to give up poker night?” But rather: “Me? A parent?”

The idea of becoming a role model can be unsettling. Questions hammer at one’s self-esteem. How will you tell your teenage kids to “just say no” when you smoked pot through high school? Will your kids respect you when they find out that you belonged to a loser fraternity and skated through college? When they find out you voted for Kerry?

Me, I’m waiting for the day to come when my kids discover that I don’t cook.

Oh sure, I make great kid food—that’s how I’ve fooled them so far. Macaroni and soy cheese, Boboli pizzas, turkey burgers, tofu dogs, pancakes, scrambled eggs, almond-butter-and-honey sandwiches, cookies—but that’s the whole of it.

“Mommy, you’re such a great cook,” my daughter smiles, as I hand her toast just the way she likes it. Her words give me chills. She’s almost seven, and the jig’s almost up.

Take the ordinary potluck. “Bring a dish to share,” my friends say, not comprehending. “Just make your favorite dinner.”

I have never created a “dish” in my life. I don’t know where to start. A dish implies all sorts of ingredients, and seasonings, and chopping, and…cooking.

“Mom, let’s have our friends over for dinner at our house next time,” my four-year-old son says. It’s not going to happen unless we order take-out.

Like most people with a shameful secrets, I have developed elaborate ways to hide. I once catered my contribution to a preschool breakfast. (Yes, I know this is disgraceful. You don’t have to make me feel any worse. And in case you’re wondering, it was a sausage and cheese omelet thingy and orange cranberry muffins. Everyone loved it.) For school picnics, I volunteer to bring juice, napkins and cookies. Sometimes I even bake the cookies myself. But I don’t bring a “dish.” Nor a salad, nor a side dish. No dishes.

There are real, tangible benefits to not cooking. I’ve never had to clean an oven. (Baking cookies a couple times a year doesn’t seem to get it too messy.) I hardly ever have to wash pans. I’ve never cut myself with a chef’s knife (knock wood). No cooking burns (knock wood). No fishy smells floating through my house—no sir. Raccoons don’t bother knocking over my garbage cans.

I’m not fat. I pig out whenever I’m lucky enough to get invited to a friend’s house for dinner. But it’s hard to get fat when you regularly have cereal for breakfast and dinner.

But sadly, even without cooking, there seems to be no real way to escape the grocery store. To me, it’s the loneliest place in the world. Pushing that wild-wheeled cart across the sticky linoleum, shivering in the dairy aisle, squinting under the heinous fluorescent lighting, doing a little dance while trying to be patient at the deli—it all bites. Add two cranky children into the mix and you’ve got a little version of hell.

And the food choices—none of them make sense. The easy stuff—the stuff that’s in boxes and cans or frozen, the stuff that’s ready to eat—is pure poison. Processed and laden with preservatives and MSG and sugar…blech.

But the healthy stuff—the broccoli and the string beans and the squash and the slow-to-cook rice and the lean cuts of meat and seafood—they all require cooking. And not just heating to an acceptable temperature, but washing and slicing and seasoning and combining with other ingredients.

They require complicated machinery like the crockpot and the Cuisinart, possibly several cutting boards, steamers, fancy knives and shrimp deveiners. If it’s to be fresh and healthy and delicious, then there need to be herbs from the farmers market, noodles from the Asian market, organic tofu from Whole Foods, imported olive oil from Trader Joe’s, fresh-caught salmon from Fisherman’s Wharf…

In short, there needs to be a whole lot more time than a single working mother of two kids seems to have, and honestly, I’d rather just have my bowl of Kashi with soy milk, while my kids have their tofu dogs.

I’ve still got a few more months before they catch on.