How
About Teaching Home-Living?
I’m going to take a break this week from talking about politics to deal
with something that’s off the beaten path.
The other week, my good friend and former fellow Shocknet Radio
personality John Mill shared a post on Facebook that suggested that several courses
should be mandatory for students to take in high school. These included accounting, money management,
doing taxes, how to build and keep good credit, establishing a job or career,
proper nutrition, self-defense, and that they should be obligated to be fluent
in at least one language other than English.
Now I remember from my years in high school that there were some of these
classes, but not many of them. Learning
another language was droned in on me, certainly, and I actually learned two
other languages at the time, namely French and BASIC programming. (If you think about it,
computer language is still another form of language.) I fumbled with both, but I still knew just
enough to be dangerous. But other than
that, the rest were not mandatory, and I think some of them really should be
for all students in school. Along with
one other...
Basic home-living.
Yes, I know, some schools have what they call “home economics”, but
that’s not mandatory, and, from its inception, it
was designed for young women so they could become better housewives and
mothers. Not exactly keeping up with the
times. And it’s not exactly a “cool”
course to take. Guys would rather learn
how to tune a car or build a birdhouse than to learn how to cook and
clean. And the idea of making better
housewives doesn’t really appeal to young women looking to make a career first
and a family later on. Plus, most
households need at least two incomes to survive. It’s the 21st Century. Deal with it.
Fortunately for me, my mother was smart enough to know that if I was
going to college, I should first know some of these basic things. She taught me how to use a washer and
dryer. She taught me how to use a vacuum
cleaner. She impressed on me the idea
that I should clean up after myself, and not just because she “said so”.
Needless to say, when I got to college and started living in the
dormitory, I knew how to take care of myself on my own. The same cannot be said of other students,
though. Every year at the start of the
new class year, we would find out quickly which of these “smart people” had no
idea how to wash their own clothes. We
would know because they’d leave their still-dirty-but-very-wet clothes in the
washer, or their dry-but-still-dirty clothes in the dryer all day. Or they’d have soap suds all over the laundry
room because they put in a whole container of detergent instead of a little
bit. (Keep in mind that this
was long before those laundry pods were even an idea, never mind a stupid Internet
dare.)
Now I’m sure you’re thinking “okay, these are stupid young adults who
think they know everything. They’ll grow
up and figure this stuff out.”
And, you’re right. Some of them
did just that.
But now, decades later, I’m still seeing grown adults who don’t know how
to do laundry, or how to do basic housekeeping tasks. And this isn’t just at their home. There are people in the workplace who don’t know
how to replace a paper towel roll, or change out a toilet paper roll, or even
clean up after themselves. They expect
other people to do that sort of stuff for them.
Let’s get brutally honest here... the goal of both parenting and
education is to prepare the would-be-adults for the rigors of the real
world. That’s more than just reading and
writing and how to catch a football. If
your child or your student does not know how to handle all of the rigors of the
real world, and not just the “popular” ones, then you have failed.
How many of you know how to cook your own meals? And I’m not talking about putting a frozen
meal in a microwave or ordering take-out.
I’m talking hot stove, skillet, boiling liquids, cutting board, knives,
measuring, chopping, marinating, seasoning, and, later, washing everything in
the sink so you can do it all over again the next day. You don’t have to be a “Master Chef” or even
a “chef” to know these things.
And yet... when I tell people what I’m cooking, they get amazed like
suddenly I have this great talent. It’s
not talent! It’s a survival skill. It’s something that I had to learn so I
wouldn’t go broke eating delivered pizza and microwave dinners. I’m not a chef. I’m just some guy who needs to eat like
everyone else.
I had to learn how to shop for groceries, and not just loading up on
microwave dinners and Hot Pockets and soda.
I had to figure out how much stuff would cost so I wouldn’t go over what
I had in my wallet. I had to learn how to
prioritize expenses. What’s more
important: paying the utilities for the month, or going to some convention in
town? Do I buy food, or do I get that
new game console?
I had to learn these on my own.
But I also know that there are some folks who still don’t know how to do
these things. And we’re talking grown
adults with children and even grandchildren.
It shouldn’t be trial-and-error, and we also shouldn’t just presume that
every parent teaches these things to their kids.
And, like I said, it’s not just something for home. I’ve known plenty of grownups who are in
their thirties and forties and even fifties that act like they’re still fifteen
and expect their mom to clean up after them at work. They don’t change a paper towel roll, they
leave used paper plates and plastic silverware everywhere, they leave microwave
ovens a complete mess after using them, they leave refrigerator and freezer
doors open, and, if they weren’t married, I wouldn’t be surprised if they
didn’t have any clean clothes to wear.
Now housekeeping at work is not just a personal preference. It is a matter of workplace safety. A messy work area is not just a mess; it’s
also a fire and safety hazard. And
leaving a mess in the break room, where people eat, is a potential health
hazard. You leave food and food debris on
the tables and counters, and it attracts ants and cockroaches. You leave the microwave full of food debris
and you are leaving rotting food where other people put their own food in to
heat up and then eat. Cross-contamination
can leave a lot of people sick, and, with health insurance costs as insanely
greedy as they are, no workplace would want that kind of headache.
That’s why I think basic home-living should be a required course for
every student in America. People need to
know how to live on their own, even if they never end up doing it.
I understand that public education in America has been under aggressive
assault by conservatives. Teachers are
struggling to make ends meet as well as deal with ever-dwindling budgets for
needed supplies. I get it. Join the club. That’s a subject in-and-of-itself for another
time. But I think requiring basic home-living
is a matter of priorities. You tell me
which is more important in the long-run: knowing how to live on your own
without going hungry or bankrupt, or getting new bleachers for your football
stadium?
It is high time that we accept that this is not America in the 1950’s,
and being a housewife is no longer a “career” choice for people. If we are going to expect both parents to work
and have the children brought up by the education system, then being able to
take care of yourself beyond just reading, writing, and math needs to be their
responsibility as well.
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