cashs_mom

Well said, Carol

zozee

I'll never forget the time I was about 12 years old, and went in to a fast food restaurant with my mom and dad. (Both had been raised on farms. My dad milked cows, my mom tended sheep.)


This was well before you could order vegetarian food and have people understand "no meat." My mom said she wanted a cheeseburger without the burger.

The cashier (maybe 16 years old) said they couldn't make it that way. (Clearly, because they never HAD, the girl assumed it was impossible.) Never wanting to leave a person in their ignorance if she has a teaching moment, my mother seized the opportunity. (Mind you, a lunch crowd was forming behind us.)

Mama said, "Where does cheese come from?"

The girl : "I don't know. The store?''

Mama: "I mean, before the store, do you know where it comes from?"

Girl: No....?

Mama: It comes from a cow.

With a puzzled look, and I kid you not, the cashier asked, "Really? How do they get the cheese out of the cow?"

I don't know when I had ever heard my mother cackle so hard in public as that moment. Even my dignified daddy couldn't contain his laughter. He told me later he pictured squeezing Velveeta out of ole Bessie.

mtkoldra

my neighbor's grandson came over to my yard and seeing cloths hanging on the line he asked, what are they? I said that I am drying my laundry and he said 'duh, it is 2016 and you still are drying laundry outside?
I thought, poor kid, he has never smelled sheets fresh from the line. Not important thing, but what a pleasure!

quiltingshorttimer

someone said something about kids not learning lots of basic skills. While I wholeheartedly agree that some kids don't get exposed to much--either because their families are so wealthy that they hire everything done, or so poor that there is true depravity of experience. I was an educator for 34 years and saw both! I live in a rural community(but worked in the suburbs) and we are in the country. I do think that many kids in that environment do get exposed to the kinds of chores we are talking about--my kids know how to drive a tractor, a stick shift, attach a trailer and load it (distribution of weight, etc); split wood, tend a fire (we sometimes lose power for days on end), dig holes, handle horses, cows, chickens, change a tire (we are on gravel so when it's graded we can count on at least one flat--my kids used to time their tire changes like a pit crew when they were in school!). My son started doing his own laundry when my daughter was learning in prep for college, both cook, clean (although that is debatable!), paint, my son welds, does construction (he and I built a shed/coop when he was in 9th grade), etc.

I worked with families that would not let their kids do any of these things--worried that the neighbors would think they were too poor to afford help! And then on the other end of the spectrum, those that simple did not have to opportunity to do any of those things.

Good parents raise self-reliant kids--but the definition of what's needed to be self-reliant has changed. That's both good and bad!

cashs_mom

I was talking to a lady I know today and this subject came up. She said her granddaughter was taking Home Ec and learning to *cook*. The school's idea of teaching them to cook was teaching them to use a microwave. I shudder to think what they would do if they were teaching them to sew.

romanojg

Things are different these days. Even though my daughter grew up with an iron she hated using one and still will say she doesn't know how. She had to get used to them when she started quilting, even though she's only done a few block quilts I have gotten the importance of ironing in her. Two weeks ago my iron died, I had picked up my grandkids and told them we had to go to Walmarts because I needed to sew and couldn't because my iron was broken. They didn't ask any questions, they know by being around me enough.

cashs_mom

Well, good for them!

roguequilter

pretty much what i do too. once in a while i have to iron one of hubbys longsleeved work shirts because the sleeves twist up in dryer. but i told my son i was going to buy a small iron to keep at his place dor when i'm there sewing with the grands. he said "great! i've got a couple of shirts i'd like to iron too!" so then i asked him what he used as a iron surface ..he said a bathtowel on his dryer (borrows girlfiends' iron). very small apartment, no room to store board. so ..for christmas i got him one of those ironing pads with magnetic corners to sit on top of dryer. you'd have thought i just bought him his first car!