Common Home Skills

I am appalled at the younger peoples' ignorance or should I say incompetence with standard home activities. I know they probably didn't have the education that I did in my Home Economics class but gee, didn't their mothers or even their grandmothers teach them anything about cooking, sewing, finances?  Making do?

Yes, this is a negative rant! The generation of today are blissfully oblivious of the common needs to survive with ease and seem to be so unfamiliar with anything but their phones and internet, their " besties" and fashionable shopping.

Give a teenager a potato and tell her/him to boil it and then mash it to be served.  What would she/he do? Give a young adult a challenge to bake a cake without a box mix. Could they even sew an apron or wouldn't they wear one? Can they thread a needle and make a good knot? Do they let food particles go down the kitchen drain or does it now have an automatic garbage disposal?

Do they know how to fix the innards of a toilet tank when the chain breaks? Would they even know it was broken? Does it even have a chain?

If the tab on a can is broken how would it be opened without an automatic can opener? (or even a non automatic one!)

What if they ran out of toothpaste - what would they use?

Well you get my gist and this is all because I had a dream of today's generation trying to do things without a clue and being frustrated.

There ! I feel better. Please teach all and any young people in your life the value of self-sufficiency and life skills. They need to learn by doing; especially in times like these when those common skills are needed.

My guess is that half will know how to do these things but half will not. Can you help?

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Sister washing dishes, sister drying dishes, brother putting things away, me at the stove, Mother writing at table. 1954
Yes, I know, that was then and this is now but some things do not need to change.