I don't know if you are a grandparent or are lucky enough to have young kids around. I have discovered how much they love to press the pedal for me while I sew. This usually peaks their interest in how the machine works. For this reason, the simplicity of the Featherweight is hard to beat. My three year old grand just started "helping" me last weekend and is in LOVE with sewing. Over the 4th of July holiday, we had other guests here including a 4 year old boy. He took to the idea of sewing like a duck to water! This little machine can handle the use (and misuse while learning) much better than our electronic machines making supervision of these learning youngsters much more enjoyable and fun for me. You may have a youngster who falls in love with sewing and be lucky enough to gift them with the machine they learned on down the road as their passion for our craft grows.