<p>Cromette. We have a place in the outer banks. We crab. We fish. We eat what we catch. </p>
<p>H hunts. We eat what he shoots. Or I would be against the hunting. I have dug more buckshot out of pheasant than I care to remember and once lost a filling to a stray in my risotto. </p>
<p>But if you fish once a year you are better off having the skilled guides clean it for you, IMHO. </p>
<p>In the end, I don’t think everyone will have the same skills. Or need them. I think if you need them, you’ll pick them up.</p>
<p>People here have money. why? because it is CC - kids are in college or they are going to college and maybe few of them in Grad. school still supported by parents.
It is not money. It is priority and personal preferences and there are many who love doing home chores, so why not? But they are not required life skills, anybody could survivie without them, easily.</p>
<p>I’m not saying you shouldn’t change your own oil. I’m just saying I don’t use a wringer washer to do my laundry. And even though I cook I do not grow my own produce or churn my own butter. </p>
<p>I mean, the great thing is to be able to choose.</p>
<p>The great thing about “life” skills is that they are dependent on what? Your life. Not your neighbors. Not that guy across town. Not another CC member. </p>
<p>I am not ignoring the fact there is a foundation or base skills tha are necessary in everyone’s life. I simply don’t think cooking, cleaning, and laundry are base skills.</p>
<p>Yep. Kind of supports what I was saying. It wasn’t so much about TEACHING my kids certain things because I thought this was the skill set they needed as some kind of magical answer to managing life. </p>
<p>They were just learning by watching and doing alongside, and joining in the things that the family did together every day. </p>
<p>I think learning how to navigate complicated public transport systems is a great thing…my kids will never need those skills in this state. If they stay in this area, and continue to enjoy the things they have all of their lives, they’ll need the things they’ve learned…it’s pretty simple.</p>
<p>And like OP, I take a lot of pleasure watching them do the things that have been important to us. I like to see them load up and go fishing on their own, bring the catch back, clean it and cook it for me so I can eat it! :D</p>
<p>I don’t think people in many areas will ever need to understand public transportation-we had none growing up unless you count the 6 bus routes in my little city. And I caught on pretty fast once I moved to Seattle where there are often multiple types of public transportation to get to and from somewhere. </p>
<p>But I can see that a kid who’s never even seen something like light rail, trolleys, and a bus system with more than 1 million hours of riding available might get overwhelmed. Or a kid who gets anxious when faced with planning/decision making, so I think if that was the case, I would at the least help such a kid understand the website trip planner/route maps. </p>
<p>As for the rest-if someone has the money and wants to live a life of leisure such that they never do a lick of physical work at home, well, that’s their option. BUT, I still think the basics of DAILY housekeeping, meal planning and cooking and such ARE critical skills, because you never know when you’re going to be on your own WITHOUT the resources to call “the help” to do it all for you. </p>
<p>I have a friend who was widowed at a young age. Her husband had an undiagnosed condition and had good insurance, but it was held up for nearly a year as the insurance fought payment. And she’d taken time off work to raise her kids. She was financially strapped for that entire time. Eating out, hiring a cook, maid and lawn and garden guy really wasn’t an option for her. Good thing she knew how to do all the basics.
The idea that everyone can just call “the help” isn’t realistic, imo.</p>
<p>It’s not that everyone can “just call the ‘help’”–it’s that if you have “help,” you have it for a reason. Of course if circumstances change and help is no longer an option, people can learn to do things they never did before. There is a first time for everything. Many people are thrust unexpectedly into circumstances different from those they had prepared for. Most of them figure out how to deal. To me the perfect example of this is one I mentioned way back in this thread: taking care of babies. Many parents have ZERO experience feeding, changing, and caring for children before they have them. But somehow most of us are capable of learning how to do it in real time. I don’t understand why cooking, weaving, operating a table saw, etc. would be any different.</p>
<p>I think the issue is whether one thinks college-educated kids need to be “taught” any of this, or that they are smart enough to figure it out on their own. I fall into the latter camp, probably because I did figure it all out myself (my mom stayed home and did all those things for us, but for some reason she never taught or expected us kids to do any of them! I think she wanted to keep them for herself as her “job” and hoarding them added value to her role in the family.)</p>
<p>You can actually look up “how to clean a toilet” on youtube now. I just don’t think there is anything difficult or mysterious in mastering those skills nowadays on one’s own, when needed.</p>
<p>Op here - boy did I start something. All I meant was that my daughter was learning how to live on her own and whatever skills that requires she was picking up now vs. my friend who felt that kids in college should continue to be dependent because they have their whole life to be independent after college.</p>
<p>I had no idea this would spark a debate of what skills are or aren’t needed in life (at any age).</p>
<p>" To me the perfect example of this is one I mentioned way back in this thread: taking care of babies."</p>
<p>Given the number of kids who end up in foster care, those in the ER with preventable injuries from home accidents or poisonings, and a whole host of less critical problems, I think that taking care of babies ISN’T something everyone can figure out by themselves, and there SHOULD be some kind of instruction. </p>
<p>But I get your point. I still disagree though, about the basics of everyday living. I certainly felt more capable having learned how to cook and back BEFORE I was on my own than having to toss out “experiments” as I figured out how to cook. And I’m glad I didn’t ruin several loads of clothes because I threw in brand-new dark blue sheets with my whites and pastels the way my ex did before we met.</p>
<p>My H has a friend whose new college freshman just called home to ask how to use the laundry soap pods they bought him to take to college. He had no idea what to do. He had never done laundry before. A grown up shouldn’t have to call mom to ask how to get clean clothes.</p>
<p>I had a LOT of experience taking care of babies before I had my own. I think a lot of girls do - changing diapers, dealing with crying, feeding, teething, etc. - some even extensive from younger siblings or babysitting. I know I had two younger siblings that I was very involved with taking care of and MANY infants that I babysat. NOTHING really completely prepares one for the weight of parenthood - but that’s sort of anything. One can learn to do most anything, but actually doing it because you HAVE to on a regular basis is quite different.</p>
<p>My kids will argue that balancing a checkbook is outdated. It’s not for me - I still write a lot of checks. But I’ll admit for them with checking/debit account (with rarely a paper check written), their online account viewing method works fine.</p>
<p>I was standing in the hall at the end of the first week of school and a guy walked by, looking distraught, carrying a load of whites that where now pink! He said “what happened”? I fished through the clothes and found the red T-shirt!</p>
<p>The following week he showed up with about 4 other guys begging me to show them how to do laundry! Which I did.</p>
<p>I have 5 siblings. Three came along 9, 10, and 13 years after I was born, so I changed a LOT of diapers, fed them, bathed them, babysat them. I taught my brother how to swim and my sister how to ride a bike. When I got pregnant for the first time, I thought “I’ve got this down. No worries.” </p>
<p>Boy, was I wrong. I guess I neglected to note the fact that my mom had night duty and all day when we were at school taking care of those babies. She took care of them when they were sick, got them to their doctor appts., etc., along with the multitude of things Moms do for their infants. When it was my turn to do 24/7, I realized how much I still had to learn and how incredibly all encompassing mothering an infant really was. :o</p>
<p>I know more people who have had only one or at most two kds, than I know those who have had three or more.
My kds did very little babysitting, they were too busy (& possibly because of smaller families, there were fewer kids that needed sitting).
I only rarely babysat myself, lots of other jobs pay much more.
I think the learning curve is very steep for a lot of this stuff, & it is too important to learn it slapdash.</p>
<p>My younger D takes care of some of the little kids at her church, but only because that’s what she likes to do. The friends we know with kids want HS or older girls, who are certified babysitters, having taken courses in 1st aid, child CPR, and so forth. The only actual babysitting she’s done has been for a cousin and only long after he was past toddler stage.</p>
<p>A couple of her classmates have big families and take care of siblings, but most everyone we know has small families. I don’t think that many kids are used as babysitters even in their own homes anymore.</p>
<p>I’m doomed for motherhood if babysitting is the gold standard for learning parenting skills before having children. I was an only child and wasn’t older enough than any of my cousins, so I never had the opportunity to babysit.</p>
<p>I really feel that everyone should know how to do the basic things. We have a neighbor woman whose husband just died. Her husband did everything for her. He also left her in terrible financial straits. She doesn’t know how to mow (1 acre lot), doesn’t know how to handle the checking account and even told a neighbor that she doesn’t know how to charge some electronics. Her 32 year old daughter lives with her and is equally helpless. They will be losing their home by next year. It is one sad story. I imagine she can cook but it is important to know a little about a lot of things as one never knows what life has in store.</p>
<p>Knowing how to mow is not a “basic skill” that everyone must know. We’ve always hired people to landscap our yard and gardens. There will always he someone that you can get to mow your lawn. I don’t expect an old lady to be able to mow her 1 acre lot in the first place.</p>