<p>For our first date my husband asked if he could come over to the house I was living in and cook dinner for me. He brought all the stuff and made lasagna. While I think it was the only thing he knew how to cook it did make a good impression. He still is the one who makes it in our house.:)</p>
<p>EK,
I’m sure you know that raw foods are quite healthy.</p>
<p>I’m a high school senior and I’ve known how to cook since I was at least eight. (My mom did a major tutorial over the summer when I was twelve to teach me all the major skills and how to pretty much make any of her recipes- which turned out lucky two months later when my mother sprained her back and I cooked dinner for a while- my dad didn’t get home early enough.) I’ve grocery shopped for the past three summers while away at camp. I think that’s the kind of thing you should learn the sooner the better, and it’s really not that hard. If you’re responsible enough to go to college by yourself, you’re responsible enough to take care of yourself when you’re there.
As far as gender roles, this is something I’ve never understood and that really drives me crazy. All the girls in my family have cooked for years, and my brother (11) CAN’T MAKE A GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICH. I’m starting to teach him because this is getting on my nerves. Let me tell you, whatever guy I marry is going to know how to cook.</p>
<p>“If there was even an ad for Scouting, this would be it” - Scouting is a good excuse to learn. But so is simply just growing up in a house and helping out. </p>
<p>Each of my kids had times when they were on summer break w/o a job. DH and I worked 40+ hours a week. So they became the default grocery shoppers and cooks. I gave some guidance (and sometimes cooked). DH gave grilling tips. But mostly they learned by doing. Yes, we did eat more pot pies and fish sticks than normal. But they did some cooking too. Heck, they had learned their fractions stacking up a lasagna.</p>
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<p>And some kids know how to spin wool, change oil, milk cows, or find the best sales at Macy’s by middle school. Who cares? Our kids are all on a journey to adulthood. There is no one right way to do things or set age at which certain tasks have to be mastered.</p>
<p>I didn’t know how to cook in college. I wasn’t mortified. I wasn’t interested. Shrug.</p>
<p>EK, Bay’s prebagged salad and store chicken are perfectly healthy.</p>
<p>First (and definitely not last) life skill learned in college: don’t use laundry detergent in the dishwasher.</p>
<p>J’ - Hopefully you didn’t learn that the hard way. My aunt once put Dawn in the dishwasher - BAD NEWS. It overflowed foaming suds into her kitchen. </p>
<p>Funny story (heard 4th hand… can’t swear it’s true) - Kid goes home for first college break and asks his mom why his clothes look so dingy. Mom - “What kind of detergent are you using?”. Student - “Detergent?”</p>
<p>I dont consider raw foods " pre- cooked". Isnt raw the opposite?
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<p>Funny that I saw this discussion. Just tonight, DH mentioned something to S2 (2012 college grad) about his college education. S2 said " I might have learned even more from my" real life" education" while in college. He moved off campus after freshman year as did S1. It was a great learning experience for both.</p>
<p>colorado_mom: Yes, we did. The screams of the roommate that walked into 1 foot of suds in the kitchen floor at 3 o’clock in the morning woke up everybody in the building.</p>
<p>I thought that some of the best and memorable simple times with my son growing up were fixing him pancakes or helping him learn how to decorate cookies or going camping and cooking together over the campfire.</p>
<p>Do some people have the same feeling about placing a take out order for the family to eat at home or calling roon service on a vacation? Did you let the kid place the order/make the call?</p>
<p>EK,</p>
<p>The point is that it is fallacy that one must be able to “cook” (whatever that means) in order to have a nutritious and healthy diet. I think you were trying to argue that knowledge of cooking was required. </p>
<p>One can eat raw fruits and vegetables, a handful of nuts, a piece of cheese or store-cooked chicken (thus “cooking” nothing) and nutritionally come out ahead of the experienced-since-adolescence chef who prepares chicken cordon bleu and garlic mashed potatoes for dinner. The former menu is not remotely analogous to eating at McDonalds, as you seemed to be suggesting. The latter, on the other hand, could compete with the calories, fat and carbohydrates of McD’s hamburger and fries.</p>
<p>My kids are learning different “life skills” at college: </p>
<p>You can’t change other people, you can only change how you react to them. (Closely tied to : If you know someone is hard to deal with, don’t offer to room with them).</p>
<p>How to run an organization: Real leadership isn’t doing it all yourself. The importance of delegating so everyone feels included. Knowing that people will ignore deadlines that don’t directly affect them, no matter how difficult it makes your job. </p>
<p>How to deal with bureaucracy.</p>
<p>How to recover from a broken heart.</p>
<p>How to book an airline ticket. How to travel around Europe on the weekends cheaply.</p>
<p>How to budget your food money. </p>
<p>How to deal with the cable company.</p>
<p>All I can tell you, 07dad, is that my parents took my kids on a ski trip when they were little, and ordered room service breakfast, and my kids talked about it for years :-)</p>
<p>Honestly, as my kids prepared to leave for college, I wanted them to develop skills like being able to navigate public transportation in a city, manage a bank account, figure out how to get around an airport, etc. I found that more important than worrying about them learning how to cook. They know the basics, and if and when they’re interested in learning more, they will.</p>
<p>Edited -Lafalum, great post. iTA.</p>
<p>I think college provides important opportunities to learn life skills, but the skills that kids learn there aren’t necessarily cooking and cleaning.</p>
<p>The two life skills that college students pretty much have to learn are time management and taking responsibility for themselves. In fact, having the opportunity to learn these skills is a good argument for going away to college rather than commuting.</p>
<p>My own kids, both of whom lived off-campus during part of their time at college, also learned some skills that have to do with being a tenant – like paying rent on time, dealing with the landlord to get things fixed, making arrangements for utilities and Internet, and cleaning like crazy before moving out in order to get your deposit back. I think it was useful for them to know these things before they moved out into the “real world.” They had a bit of a head start.</p>
<p>My daughter learned a life skill today at college which I never (thankfully) had the opportunity to teach her. Apparently, someone caused the microwave in the kitchen on her dorm floor to catch on fire. As the fire alarm sounded, my daughter & a male member of the dorm got the fire extinguisher & put out the fire while the dorm was evacuated. </p>
<p>I only learned of this when she called to ask if she could use Clorox wipes on her leather shoes because they were covered in fire retardant. That was another life skill learned… Bleach is not good for leather.</p>
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<p>Jeez, so judgy! It is not an either/or thing, or an elitist thing. While some parents were teaching their kids how to make pancakes, others were teaching them how to read a subway map or play chess or backgammon. My mom and I spent a lot of time together shopping and doing crafts (batik, macrame, decoupage…); even though she was a great cook, I don’t remember her “teaching” me anything in the kitchen. Giving me her recipes when I set out on my own was inspiring enough, and I love cooking for my family and friends today.</p>
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<p>you’re assuming everyone shares your opinion on what the most memorable times with their sons should be…so your question is silly.</p>