Looked up Venmo and learned something new today.
My kids will never need to know how to buy light bulbs, as H bought a stash long enough to last all of our lifetimes. Mailing, envelope, and postage skills-or lack thereof–are the things that always get me with the under 35 age group. If their defense, we spent eons of time on this in about 3rd grade (also letter writing), and maybe they did not. Even though I taught my kids, they still seem nervous about it, and they are 19, 25, and 27.
I remember being taught how to write a check in 3rd grade.
Don’t your kids write thank you notes? At least to their grandparents? That’s where my kids got practice writing, addressing and mailing letters. Lots of thank you notes written in their lifetime - relatives, friends’ parents, prep school and college admissions stuff, etc.
My kid wrote thank you notes for all gifts until they left for college. Somehow the info on address placement still didn’t stick with them.
Continuing the cleaning theme, son texted “what do I use to clean the bathroom.” I refuse to text about cleaning bathrooms – only advice was order of operations – i.e. clean the sink first or with separate cloth (five guy apartment) and you’re smart, figure out the rest.
Apparently, all other parents gave the same advice. Later, son shared that on a lark these five “science” guys took a black light in the bathroom. He still thought it was hilarious.
Ewwwwwwww.
I had to look up Venmo. I recommend mothers check out the TV show “Younger” about a 42-year-old woman posing as a 28-yr-old. I won’t tell you the term I had to look up. (Not appropriate for mixed company.)
My kids write thank-you notes on auto-pilot. Most people in general don’t anymore. I meant the actual act of addressing the envelope, determining postage, and using the post office, mailing bills and correspondence, etc.
C’mon, keep it going! Some of these are hilarious. Let’s not turn it in to the typical CC bragging thread.
My kid couldn’t figure out how to open a can of soup (no pull tab) and was stymied by a jar lid that she couldn’t remove with her hands.
S1 had never seen a top-load washing machine before he went to school. The first load he did at school, he put his dirty laundry in the dryer and poured liquid detergent in it and turned it on.
Here’s one that will, I hope, make you laugh: at me. We stayed in a hotel when my children were 7 and 5, and when they were looking around the room, they asked why there was a surfboard in the closet. Actually, the thing was an ironing board; they had never seen one out at our house.
S1 (college junior) needed a pair of pants hemmed and I walked him through the process of dealing with a tailor. His only prior experience with dress pants was at Nordstrom where the on-duty tailor does it all for free. The wife sent him back this semester with a crock pot without showing him how to use it - odds are it will still be in the box in the spring.
D had to take a friend with her to show her how to use the ATM, then had to call us for her code.
None of my kids can do taxes. We’ll have to cross that bridge eventually.
So many of these are laugh out loud funny!
S2 and his best friend from HS (both college seniors) were hanging out at our house over this past semester break. H and I were out Christmas shopping when S calls and asks “how do I make coffee”? After getting over the shock that this is a real question, I explain the process – telling him where the filters and coffee are, how to fill the filter and then I tell him to fill the carafe with water and “put it in the coffee pot” and turn it on…
We get home several hours later. I ask “how was the coffee”? The boys said, it never worked. I looked at the coffee pot and sure enough they had filled the carafe with water and put it right back in the coffee pot - on the warmer!! There sat a full carafe of fresh water. If it wasn’t so funny, it would be scary!!
I was one of those moms that thought I was teaching my kids everything for life. I taught them how to cook, clean, do laundry, basic fiances, etc. Fast forward to my daughter 2nd job she got last year at Zaxby. The job made a mistake and didn’t put her direct deposit in her bank account. Instead they put it on an employee pay card.
1st She went store to store wondering why her card didn’t work. She gets home and tell me her card isn’t working and she need to call to get a new one. I looked at the card and there isn’t a Visa or Mastercard logo. She still had no idea what I was talking about. I had to show her my debit and credit cards and explain to her that the logos are needed to use the card in the stores.
2nd This crazy girl try to withdraw $5 from the ATM machine. She had me drive to 2 different ATMs because she assumed the 1st one didn’t have money or broke because she couldn’t get money out of it. By the second one I knew she was doing something wrong. The look I gave her when I figured out she was trying to get $5. lol
I went to the ATM with my D in the car with me, yesterday, and she asked if I’d get some cash for her, too, and gave me her debit card. She then said, Can you get some 1s and 5s instead of all 20s? Um, no, I can’t.
D- Why doesn’t the bank have fives and ones?
Me- Oh the bank does - the ATM machine does NOT.
This is a story about my nephew (not that my kids are any smarter). N came home on fall break freshman year. My sister noticed that his clothes didn’t look particularly clean. She didn’t say anything for at first, but after looking at stained shirts for several days, she tactfully suggested that he might want to try a different detergent. Detergent? I need detergent?? N had been doing his own laundry at home for years, detergent and all. At college, N thought that with the outrageous price he had to pay to use the machine ($1 or so per load), detergent was automatically included and it came out of some unseen pipe in the washer.
That seems logical, and a great idea!
I’m learning so much – employee payroll cards!
@rosered55 My preschooler gave her teacher a good chuckle. She used the iron in the housekeeping area as a teapot. Boy was I embarrassed that my secret of never ironing anything got out. Not that I was really fooling anyone…