Basic Life Skills No-One Has Anymore

[chainer1216]

I'm not so good with the wending of cloths, but otherwise I'm fairly self-sufficient. i've known how to sharpen knives for literally as long as i can remember, i can cook pretty much anything you put in front of me, and hell, with the right spices and stuff it might even taste good!

i camped a lot as a kid and ended up becoming something of a survivalist.

 

[himemiya1650]

Truthfully its a skill that no one cares about, if required we could always youtube or wikihow to do stuff. Although I learned most of the skills that you talked about by the time I was 10 as well.

 

[Lineoutt]

Hmm I am probably missing a lot but my school taught me pretty much all the life skills i know today.

I'm probably missing something important but I can: mend clothing, cook, clean, operate washer/dryer/car/computer, wash clothes by hand, farm, and a bunch of other shit i cant be bothered to think of and write down.

My point is though, parents don't tend to teach these things and they arent basic life skills anymore. I just went to a hippie school so I know them, but really, when am I ever going to need to farm. xP

 

[lightningmagurn]

I frequently ask the same question but with more of a focus on survival skills, values, woodsmanship, and weapons profciency. Not only can I track an animal I can kill it. I can build shelters and fires. I am 16. I hate many from my generaton. I think that Boy Scouts does a good job of teaching skills like those you talk about.

 

[rees263]

To take the examples from the first post:

Yes I can fry an egg. In fact I pride myself on my ability to cook eggs in all sorts of ways very well (2 years of living on the damn things at Uni).

Yes I can sharpen a knife. I used to work as a fish monger so I know my way around a knife and a fish.

Mending socks... hell no. Not something I ever intend to learn. Not only can I not be bothered (£1 for 7 pairs of socks - why bother repairing any?).

I think I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself. I learnt a lot of what I need to know after moving away to university and if there's something I don't know I'm fairly confident of being able to learn it when I need it.

 

[dariuskyne]

Basic skills, okay really they're skills that are good to know, basic sewing, how to do minor general repairs (rudimentary mechanical skilld like righty tighty / lefty loosey) but I think the main reason that there is a loss of "basic skills" is what everyone else is saying. Modernization forces people to take items to repair shops, and there is alot of "disposable" items (clothing and the like) since they can be made cheaper by 3rd world sweatshop labor, and sold through discount stores like walmart, the quality isn't as good, but when you're paying less for a shirt you normally pay twice to three times as much for, you care a bit less about buying new instead of fixing it.

It really surprises me how many people do not know how to change a flat tire on a car, as in jack the car up, remove the lugnuts, take off flat, put on spare tire, put back on lugnuts and be on their way... they'd rather call a tow truck out and pay the call fee to have the tow guy do it.

Maybe it's because I believe that if you own something, you should know at least something about it, even if it's just general knowledge of it's upkeep, thus why I can chang my own tire, do basic service on the car (oil changes, spark plugs, tranmission fluid change, etc) why I can repair my computer if it breaks (went to school for computer repair, and learned nothing new, all the skills they taught I had already learned through self-study) I know basic wiring and a modicum of electronics repair, how to sew, how to knit, gardening and growing plants, etc.

 

[missedstations]

My (female) cousin knows neither how to use a washing machine, an iron, a dishwasher, or a cooker. Her mother does everything for her. I was... Horrified! She's 19 now, she has no intention of moving out of home nor of learning those things. Basically, my aunt and my grandparents spoil her horribly. She never needed to learn if there is always someone to do it for her. :/

Please tell me that wasn't basically saying that's all that women should know how to do, since every one of those is a stereotypical housewife chore. I'm male and I hate sexist fucks who think like that.

No, if my male cousin - her brother - was equally incapable, I'd be just as horrified. He can at least fry an egg and wash a few dishes. But she! Oh my god. As soon as she has a problem, she gets on the phone to her mother, even for inane little things as to where her clean socks are. I honestly am starting to want to bash her brain in, and I have no idea how I survived sharing a room with her. She simply waits to be served and has no intention of helping anyone with anything.

It especially pisses me off that she makes more work for my grandmother, who had a stroke last year and is having more and more difficulty running a house with eight people in it.

My cousin's gender is not really an issue here, it's the fact that she thinks that it's everyone else's place to do things for her.

 

[Eternalsun]

Parents teach me some stuff like cook basic food but not mend clothes

 

[dariuskyne]

to correct people who keep saying that farming isn't hard...

why aren't you doing it then?

farming is highly labour intensive, i mean real farming, not going out back to your tomato plant in your back yard (which is called gardening by the way), i'm talking 40 acres of corn, 20 of legumes, 50 for cattle, etc, etc, that you and typically 3-5 other guys handle every day, the care of cattle alone is a huge amount of work, depending on type of cattle, milk producing or meat cattle? and the knowledge of when to plant certain seed at certain times in a season, and you have to do soil testing, making certain that your crops CAN even grow in your soil, make certain the your equipment is kept sterile (you are producing food for the masses after all) and most farmers double as their own mechanics and the good ones even know vetinary skills, they fix anything that breaks on the farm. the average farmer has a higher skillset than most people on the planet, most of their equipment is now computerized, but there is still tons of labor intensive things, a computerized tractor isn't going to put up a fence, fix a roof of a silo, etc.
your average farmer nowadays knows computers, mechanics, vetinary, energy conservation (alot of them make their own bio diesel for their tractors),and tons other skills which equate to alot more than "poke hole in dirt, put seed in" that most think they do.

so the next time you think farming is easy, go work at one, doing everything the farmer does.

 

[Deathkingo]

I can cook complicated dishes, I know how to clean, I can maintain machinery, And I can aim and accurately fire guns.

I can build a shelter, I can make a fire assuming I have access to a math or a fire source.
I can dissemble and reassemble a computer.
Uhhh...
I can sew...
I can do a martial art very effectively.
Only one of those was passed down.


I can repair some electronics... I can hunt...

I...uh... I repair general things... Assuming There's duct tape and underwear near by....(There's a reason for the underwear)

Oh and I can fix most things regarding wood.


That being said, I can do them, I just rarely ever actually do it.

Preparing for a zombie invasion, are we?

As easy as it is to blame the parents for not passing these things down, I really thing that it is more the kid's fault. I mean, we live in an age where information can be obtained relatively easy, and if someone really wanted to know how to whet a knife, they could simply look it up on the internet, or in one of those old things with pages and words.

 

[TehCookie]

to correct people who keep saying that farming isn't hard...

why aren't you doing it then?

farming is highly labour intensive, i mean real farming, not going out back to your tomato plant in your back yard (which is called gardening by the way), i'm talking 40 acres of corn, 20 of legumes, 50 for cattle, etc, etc, that you and typically 3-5 other guys handle every day, the care of cattle alone is a huge amount of work, depending on type of cattle, milk producing or meat cattle? and the knowledge of when to plant certain seed at certain times in a season, and you have to do soil testing, making certain that your crops CAN even grow in your soil, make certain the your equipment is kept sterile (you are producing food for the masses after all) and most farmers double as their own mechanics and the good ones even know vetinary skills, they fix anything that breaks on the farm. the average farmer has a higher skillset than most people on the planet, most of their equipment is now computerized, but there is still tons of labor intensive things, a computerized tractor isn't going to put up a fence, fix a roof of a silo, etc.
your average farmer nowadays knows computers, mechanics, vetinary, energy conservation (alot of them make their own bio diesel for their tractors),and tons other skills which equate to alot more than "poke hole in dirt, put seed in" that most think they do.

so the next time you think farming is easy, go work at one, doing everything the farmer does.

I'm not sure if the person meant commercial farming, they could mean having their own little garden in their yard. Growing a few cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce does not require much skill, but some people still can't do it.

 

[tkioz]

Probably the same reason you don't know how to skin an animal or something.

I actually do. I also know how to butcher an animal, set a snare, etc.

 

[omega 616]

Probably the same reason you don't know how to skin an animal or something.

I actually do. I also know how to butcher an animal, set a snare, etc.

I am not saying nobody knows, of course theres going to be people on here who can do that stuff, theres also going to be people who can tell you everything you ever want to know about WW2 or how to make a toilet blow up when flushed.

Thats what I am driving at, alot of our knowledge is shared but we all know stuff some people don't know, like one of them ven diagrams (I think, you know the ones with the circles and some overlap?)

 

[RobfromtheGulag]

Technology definitely changes things. Life skills like plowing a field or fishing aren't really inherent in our society anymore either.

I don't know too many people that opt for a whetstone over one of those contraptions for kitchen knives (hobbyists are different), but fixing a sock; just buy more. Sure it's wasteful, but the time to money ratio makes it worthwhile for most people. If you really want to be conservative you can save the sock as a cleaning rag for dirty jobs later.

It goes both ways of course, seeing as grandma who you rely on to hem your pants probably isn't real' savvy on the computers.

 

[Comma-Kazie]

In the digital age? The ability to write a letter.