I took cooking and sewing in 4H as well as in HS. Have been sewing my own clothing since I was 10 years old.
Probably wouldn't have met and married my DH without having taken home ec in HS. Our "final" our senior year was to bake cookies and send them to the USO for our servicemen in Vietnam. We each filled a large coffee can, wrapping two cookies flat sides together and wrapping them in Saran Wrap. We were instructed to put a note inside giving our name and address as the soldiers would be required to write a thank you note to the person sending their cookies. The soldier that received my package thanked me and asked if I would mind writing to him. We wrote regularly for over a year before he was sent back to the states and actually met for the first time. We were married 1 year to the day after actually meeting for the first time and have been married for 43 years next month. We have 3 grown sons and a daughter and they have all been taught to cook, bake, sew, and iron. Two of the sons are actually the cooks for their families as their spouses never learned these skills. I am now teachimg the grandchildren the same skills. I do wish they would teach life skills in school including money management and parenting. I would have liked to have had some parenting classes before raising children.