Mending Our Time

The other day, I was reading a snippet of an article from the magazine, “Good Housekeeping” back in 2018 and it stated…

Most millennials (aged 18 to 34) have admitted they only knew how to do 11 out of our 18 once-essential household skills. Perhaps unsurprising, as Home Economics has been scrapped as a GCSE in favour of ICT, and fast fashion and easy electricals have become mainstream.

It was only a snippet, so I don’t know what those 18 skills were, but would you agree? I found myself sitting in that thought for a minute. It went on to discuss that millennials are busy with schoolwork, sports practices, music lessons, and the focus is on the kids’ activities, not what needs to be done around the house.

I sat a little longer.

I started to think about how our grandparents lived. Oh so differently in so many ways. They updated things here and there, but pretty much their decor stayed the same. I visited with our elderly neighbor the other day and some of her decor is just as old as she is (she’s well into her 80s), but that is what she values! And it was BEAUTIFUL; even Mazy couldn’t believe what she all had, as it all told a story. A story that she welcomed us into.

Everything had value to her. Many of the items she made or used at some point in time. Things that were non-disposable. Yet now-a-days, it’s all about a “refresh”. Sprucing up. But are we spending more time on what our homes look like than what we are doing in them? Is it more about entertaining and showing what we can do, than hospitality that says, let me walk with you as you step into our home?

Our focus has shifted, hasn’t it? From learning life skills to showcasing, in a way. Guilty as charged! We’ve been busy updating our home since the day we moved in, in 2017. Now granted it’s a 100 year old home, so some things need to be tended to in order for it to keep going, but we too, fall into this.

Think back again to your grandparents. They knew how to sew. Darn socks. Sew on a button. Cook a mean meal. Iron like a machine. Knit a new dishcloth. You’d think we’d have OODLES of time on our hands, but in fact, I think, we often think, we have less. We have microwaves to heat up our food. We have washing machines and dryers instead of washboards and clotheslines. We have refrigerators instead of cellars (okay we have those too, but how many of us store food in them?). And oh man, we also have DISHWASHERS. I remember standing in the left corner of our kitchen at my parent’s home, drying dishes after my mom washed them. I can still hear the suction sound while she was washing our cups!

WE HAVE IT SO EASY. And yet our lives feel just as complicated, busy, and stressed – if not MORE.

I don’t have the right answer. I don’t even know IF I have an answer. But sometimes just sitting, wondering, and pondering is enough. This has really made me think. What am I teaching our daughter who is now 10? When she leaves our home, will she only know how to jump in the car to go to something, practice whatever she is into, how to turn on the TV, and maybe how to unload the dishwasher? I know I’ve got time, but a motto we are living by this summer, which I’m sure she’s sick of me saying already, is “work hard, play hard.”

There is work that needs to be done, then we can play. But in doing that work together, my hope is that she will learn some of the life skills needed to succeed in life. She is slowly learning to crochet, she’s learning how to vacuum (amazingly there is a right and wrong way – don’t go willy nilly, go in lines), she knows where the dishes go (though she needs to grow a few inches yet), crack an egg, and her folding of clothes is a work in progress, but I don’t want her to leave our home not knowing some of these essential life skills. And these maybe aren’t even part of the 18! But I have been challenged by this idea. What is the purpose of our homes?

We have more time than ever compared to our grandparents, and yet we feel we have less.

How can we mend this? (no pun intended)

I’d love to hear your thoughts…

What’s a lost art these days? What do you wish kids would know how to do? What is one thing you appreciated about your grandparents and how they lived?