MODERN FAMILY
I OFTEN find myself wishing I had listened to my gran more when she tried to teach me all those basic domestic skills that would come in so handy today.
This mainly happens when I am trying to darn a sock or make biscuits for the school fair.
Back then the future didn’t really enter my head as I munched greedily on the piping-hot pancakes that had been spread with her extra-special homemade strawberry jam just seconds after coming off the griddle.
Just one look at the way the badges on my younger son’s Beavers outfit have been sewn on shows that, as well as with cooking and baking, I definitely didn’t pay enough attention to her demonstration of sewing skills either.
It is very little surprise then that recent research suggests mums are no longer passing on many basic domestic skills to their kids.
The problem is that I don’t have many to pass on.
In the past when children of any age needed to know how to perform basic domestic tasks from sewing on buttons to getting stains out of clothes they’d ask their mums.
Now my sons (and husband) bypass me to consult Mr G. Oogle.
That wealth of everyday practical know-how is either being lost because it’s not relevant to modern life or because it can be found on the internet.
Letter-writing, how to sew, washing up, ironing, and how to spring-clean are among the things mothers aren’t teaching their offspring anymore.
Organising the laundry and making “proper” gravy, cakes, and biscuits are also on the list of skills casualties.
The Addis Housewares study found more than half of mums just don’t have the time to teach their kids domestic know-how.
I also think it is because a lot of these skills, like crocheting and polishing silverware, face extinction because they are outdated and not relevant to today’s society.
Who has silver that needs to be polished nowadays?
Like most of the parents questioned in the research I have to agree that looking after money, plus cooking and moral values, are the most important basic skills you can teach your children.
Being a parent, though, is about preparing children for life so some of these skills, like cooking, are important, but it is also about being a good role model, learning that it is important to help others, to listen and be compassionate.
It might be better for everyone concerned if these were the skills I concentrate on, and we will continue to ask their grandmother for help with the badge-sewing and sock-darning – maybe they will listen to her more than I listened to mine.