You don’t know that your family members won’t ever go abroad and need to drive a manual. It could happen during employment!
As for changing a tire- you also don’t know that you or a family member won’t have to do that! My husband and I have had a couple of flats within the last 3 years in Colorado on fairly rural roads in cellphone dead zones. We changed the tire!
Once word got out I was filing my own tax returns in college, I remember everyone wanting me to help them with theirs. My father had made me do mine by myself from the first time I had to file and wouldn’t help me. When I asked him about things like what AMT was, he said if I didn’t understand what something was, I should assume it didn’t apply to me and proceed accordingly, but that he was sure they’d let me know if I did something wrong. Ha! Not very reassuring, but funny thinking back on it now.
Yes, navigating the American health care and insurance experience/system isn’t a cakewalk these days. I always wonder how those dealing with illnesses or advanced age or anything else that causes confusion or tiredness deal with it.
Ah, letters from health insurers, that one is a big issue. My daughter always has me review them with her. She will say to me, I can handle everything an adult needs to take care of, but please help me interpret these insurance company letters.
I think a lot of things that we think our kids should know are things aren’t important until the day they need them so taking the time to teach them might not be a good use of time. I’m 62 years old and have never needed to change a tire. I doubt very much that I have the physical strength to do it. If I can’t figure something out I just google it, or look it up on youtube. The stamp thing is still something that my kids find odd and I remember one of the kids not knowing what a post office drop box looked like when they went to college and needed to mail something. All three complain when they have to “mail” something.
Driving is a big exception. None of our city dwelling kids have a car but our daughter drives often and is the only one of the three who knows how to drive a stick. She’s driven in Europe and regularly in NYC.
Our youngest son never liked to drive, even as a teen, but living in a semi-rural area it was an important life skill. Now that he’s been living in a big city for a few years, he’s just become unaccustomed to it and not eager to drive even when he’s home. It’s a little strange.
On the eve of taking her test for a Learner’s Permit, D said, “There’s no speed limit on an interstate, right?” That was a scary moment. Also, we never knew she didn’t know how her medical insurance worked. When she got sick in college she went to a random out-of-network urgent care a block away from the in-network one with a huge $$$ difference. Two of the most frequent words to come out of her mouth are, “Wait…what?!” as she is continually surprised by new facts such as two AAA batteries don’t equal three AAs. Okay, that one was junior high, but still…
@walkinghome. Very funny. My son also like never drives. Doesn’t even care to. We are in Chicago and they take trains, and busses and Uber everywhere.
I absolutely know how to change a tire. My dad was insistent that we know that…or he wouldn’t even take us to do our drivers test.
But…I can’t change the tire on two of my cars…there is no spare, and there are no tools to jack up or remove the old tire. The cars just don’t have them.
But I know where my AAA card is…another life skill. However, it would be pointless to call them because the cars don’t have spare tires.
Our newest car…no little stick to check the oil level. At all. That bothers me more than the lack of spare tire.
Re: travel abroad. Kids these days travel in my experience. They would rather do that than have “stuff”. So don’t assume your kids will never travel abroad.
My son doesn’t have a car and rarely drives. No need for it in his urban area. About 10 years ago, he was visiting his uncle who has a 2 door car. S was the guy who volunteered to sit in the back, but for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out how to get into the back seat if there wasn’t a door.
I love this thread!
Both of our kids were taught how to drive a stick. One probably still knows. She had to drive a large van in college one night for a team trip- there were only two who knew how to use a stick and it was a long drive. Both kids are pretty good with practical stuff. They know how to check their oil in their cars and they know how to change a tire (but probably wouldn’t be able to lift the spare) and they know basic sewing. I did laugh today when the youngest dd texted that she was baffled by bouillon. She didn’t know that you had to add water to the dry stuff. At the same time, her sister called and said her car was stuck in the snow. Thankfully, a gentleman told her to put the car in second and helped her get it out. Life is a learning process.
A recent Harvard grad I know just a couple of weeks ago put dish soap in the dishwasher instead of dishWASHER soap. To quote the other person there at the time “You could now eat off the floor.” (Suds everywhere, from what I gather.)
I tried to teach one of my kids to cook, but he simply had no interest, and we had enough issues, so I wasn’t picking that battle. He dated someone who loved to cook, and now is an amazing cook.
They all learn what they need to at some point.
My son has a stick shift car and none of the girlfriends (past and current) could drive it, which was tremendously inconvenient. My husband gave one of them a lesson, because my son knew it would not go well if he tried to teach her himself. Alas, she wasn’t around long enough for the 2nd lesson.
Both my son and daughter can cook. My son’s on keto and he makes all sorts of interesting things. Daughter vegetarian. Both made us dinner when they were here on winter break. At least we know they won’t go hungry.
Since I have been ironing since age 9. Not bad for a boy. My son no interest. But did show him that if you take a damp wash cloth. Put it in with a wrinkled shirt, pants etc in the dryer . Run it for 15 minutes. It will appear with no wrinkles… Nice quick trick.
My nephew started doing his laundry at home at an early age. He also did his laundry at boarding school. At both places, laundry was free and all the supplies (i.e. detergent, etc) were right there. When he got to college, he wondered why his clothes seemed dingy. Turns out he never put in any detergent. He figured for what he was paying for the fancy industrial machines, detergent would magically squirt into the machine and clean the clothes.
@4kids4us - was curious so did some googling. Not sure about your SUV, but for my SUV the weight of the tire plus wheel that it’s mounted on is approximately 75 pounds. So you’d be holding 75 pounds with one hand in a very precise place while trying to thread the nut through the tire into the receiving hole on the mount… it’s very heavy. Don’t feel bad about calling for help changing those tires. It’s not a “know how” thing, it’s a weight thing.
Highest electricity demand is in the evening, so the grid is under the most load and some less efficient generation sources are turned on to meet peak demand then.
Low demand time would be night after midnight. These days, there are more solar panels in some areas that reduce net demand in the daytime (much more so on sunny days).
There are many situations where a flat tire is discovered after the car has been parked in a parking lot for a while, so there is not the added risk of trying to do it on a busy road.
I also had a tire get a slow leak once, noticed by the car’s tire pressure monitor. Since it was a slow leak (rather than completely flat), I filled it up at the nearest fuel station, drove home, and put the spare tire on in my garage.
Do you live in New Jersey or Oregon?
A lot of guys would consider that a plus. 