I too like to see kids interested in subjects, activities, etc. that will positively contribute to their lives. My father brought a different "take" to the "positively contribute" part. For years he was a dire Sybil: Our children were going to live on the streets; Our children would be financially dependent on the community for the entirety of their lives; Our children would never amount to anything at all; and on. All of this because the kids liked to play the more involved, demanding computer games, spending lots of time in front of a computer.
Before he died, Dad told us he was proud of our children; that he was pleased and surprised to discover he was wrong about the computer games. Those games demanded analysis and observation and, when the dust settled, their life paths turned out to demand both skills. One child specializes in accounting and finance. The other is a mechanical engineer.
Dad taught the kids lots of very, very important things with that one simple statement. I am grateful to him and I was and am very proud of him for "owning up." Quite often it seems that what seem to be useless, time-waster activities turn out to be important.
I had to force my grandmother to teach me how to sew. All she would let me do was service and re-tension her treadle Singer for her. I am going to go hit my sewing room and use my vintage Bernina to finish up the alterations on the suit the accounting/finance kid is going to wear to a contract meeting on Friday.
We never know.