My own lessons in independent living and cooking began when I was a kid, thanks to my mom and my stepdad, Vern. My mother let me use her stand mixer to whip the cream or potatoes, and Vern taught me to make chicken-fried steak and cornmeal-coated, pan-fried catfish. Perhaps most important, I started grocery shopping for the family at age 8. That happened after my parents’ divorce, once my mother realized that although she had lost privileges to shop at the commissary, the steeply discounted grocery store on Goodfellow Air Force Base for military personnel and their dependents, her kids had not. So she made up a list, handed me cash and drove me to the store.

The first time, she worried: “Are you all right doing this, honey? I’ll be right out here if you need me.” When, an hour later, the store worker who bagged our groceries followed me outside to the car, he initially didn’t see my mother waiting for me. As she loves to tell it, he took one look at the car and said, “Don’t tell me you can drive, too.”