When I was a pre-teen and later a teenager, it was determined that I was deeply lacking in vital life skills. These skills were specifically female and constituted an essential part of becoming a successful Southern Russian wife and mother.
Many decades before, my Don Cossack great-grandmother had to sew several elaborate dresses for herself as a dowry. These dresses would be displayed during the wedding to demonstrate the awesomeness of the bride. In Soviet Russia, Cossack dresses were no longer a thing, but the idea of passing essential milestones in preparation for becoming a successful wife and mother still lingered. Instead of embroidered gowns, we now had to prove our suitability by acquiring a set of skills that would surely guarantee our womanly success.
In elementary school, it was scrapbooking. Paper was cheap. Pens were cheap. Craft materials were not, nor were they readily available, so the majority of special projects we had to do consisted of getting an “album,” a watercolor notebook about the size of a typical piece of print paper, cutting things out of postcards, magazines, and newspapers, and gluing them in a pretty way. This was accompanied by paragraphs of explanatory text written in the best handwriting possible and finished off by calligraphic heading.
Lenin’s birthday coming out – everybody makes a Lenin album. May 9th, the day of Nazi Germany’s surrender and the official end of WWII in Russia – everybody makes an album. February 23rd, the official Armed Forces Day – everybody makes an album. And universe help you if your album has a fingerprint somewhere or if your writing is crooked, because it will be held up in front of the class and ridiculed, because everything was turned into a competition. Boys got a pass, but you were not a proper girl unless you could make a pretty album.
Do you know how boring it is to make a fiddly scrapbooking album when you are eight years old? The stupid albums generated such a staggering amount of stress, I still vividly remember my mother helping me make them late at night, while I cried and she chewed me out for not doing things correctly.
The scrapbooking insidiously wormed its way back into my life in middle school, when “anketa” became popular. An anketa was basically a little notebook, which you would decorate with flowers cut out of greeting cards. The first page would have a survey and you would push this thing on all of your “friends,” so they could prettily fill it out. The more glitter you used, the better.
As the result of this and industrial shortages, markers became highly prized. All markers were called flomaster, and a good set avaialble for purchase would generate a line of teens around the block. It’s now been years and years, but to this day, I have a hard time passing by glittery gel pens. Something deep inside tells me that this is treasure and it might disappear if I don’t buy it. 🙂
The anketas were a way to discriminate. People would push their anketas onto popular kids and getting an invite from one of them to fill out their anketas was a big deal. I tried my best for a bit and then realized that this was a) boring because I wasn’t that popular and b) stupid because my mother asked me why in the world would I be giving other girls ammunition by telling them private things about myself. My decision to bow out was met with great scorn. 😉
I have continued on my merry way of failing various female milestones. When I attempted to sew an apron, I was told by a well-meaning but deeply tone deaf economics teacher that I sewed it the way a cow pees on the road – backward. This was said in the ear shot of my nemesis who smirked and then proceeded to tell everyone about it. In all fairness, she made a way prettier apron. I lost track of her after she dropped out after 8th grade and enrolled into a factory seamstress school. Sewing was clearly her calling. I hope she is doing well.
I had a hard time making a pretty vinegret salad.
I was eleven and my knife skills weren’t great. My knitting was a mess. Unsurprisingly, I did well in shop class, because my grandfather built things with his hands and since he mostly raised me while my parents worked, I am good with a saw and a hand planer. I saw the mechanical one in a home improvement show and it blew my mind. Somehow I have never realized that it was a thing. Sadly, shop talents didn’t count.
As I have raised two daughters to adulthood, it occurred to me how few of these skills are actually useful now. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy knitting and I can make spiffy flower arrangements and cook elaborate pretty dishes. My charcuterie board has no chill. I can sew now, although I do it the way other people make war. But I learned these skills mostly because I wanted to. They are hobbies. I still suck at calligraphy and have the greatest respect for anyone who can make a pretty scrapbook. My point is, none of these supposedly important talents were really required to “woman” successfully, whatever that might mean.
There are so many other skills more vital to being a capable woman, whether you were born a woman or journeyed to becoming one, and these skills are not gender specific. They just help you be a well-rounded person. Being able to cook for yourself. Knowing what the simple common health problems are and being able to administer the right over the counter medicine and first aid. Being able to budget. Being able to identify common car problems.
Why did we do this to ourselves?
I am so glad my kids never had to make Lenin albums. They can both cook. They both know what to do when waring lights in the car come on. They understand that cold medicine often contains acetaminophen and shouldn’t be taken with Tylenol. They know not to ignore their own health and mental problems. They know how interest rates work. I am satisfied with that.
And if they ever show an interest in glittery gel pens, I will open up my secret stash and dazzle their minds.
Am i first to post?
Yes 🙂
First!
and i got a reply ! 🙂 there’s always a first time 🙂 thank you !
My mom grew up in Kiev, and learned all of the skills. She can sew and knit and apparently had to learn to take apart a gun whilst being timed.
I came to the US when I was 5 so I didn’t have that upbringings I was lucky enough to take HomeEc in middle school, and it was required for everyone (regardless of gender). We learned the basics of sewing, baking, and cooking, but also how to budget and balance a checkbook and a bunch of other life skills. Sure, my mother despaired of my terrible quilt pillow (she would have been able to sew such a thing at age 6. With her eyes closed), but when quarantine happened, I bought a sewing machine. I learned that I still remember how to sew and could follow a pattern and make masks. And when that got old, a full Outlander costume.
I’m really happy that I learned all of these things. Cooking and baking let me put away the stresses of my job and the pandemic and focus on something I can control. The bread rises and I can feed the people I love. However, a lot of my friends never had these classes and apparently they are no longer offered in a lot of places.
Unpopular opinion—makes me so sad. Make it a more rounded class. Call it something else. But I think everyone (regardless of their gender) should know how to feed themselves, sew on a button, and learn the basics of money.
When I was in school, everyone was required to take both Home Economics and Shop Class. Home Ec included sewing, cooking and family management (I think, it’s been decades). The family part was not as informative as it could’ve been. We were told about eating disorders then given less than helpful info about dealing with them. They also provided limited as well as outdated info about family planning. No banking, budgeting or anything else financially based which was most definitely a missed opportunity.
Shop class included wood, metal and draft classes. I did well enough in the first two but can’t draw a straight line with a ruler. Drafting was my personal Hell. But I’ll give my school credit for having both sets of classes set up as coed. Everyone should know how to cook, clean, sew (even if only a button repair), and to use tools safely. I only wish they’d included clothes washing (not everyone learns that at home), personal finance and basic car care & repair.
I’m an American Boomer. When I reached high school Home Economics as it was still called, I had been sewing and cooking with my mom for years. My dad’s only home repair tool was submarine epoxy, used on antique chairs, glass vases, anything broken. We stopped asking him. I went to the vice principal to request Shop because I wanted to learn how to use tools. I didn’t think being the only girl in the class was a problem and I swear didn’t consider it as a possible bonus. No! Utterly unthinkable! When my sisters 5 and 7 years younger reached high school, the girls took a semester each of Home Ec and Shop; the boys took Shop and “Chef”, although the latter included sewing fuzzy brown faux fur football shaped pillows as well as learning to make pizza. I’ve never quite forgiven that vice principal for making me cook creamed spinach instead of making bookends.
My son is in 6th grade this year. He took Family & Consumer Science as one of his electives. They learned several fun and age appropriate recipes, along with food safety and other related stuff. I understand 7th grade covers sewing and other skills.
Well, technically Ilona was the first to post. You were the first to comment. 😛
Love what you said. I can’t cook, and I hate washing, and none of that define me and who I am. Or what to be known for.
Our Anketas were called Oracles.
I started mine with a (golden glitter) poem about how I wanted to be a tree outside my crush’s window so I could watch him all day *dies of mortified Mod*.
Yeah, the news made it to him :P. Don’t give pre-teens any ammo.
Haha ????
Not very funny at the moment I’m sure, but it’s cute !!
Ours were called oracles too (“oracole” – I’m Romanian). I thankfully didn’t share mine around nor wrote in many, and when I did it was silly things that wouldn’t get me in trouble. My friends all called me boring for it, but they all got into so much drama because of those things while I just peacefully enjoyed the show hehe
In India, we called them slambooks. And getting them out to”friends” for signatures etc was a painful exercise.
I grew up in the States, and where I lived, the girls would make “slam books” too. It was a weird masochistic form of self-inflicted bullying. Totally awful. Why we ever thought giving people an anonymous way to insult each other would be good?
So, being another US person, does anyone else remember your high school yearbooks and getting people to sign them? Not quite the same thing, except for how exciting to have a ‘popular’ or upperclassman sign them. Looking back (before I threw them away when we moved the last time), how many of the sentiments were the same for those who didn’t know me – ‘hope you have a wonderful life’ or ‘you are 2 great 2 be 4gotten’ (the latter being particularly popular to write!). Thanks for sharing the memories, Ilona!
I am still scarred from those yearbooks – 35 years later!
I’m another boomer (1952). It never occurred to me to have the popular girls sign my yearbook. I wanted the guys who took Electronics with me, my friends in Band, and those special few who shared my obsession with horses, science fiction, and fantasy.
In Germany we called them „Poetry Book“ (Poesiebuch). Don’t ask me why, it sure as hell wasn’t poetry we wrote in there. And my handwriting was so bad (meaning it didn’t look beautiful, which was all right for the boys, but not for a girl) that it was mostly my grandma who did the writing for me. Well, thinking about it, she did the decorations, too ????.
Nope, I wasn’t a „proper“ girl either…. ????
In Austria we called them Poesiebuch as well.
And we did write poems in it. Short and funny poems. This one I recall from the top of my hat:
Lebe lustig, lebe heiter wie der Spatz am Blitzableiter.
It translates to something like that: Live funny, live cheerful like the sparrow on the lightning rod.
I fully agree that there are certain skills which are fundamentally importat for girls and boys. Everybody should be able to take care of themselves. Unfortunately Basic Life skills and common sense are pretty rare these days.
Keeping private things to yourself and not giving bullies ammo is probably some of the best advice Ilona’s mother gave her teenage daughter. It’s still good advice to keep in mind when posting on social media now.
I think we called ours Slam Books, and I hated them, lol.
For me it’s cleaning. Mom was a housewife and kept the house nice and clean. I have the excuse that I work and I’m single so I don’t have as much time for housework, but even when I do have time, there are other things I’d rather do. I make enough now that I could hire a maid service, but I first need to clean the house because it’s a mess, and yes that sounds weird.
I do wish I had helped her more with cooking so I could do more now, but I can follow a recipe, so that doesn’t bother me too much.
The thing I actually wish I had stuck with was piano lessons. I didn’t particularly enjoy lessons when a kid because it felt awkward, but after typing my entire adult life — and typing without looking at the keys, thankyouverymuch — I bet I could play the piano really well now if I took a few lessons.
This so much this “I could hire a maid service, but I first need to clean the house because it’s a mess, and yes that sounds weird.” When your house is just that much of a pit that you clean to clean it first not to embarrass yourself. I did actually have a teenager helping me with cleaning before Covid, but she moved and then I’ve been to lazy to put back up my ad at the post office.
Yep, I moved several months ago–a mobile home, so moved with some things packed, but everything still in the house. I couldn’t actually move in for almost two months due to problems getting inspections done and water/power/sewer hooked up, so the house sat empty and collecting dust during that time. Still not all unpacked and the house is a pit. I could hire someone, but it’s so awful I can’t even contemplate letting anyone in…unless I clean first. And I hate cleaning, I’d rather build a bookshelf or a table or even a bed frame, things I’m good at. I don’t know whether to laugh or bang my head on the wall. Maybe I’ll just go read.
In the process of packing everything up now. In the depths of omg why so I have all this stuff I thought s mobile home would be awesome cuZ then I wouldn’t have to pack everything! Sounds like it’s not that simple! Ha!
I can totally relate.
My basement flooded last year and have a lot of the stuff that we were able to save in our living room, so it is a complete embarrassment for anyone to see. We are nearing the end of the remodel down their, but bookcases still need to be finished.
I work for 2 girls with a cleaning service, their motto/logo says “Don’t worry, we’ve seen worse!”
Lol! And I don’t like cleaning my own place, no one pays me for that!
This makes me so very very happy. I feel like that ought to be my motto as a preschool teacher ????????????.
My sister-in-law was a teacher for many years, mostly 2nd and 3rd grade (that’s approximately ages 7 and 8). After a few years she learned to take stories with a grain of salt. So at Back To School Night, she would tell the parents that she’d make a deal: if they agreed not to believe most of what the kids told their parents about her, she agreed not to believe most of what the kids told her about their parents 😉
I used to pick up before the house cleaner showed up. I had given up doing that though. My house may be messy but it’s not dirty. I can live with that.
My parents gave us all piano lessons. It was a chore when I was younger. But once I was in high school, I decided I would like to continue with lessons. Found my own teacher, paid with my own money. It’s amazing how much more motivated I was when it’s something I decided I want to do.
I recognise this
I just realy don’t care for doing housework so it tends to get postponed for however long until I realy realy reeealy feel I have to do something other than cooking – which I like; doing laundry wich I don’t mind – though clean laundry might stay on the line for a week or end up in a pile that could last some time and I seldome iron and dishwashing – which I luckily have a machine for these days
Hey, you should do that, absolutely! Though the stroke is quite different, of course.
Let your house be cleaned and buy a piano – music is the greatest thing on earth! (At the moment you could even take lessons on the internet, not great, but better than nothing.)
Love from Germany
I’m lucky that I grew up with a mom that liked to do things like home improvement projects and a dad that liked cooking. It’s crazy that too often we still have people trying to make interests into one gender or another.
So cute thanks for sharing. We had and have friendship books here, they are a big deal in kindergarden and primary school woth you close friends… but we are also weak because I know none that is handmade 😀 maybe new insta moms make some…
Thanks for sharing your journey with these “feminine” pursuits and supporting all still on the way. As you say there is more to being a woman and more to being a well rounded person 🙂 enjoy your day!
I have glittery markers! Yes, my marker life is complete now. ????☺????
I think I was deaf when it came to womanly things I should know. I taught myself to cook and enjoy it. Cleaning can take a hike. I have never fit with what I was supposed to be and finally in my 70s it just doesn’t matter. Who should define what is a woman but me. There are things that all people should know and those we don’t shame people into learning.
me too
????????
Right on! ???? ????
Your post makes my skin tingle and my heart sing. So on board with this, and such an opportunity gap in my life!
Love this!
+1!
What a lovely story. I lived in Riga from 1995 until 1997 and completely appreciate your affection for glittery gel pens. My mother worried that I would never marry as I had no idea how to make biscuits (scones) from scratch and could not cut up a chicken. I did manage to marry despite these deficiencies in my character.
“Look, I found one. They are selling them now. What is this blasphemy? We made out own, you weaklings.”
I laughed very hard at that quote. Thank you for sharing this. I can so relate. <3
Love this. In home-ec class, I could cook and mend but I have a deficit that means I cant visualize pieces put together. A simple children’s puzzle would make me cry. Had my mom not stepped in and sewed my project, I’d still be there crying
Later in life I had a wonderful salesman tell me that I might not know what fork to use but I had street sense and it would serve me well. It did.
I pretty much did the same. Learned all the feminine arts growing up though I did have to take a class to learn how to knit. I was waiting for my knit-aholic mother to teach me, but by the time I was 19, I figured I needed to learn myself.
I had boys but they have still been taught the basic life skills just like thier father and his brother were for the same reason. My mother in law didn’t figure they were ever going to get married so they had to learn so they could take care of themselves.
My grandfather was the same way with his sons. They learned to cook, sew and clean because there were no guarantees there would ever be anyone to do it for them! Dad’s cooking could be ‘creative’.????
My family had a very different take on life skills. My grandmother sat me down during the summer after 3rd grade and announced she was going to teach me to type. Why? Because even though she made it very clear she expected me to go to college, she said that I should have a marketable skill so that I never needed to depend on a husband to support me, and if by chance the college education didn’t lead to a reliable job, there would always be work for secretaries.
She was right – being able to type 80 words per minute did in fact turn out to be useful when I was between technical jobs in the early 2000s. And with the advent of computers, it’s a generally useful background skill most of the time.
And the notion of being independent is really pretty amazingly forward thinking for a woman born in 1906.
Kudos to your grandmother!
+1
My mom also pushed the “Be able to support yourself” lessons. She said it was so that I would always be able to leave if I needed to. Dad insisted I learn to change the oil in my car. “Womanly” skills were those needed to be self-sufficient.
My mom told me to get a degree so that I could support myself “in case I married a lemon”.
I married a great guy and we support each other. (But I make more) …
I was the only female in our household until my late teens. Dad was chief cook, bottle washer, laundry mistress, etc. We all learned to cook, clean, tinker on mechanical things, sew on a button, yard work and whatever else needed to be done. It was an interesting childhood and we siblings acquired some pretty amazing life skills. Scrapbooking was not, and never will be, one of those skills????????! Just bought a new drill my brothers will never borrow – it’s Breast Cancer Awareness PINK.
I never cared, I wasn’t popular anyway, so I took mechanics (and got an A) , I have maintained my own house for over 40 years, and my rentals too. There is dust on my floors, and my windows are streaked, but I am content.
My “woman”skills failed when I was 5 and my parents found a Victorian dollhouse at a yard sale and presented it to me with great excitement. Being the granddaughter of ranchers, I immediately threw a blanket over the roof and rode it like a ‘horsey!’ The only doll I ever played with was a stuffed Raggedy Ann that was as big as me, and I could dance with her all around the living room. I agree with Ilona. Learning survival skills like changing flat tires, parallel parking, keeping a balanced checkbook, etc., are skills that cross all gender lines and cut down on a lot of frustration. Thankfully for my Mom, my younger sister had all the ‘girlie’ traits she felt girl-child’s of the fifties needed.
You’ve done a phenomenal job. Way better than a lot of parents. Well done!
I loved reading this. Thank you!
Oh man, Japanese stationary stores must make you go giddy. I went in one in San Francisco’s Japantown back in 2000 and came out with a stashful of glittery gel pens. They blew my mind. Since childhood I have a thing for collecting stationary. When the Sanrio store came to town in Mexico…oh boy.
I gotta hand it to my mom though. Because she knew how to use a sewing machine, she made me an almost exact replica of 1960’s rock star Barbie derss used for a Halloween costume in satiny fuschia and white, as well as a gorgeous ‘princess’ skirt and paper & glitter crown another year. That was how she showed her love, by being frugal and making anything she could. She got successful at gifting/selling painted shirts and sweaters when they were in vogue late 80’s-early 90’s.
If I ever have a daughter, I’ll be happy buying her any of her choice dress off the rack at TJ Maxx (jealous).
Washi tape. Just say no.
Washi tape…rarely met one i didn’t like/desire. Glittery pens meh but brush markers and fountain pens….as for cleaning id rather read.
Washi tape was definitely a new development I didn’t get exposed to (Phew)….except for all the NHK World channel features on Cool Japanese items.
But turns out when I train kung fu I have to wrap my left toes in duct tape to prevent them from dislocating (old injury, á la Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon) and when I discovered all the fun designs at CVS….woohoo!!
There is no no in the land of washi tape. I own a mountain and only want more…..I realize I have a problem????. I also own many many pens
I am also a failure as a woman (by Romanian standards) but I can fix pretty much anything around the house and kick ass in my job.
Luckly my fiance picks up the slack and does some of the “womanly” duties in our house.
I made a cake for my boss’s birthday once, and a Romanian co-worker informed me that now we could marry. Because I could make the cake.
Yep, that sounds reasonable. Romanians who grew up in small towns are still super traditional when it comes to gender roles. Women cook, clean and take care of the kids while the men fix stuff and go fishing.
Luckily I got engaged to a Norwegian. Vikings are big believers in gender equality 😀
I’m a Scandahoovian, Swedish and Norwegian great grandparents all emigrated to MN which may explain my Ikea addiction. I was born in 1956, my parents were somwhat gender oriented. Both my brother and I had the same chores, although once my allergies to everything green and growing kicked in, I was exempt from yard work, and learned to cook, clean and replace our own buttons. My sewing was basic. I can make curtains which is great for getting what you want for less money. My brother helped me build an 8 x 12 foot shed with ramp in the backyard to store my motorcycle. My shingles were swoopy. The funny thing is that my mom, the worst cook in the family, was the main cook because it was woman’s work. I was amazed when my dad invited me over for dinner while my Mom was back in Minnesota. He had made a beef tenderloin marinated in wine, served on a platter surrounded by twisted orange slice garnish, fancy butter basted baked potatoes which were vertically sliced almost all the way through and apple pie, was the only thing not made from scratch. He had found the food network on TV. Once my Mom got back, she went back to doing the cooking despite the fact that Dad had proved that he was much better at it.
Well it might have been different back in the day. My experience has been that Norwegians generally divide most of the household tasks and childrearing duties fairly equal. I cook most of the time but my fiance does all the laundry and ironing. I do most of the “fixing” of various appliances while he does more of the cleaning.
I was lucky because I was always helping my dad fix stuff around the house growing up so I picked up a lot of useful things. In my family everyone pitched in with whatever. My parents have a small IT business that my mom runs and my dad works under her. At home my dad is the handyman and my mom does the cooking but he always helps with cleaning, chopping stuff etc.
It made me want the same kind of dynamic in my relationships.
Unfortunately this is less common in Romania so that did lead to some “misunderstandings” with former partners on the nature of our relationship. They were eventually resolved by me politely showing them the exit. Parachute optional.
The potatoes you mentioned sounds like hasselback potatoes.
I was (still am) an utter failure at learning “women’s life skills”. My mother, bless her heart, tried her best, but I put in just enough effort to be able to honestly express my disinterest. She tried to teach me to sew – hemming jeans is important, especially when you’re short, and you can save money by making your own pillowcases or purses or whatever. My other girl cousin and I got kid sewing machines for christmas one year. I hated it – it was boring, frustrating, and I didn’t see the point. My mom enrolled us in knitting classes – I got halfway through a scarf and gave up – it was boring, and I didn’t see the point. She tried to teach my brother and I to cook by tasking us with preparing a single meal of anything we wanted to cook – we made the meal, it was fine, but what was the point? Cooking was boring and dangerous.
Of course, then I went off to college, and eventually moved into an apartment. Cooking became an essential skill, but it took a lot of time to accumulate enough skill to make anything I really wanted to eat. When I came back home for visits I paid more attention to how she cooked. Buttons fell off my winter coats, and I asked her how to sew them back on (and tried to pay enough attention to remember for later – naturally I forgot). I blew a tire while driving on an old sideroad and she came out to help me and teach me (again) how to change a tire.
I still can’t sew to save my life, but I have recently taken up knitting – partly inspired by seeing Ilona’s knitting projects and her talking about her love for yarn. I promptly give away everything I make, and it gives me joy to know that I made something that someone else is wearing/using. I follow indie yarn dyers on Instagram and obsess over the preeeeeeetty yarn. I can cook, though cooking meat still makes me nervous, and I like to try out new recipes.
I’m pretty sure I’m still a failure when it comes to womanly life skills, but as an adult I’ve come back around to a lot of things I refused to pick up or discarded while growing up. I’m thankful that my mom is still willing to teach me all the things I refused/failed to learn as a kid!
Lots of useless stuff was taught to young women in years past. Some was transitional into practical life but lots wasn’t. Why we had to collect and make albums of leaves in the fall I will never know.
They still teach useless stuff (geometry for example – which I hated and never have had a use for).
Hopefully glitter and markers are more available to youngsters now a days if they are still doing similar projects in class.
Hopefully, a lot more life skills – balancing a checkbook, investing your pennies, and the importance of enjoying little things in life we have been blessed with are being taught now.
Funny about geometry. I never understood geometry until I needed to figure out how much paint I needed to paint the living room. Also how long the bar on a loom had to be to make one long enough. Only class I ever got a D in was geometry… now I use it a dozen times a year. (How many tile do I need to tile the bathroom floors and walls).
If you think geometry is useless don’t ever shoot pool, or play ping pong or tennis.
Etc etc. etc.
Or quilt.
Have you heard of alcohol markers? A friend of mine told me about them and they color like watercolors, in the sense that it looks like you painted it. Very cool.
Thank you for this post. So much of the stuff that’s pushed on us when we’re younger ironically doesn’t really matter as much when we’re adults. Especially the things that established popularity pecking order. When I was a kid, it was the number of Beanie Babies you owned, which I didn’t. Thank goodness I don’t have to worry about that dead weight.
I have a daughter and 2 sons. No one is ever surprised that my daughter knows how to cook and clean and tend a baby. Everyone is always surprised my sons know. No one is ever surprised my sons know how to change a tire, diagnose a car problem, fix a computer. Everyone is always surprised my daughter knows how.
Here’s the thing. These aren’t “women” skills or “men” skills, these are PEOPLE skills. My oldest son learned to sew so he could make bumpers for robots. That he used those skills to make dolls for his little nieces is a bonus. My daughter learned to do a tune up and change the oil because she was going to be a poor college student and wouldn’t have the money to keep a car otherwise. That she has used the skills to call bullshit on mechanics trying to screw her is a bonus.
I’m all for Peopling skills.
Also I love glittery gel pens and I buy them and stash them. Fortunately when I think I’m being silly hoarding art supplies (because it’s not just the gel pens), I clean out the art supplies and give them to my granddaughters (one of whom wants to be an artist, the other an astronaut, both like glittery gel pens 🙂
It’s because you seem to be a wonderful mother. The stereotypes continue to exist because of the education we offer to our children. Great job on this madame !! 🙂
Good for your kids! My dad decided I wasn’t allowed to drive the car until I could show him how I changed the tire. Incentive! And it came in handy when I blew one in the night on a back country road. Yes, you can change it by starlight if you’ve allowed your flashlight to die. This was long before cell phones, but I consider it an important life skill today too. You just never know.
That was amazing! Thanks for sharing the insights. I also feel all people regardless of gender should be able to sew a little bit. It doesn’t have to be pretty, but everyone should be able to sew up a hole in their clothing in a pinch (I had pants tear while at a conference, luckily I can sew a bit so no wardrobe malfunction for me). Also sewing up dog toys.
I must say gender rolls are so STUPID. As a kid I always wanted the ‘boy’ toys (my mother wouldn’t buy them, my aunt who had the same opinion as me did so I got dinosaurs with armor, so amazing, wish I knew what happened to those?). At my elementary school (k-8) which was a religious school we did an eighth grade coming of age thing that was a Liturgical dance (latter changed to Liturgical movement). The girls were all forced to wear horrible tights under our uniform skirts and dance in the front of the church while the boys got to whip around cool flags and make noise with them (they would make a really cool snapping noise). Why did I have to dance, because I’m a girl. Did I have a choice of if I wanted to dance, NO. Could girls do the flags, NO. Could boys dance, only if they were special boys who did plays outside school (a very special case my year for one boy).
While I can sew (and carry a kit in my purse), I’m more apt to use duct tape to fix a hole or a dropped hem, in a pinch. ????
I once used a stapler to fix a dropped hem in my pants (I was desperate)???????? Then the staples got caught in my socks and I was forced to sew them!
I have stapled many a hem! Never snagged a sock and they stayed in for years. I can sew but kept forgetting to fix it because after being stapled the hem didnt fall anymore. At one point our nanny/housekeeper/awesome lady who took care of my kids and house (women’s work, wink wink) so I could go to work got my sewing kit out and hemmed my pants for me. That was a lovely surprise. I also stapled badges and insignia on my kids’ scout uniforms for a quick repair or status change. I did sew those on myself, later. Love the stapler as sewing machine!
I discovered in my college years that bandaids were great for emergency hem repairs. They also survived several bouts of drycleaning!
I once used duct tape on the hem of a tunic because I ran out of time and had to get in the car and drive to the event. About 8 or more years later and who knows how many washings I surprised to find the hem was duct taped in place. I never did get around to sewing the hem. Duct tape is pretty amazing.
I had a similar problem with wanting “boy’s toys” as a kid, but I didn’t have an aunt who understood. I still remember the disappointment of getting a Barbie for Christmas. I immediately gave it to my younger sister.
My apron was terrible and lopsided. My handwriting leaves a lot to be desired. I write a mean poem and my kid is a decent person. I think it all balances and I don’t know why we do this to ourselves. It isn’t just that we are our own worst enemies, if we aren’t careful, we pass this mess along to the next generation.
Since having my kids, I have lamented (think this the right word? English is not my first language) my lack of real world skills. My father worked all the time and only played cricket and watched wrestling in his off time. My mother only complained that she was bored and otherwise smoked. This meant that I never learned to cook. Food was 2 minute noodles or fried eggs on toast. When I left home I ate takeaway and when I got together with my husband, we ate takeaways or in restaurants.
I probably would have continued like this, but my eldest was born 3 months early and had numerous feeding issues and underweight. So I had a crash course from the dietitian and learned about super food and healthy fats and dense calories foods, and had to learn to cook at 30. Still can’t grow any plants, but know a 100 ways to get meds into kids and toddlers who puke at the sight of food or anything near the mouth (just joking, there is one tried, tested and successful way). I wasn’t taught about money, manners or how to talk to people. I try to do better by my kids. Thank you Google for teaching me the things I need to know, or where to find someone who do.
I too have a very hard time passing by glittery gel pens. Someday, I will unlock the right pen/notebook combination and conquer everything!
You brought tears to my eyes. Thank you for sharing.
I am here for the glitter pens.
????????????????
The scrapbooks and anketas came to India. They were a thing. A huge thing. My first crush told me he loved me in my anketa. Ah memories.
I’ve struggled my whole life with womanly skills. Arts, sewing, classical music singing or dancing. Mainly cooking to be honest. It was the number one question of every ‘aunty’ who was hunting for a girl for their ‘momma’s-boy-cant-find-their-own-damn-life-partner or have anything resembling social skills’ engineer/cpa/doctor sons! As long as I couldn’t cook, and I drank alcohol at weddings (instead of the trays of juice that was passed around the women folk) – I was safe. My mother only had one thing she wanted for me – to be financially self sufficient and never dependent on a man. Check!
When I left India at the ripe age of 26 and I thrived! I found that I adore cooking, and I’m good at it! Turns out I retained some the stuff they taught in art class and I love art time with my toddler (yes I have toddler level art skills!). I still can’t sing worth a damn, but my kid loves it and goes to sleep to my humming just fine. I’m handy with our money, and can google anything from home made remedies to recipes or house fixes. I’ve never, not once, been the ideal Indian girl. That’s ok -I’m the ideal (and happy) me 🙂
Edit/Add – While I’m not dependent on a man – but the one I got is pretty darn happy with his non-ideal Indian women and his person skills complement mine, so yay! 🙂
haha “I can sew now, although I do it the way other people make war.” This is so me. My mom was disappointed by my home economics pillow project, the holes were so big, the stuffing came right out. In contrast my younger brother came home with perfectly sewn shorts…with pockets! Thankfully my mother felt personal finance, self confidence and critical thinking were priority life skills. Besides an exasperated shake of her head and a frown, she did not comment too much on my lack of traditional feminine skills. Nowadays, due to hobbies, I can expertly wrap a present, bake from scratch, and coax orchid’s back from near death. sewing and cooking, i can do it, but it ain’t pretty
Pentel Sparkle Pops are my kryptonite. Also Uniball Signo. My obsession is due to having to use blue, black or red pens at one too many jobs for negative reasons. Because of that, there’s no such thing as too many glitter pens.
I was another one of those anti milestone kids, too.
I helped set up and served cake at several proms, but never went to one. Same for all the Dances. I started working at 15 and had a decent part time job by 16. It just made more sense to work to save for college than shake my butt and sneak beer.
On the life skills side, all three of us were active in 4-H, which is all about those. I did my dime with them and was relieved to get out of there. But in their favor, I learned how to cook, sew, and do basic wiring well enough not to electrocute myself or others. Tooling leather and making small furniture was fun for a summer, too. Some of my art went to the state fair, but I never cared for awards.
My mother made sure all of use could cook, clean, budget, freeze and can foods, garden, and do basic repairs to our living spaces and cars. My father showed us how to change car tires, change the oil ourselves, replace batteries, and trouble shoot other machine issues. He had me help him replace windows and do minor construction.
I’m appalled and worried about the kids I see out there. Few of them know how to do anything, and it’s heartbreaking.
My mom and her sisters grew up during the depression. Her dad was a doctor.
He also made and played violins.
She went to public schools, where education was great those years.
So she learned everything from how to tango , Shakespeare,how to type(best skill) and sew( second best skill).
Learned medicine and woodworking from her dad.
She learned some cooking from her mom. Hated cooking.She learned kindness and empathy from her parents. Her mother would feed anyone who needed it, gave them some money and her dad would give them some ties and shirts. During the depression.
I was an only child and my dad died when I was 6 .
Money was very tight.
My mom had great skills learned from the depression.
I was very pretty, I became a child model. My mom, did some secretary work part time. She painted and sold small paintings. Couldn’t afford large canvases and oils.
We both learned how to solve problems, pivot and budgeting.
I won a big modeling job at the age of 21/2 by charming the photographer with my knowledge of Opera ( I recognized Carmen playing in the background) while eating candy and saying “ I am a NewYorker, I can do whatever you need.)
It was a great childhood.
Very poor, but I worked at the Plaza Hotel, went to free concerts in Central Park and knew when to negotiate and when to give up.
Learned to really listen, always help others. Finally, learned to be aware of your surroundings, and find at least one exit wherever you
go.Learned cooking from public television. Took over from my mom in high school. Both parents loved books and pets.Inherited this love , both have kept me sane at times.
No scrapbooking, no knitting, and I live in city so I never had a car.
Still don’t have a car.
But early childhood lessons with people have been the best skills.
I went to a very posh boarding school. I remember home economics-like that made it any less cooking class! Sewing class was miserable! I was not able to hem neatly. As for art, I was the sad girl whose painting was held up by the (very mean) art teacher to show “How not to get an A”. I agree that I am very glad that my daughters can be whoever they want to be. One is currently exploring how to make cosplay armour from foam. Right on!
After I was allowed to discover reading in first grade (All the books told my parents that I should be taught to read “correctly” in school and somehow they kept me from teaching myself before then.), I only had one criterion for extra “stuff” – Does it get in the way of my reading?
If it cramped my consumption of books, it was not worth doing.
I had chores. I helped my parents, though what I did was probably closer to what my brother would have done if I’d had one. I carried the heavy stuff, so my mom and little sister didn’t have to. I helped my dad when he worked on the car. I repaired stuff that broke and drove my sister places once I was old enough.
I did learn to cook and sew in self defense – it *was* the 50’s and early 60’s – but I was never “girly”. I refused to participate in the cliques in my (very small) high school. (Being realistic – I could not compete and knew it. I was not going to give the mean girls an opening.)
I also taught my kids life skills. They can cook, clean, do laundry, manage their finances and remember to check the weather report.
(My daughter-in-law is amused that my son volunteers to empty the dishwasher. I haven’t got the heart to tell her he’s been doing it since he was 6 years old. His big sister’s job was taking out the trash.)
I don’t know why either, but we seem to have always done it to ourselves – no matter where or when we grew up.
I *love* colored markers and pens. I buy coloring books as an excuse to buy them.
I was a “latch key” kid from middle of elementary school onwards. By the time I hit my early teens, I was working after school as well. When I would get home, sometimes as late as 10 or 11pm, I would have the dishes still waiting to be cleaned as one of my chores. Dishes from meals I wasn’t home to eat. I never was able to connect with my mom in positive life skills. Everything for the most part I learned gradually to do on my own from 18. My MIL decided, when I was a newlywed, that I should learn to crochet. I made exactly 3 afghans that year and no more afterwards. I do regret never learning to sew, when material was actually affordable to buy as a hobby.
My mother decide to send me to a neighbor a block away to learn how to knit. When I left the neighbors house after the lesson as I cried on the way home I broke the needles and never went back. I was eight. Now when I see your efforts I sometimes wish I had went back????
I am not a good cook. I hate cleaning house. But I can organize ANYTHING, and help you find ways to keep it that way. I used to be able to smack a home run in softball, play smothering defense in basketball, and chase down the wildest volleyball. I now have four artificial joints because I took the sports motto, “Give up the body” way to serious. We all have gifts, and some of them aren’t what would be considered feminime. If you would have asked me in Jr. or High School to make a pretty scrapbook I would have laughed my ass off and then beat you in a footrace.
I still remember Home Ec sewing. My waistband finally was ok in my skirt. The zipper kept puckering. I got an A because I could take the machine apart and put it back together and whoever had mechanical issues with their machine, I could fix it. That skirt ended up in the back of a drawer. My mom passed three years ago, my dad a year ago Xmas day. I pulled that skirt out of a dresser drawer. My mom saved it. She was an honest to God seamstress self taught. Learned first on a treadle machine making doll baby clothes from flour and feed sack scraps. She knew I hated it and had no patience to teach me. We all have strengths and weaknesses. I am the IT department in our household. I can do many things. Sewing not so much. My kids are still amazed I can do hand sewn clothing repairs. They think I am proficient. Still cringe when someone says I hemmed new pants. I diligently search for a pant style with short, average, or tall lengths. Cuss that we can’t buy like guys, adding curvy, straight, or average for style. We need to revolt. ????
Check out the French Dressing brand. Mostly jeans but they have 4-5 different body styles, each with a feminine name. I buy the Suzanne and every time I put one of those on in my size, it fits! Of course they still come in petite, regular or tall, so you may wind up hemming.
This is how children were raised in my family basically:
What are little boys made of?
What are little boys made of?
Snips and snails
And puppy-dogs’ tails,
That’s what little boys are made of.
What are little girls made of?
What are little girls made of?
Sugar and spice
And everything nice,
That’s what little girls are made of.
I can’t help but think how my life would hv been if my older brother had had some “sugar” and I had had some of those “puppy-dogs’ tails.”
In grade 8 (1979) all girls were supposed to take home economics and boys wood shop or auto mechanics. I wanted to take wood shop and had to fight for the right to fo do. I was the first girl. Subsequent semesters other girls joined too.
Then in grade 11 when we moved the new guidance counselor noticed that I did not have home economics and said I must take it. I pointed out my wood shop, said clothes were cheap at Wal-mart or thrift stores, I could cook basic foods and I wanted to take computer programming instead (1983 on a Commodore 64 computer). I had to fight them on that too but I won. Said if boys weren’t required to take it then it was gender discrimination.
Now many years later I know all my basic life skills but still can’t sew – I can only fix buttons and basic darning. Clothes are purchased. Hemming goes to the tailor. I have survived and my husband loves me despite my lack of feminine skills ???? ????
I truly enjoy these little snippets into your lives. Thank you for sharing.
If scrapbooking was a vital life skill, I would SO fail that test. When I was in high school we attended Home Economics classes during which I produced a very ugly apron and some moderately satisfactory meals. Anyone could take the classes but there tended to be mostly females. Come to think of it, I guess we did learn some basic life skills that turned out to be pretty useful later. Common sense, though, is probably the best life skill. Some days leave me wishing there were a lot more of that around. 😉
When I went to high school, my father said, “take typing, learn to type, and you will always have a job.” It was horrible, I was miserable, but I pounded on and learned to type fast. Fast forward a couple of decades, graduate and professional degrees.
I was talking with an engineer on my team, and when asked what the best class taken in school was, we both said “Typing.” It turns out science and engineering jobs have a lot of reports, data entry, and coding. The typing class provided a critical edge in speed and quality of work.
It has been more than 40 years since my typing class. What was considered woman’s work is now a routine part of a professional job. I still consider typing a critical skill. I still consider typing and tractor driving the two most important classes that I took in school.
*totally* agree – of all the courses I took in high school, the skill I use on a daily basis, is touch typing. I ended up working in software development and am on a keyboard constantly.
Actually – that reminds me – one time my 2 coworkers and I were thinking about renting a house together – so we were viewing a place, and the landlord, an elderly guy in his 80s or so, asked us “so what do you do for a living?”
Fair question – so we explained that we were software engineers. That meant nothing, so we tried explaining – we write software? We write the code that computers use? nothing. Finally, we described that we sit at computers and enter information into them to make programs work.
A light went on, and he said “Oh! So you girls type then?”
Yes. Yes, we type. ahahahahaha.
I wish my school had offered tractor driving though – I would totally have wanted to take that 😀
Typing helped me put my ex through grad school! Had a marvelous typing teacher in high school and when there were no teaching jobs, I found one in an office at a college and then typed dissertations for extra money at night and on weekends. That money was great! But typing should still be part of every school’s curriculum. I really get sad watching my students hunt and peck at the keyboard.
My nieces don’t even know what touch typing is. They think you use two thumbs to type. Home row? What’s that? Of all the “womanly” skills from days gone by, typing has become non-gender relate, at least professionally. Cooking and cleaning are also required.
It’s strange to the status quo of society when you don’t conform and, honestly, just don’t care to do so. I credit my father for my non-female skills, as he just never thought it was wrong for me to want to know: 1) how to fix my own car basics 2) hunting or 3) STEM. My mother thought it odd, but not wrong.
I’ve learned to appreciate some of the more “girly” stuff as I’ve gotten older, but I’ve never looked back on my life and regretted my choices. That’s the real measure of success to my mind.
So true!!!! Didn’t fit the mold either! Thanks so much for sharing.
I for one am so glad you are who you are. YOU ARE AMAZING. If the world of Kate was real you would be a spell binder. Pulling thing from your imagination and making it real. What ever skill/hobbie/ marriage right you did or didn’t get. You were meant to pull people into your world. In ever single ink drop, I am pulled in. I am floored every time.
I was a hopeless tomboy and my southern mother despaired of my ever getting married. When I started dating seriously at 18, my mom gave me a book, “The Total Woman.” Anybody else get this book? I stopped reading when the book suggested that I wear nothing but Saran Wrap to the door to greet my husband coming home from a hard day’s work at the office. And to make sure that the children were quiet and his slippers, a cocktail and the newspaper were by his favorite chair so he could relax before dinner. At 20, I married a great guy and 48 years later we are still going strong. Fortunately, he cooks and does dishes. I’m afraid we haven’t come that far, “and don’t call me baby”, but we are making progress. Stick to your guns BDH.
Ok the Saran Wrap nearly did me in ????. Thank you for the laugh.
Saran Wrap?! How are you suppose to get out of it if you’re wrapped like a mummy? A knife would cut you and scissors would take too long. 😀
It took me three years to make an apron. By the time it was done there were so many holes in it from unpicking the stitches that it looked moth eaten.????
Love this!
I am terrible at all of these traditional “women things” as well 😀 But somehow, I have not failed at life!
I have a huge collection of markers and crayons and gel pens and am coming to terms with the fact that there are 2 types of hobbies. “having the shiny stuff” and “using the shiny stuff” – and sometimes I do more of the first and less of the second 😀
I literally was just having a “I hate how easy it is for a man in my field to get a job” day and your post just hit the spot to diminsh my frustrations. Thank you!
I am fortunate I think in being impervious in most ways to peer pressure. No-one knew what was wrong with me (I wasn’t diagnosed ASD until late teens) but everyone could tell there was something different about me. It didn’t make me excluded or outcast but it was enough that if I didn’t have an interest in something all my classmates knew not to bother trying as I wouldn’t budge my opinion.
My grandad half-heartedly tried arranging my marriage to his friends son when I was about 8 – I didn’t mind as Mietek had a Knight Rider style talking car – a big deal in the 1980’s – so I felt this would eventually come to me!
One thing I did have t have was long hair. Girls do not cut their hair while boys do not have hair more than an inch; even after my grandad died I still didn’t cut it for four years unil I was sixteen and secretly surprised my nan and mum with a total shearing!
Dammit. I just deleted a whole bunch of stuff I wrote after that anecdote – I was trying to be funny about the patriarchial system but let’s face it, I may have loved my grandad to bits and still feel nostalgic about him but most of what he thought was not right even then.
I guess as women we shouldn’t really laugh and joke about how we are both openly and subconsciously conditioned to feel inferior to men; how we are taught we need to impress them and make them feel better about themselves in order to ‘catch’ one, because the ultimate outcome of being a female is to gain a man and procreate. There is no humankind without women, there are no children, there is no society without both male and female. Our species cannot survive without both so we are necessarily equal. And yet we aren’t. Why is that?
And I don’t know how that turned into a feminist rant. But hey – I am woman, hear me roar??!!
You go, girl. Loved it.
My mother tried teaching me skills. I learned to cook and clean and sew and keep house. Survival because she worked full time. Not so good at it. My dad taught me other things. He thought everyone should know how to shoot a gun and maintain it. So I learned. (I also learned quickly not to prop my back against the tree when shooting my grandfather’s shotgun. Knocked myself out.) He taught me to change the oil in my car, change a tire, switch out windshield wipers, fix a toilet, change out an outlet, change a light fixture, paint, hang wallpaper, hammer nails the right way. He was amazing.
I remember standing in a bakery one day and thinking about how few of my life experiences were relatable to my daughters. I had very little advice to offer them about life skills as they entered junior high. “Doughnuts!” I thought as I ruefully stared at the display case in front of us. “I can still offer advice on the best doughnuts.”
Thanks for making me feel a smidge better. Doughnut advice is pretty lame, but I think it beats gel pens.
I felt this one. But, in my experience it was replace raised in Russia with raised in the Mormon church in the 1980s. There were checklists in workbooks of “womanly” skills that teen girls should/must be mastered to be considered worthy. I am contrary by nature and was a difficult student. By the time I was forced to do cross stitch and misspelled Christmas and had to start the project over, I was done. With enforced womanly “arts” and the Church.
I’m now 50 and finally willing to give needle work a try again. But, my palms sweat and I get palpitations when I have to go into craft stores.
P.S. the graphic at the bottom of the anketa image looks like a distressed version of my face when I have to go into craft stores.
Whether it’s Russia or LDS, it’s all cultural. And not necessarily right. Good for you for separating out needlework from your cultural upbringing. Needlework will not judge you. Sweaty palms indicate your courage.
I have one brother and two sisters. My Dad, very handy himself, only taught my brother anything. I learned to change a tire in driver’s Ed. He tried to tell me I should be able change my own brake pads when I was around 30. I stayed calm when I reminded him he hadn’t taught me anything, he lived too far away to help, and I wasn’t risking my brakes driving in Chicago traffic on a “I should be able to.”
I am not particularly great at many “girly” things (besides crochet) or “manly” things. I figured out the basics – I can do basic cooking, budget, pay my bills, and find a good mechanic and handyman. I’m old enough to shrug off my many “girly” failures – most of the time!
I Failed home ec class, but i learned how to sew a little anyway. over the years i learned to crochet, my first baby blanket was for my latest sister, i didn’t follow a pattern and ripped it out several times by the time i was done it was the size of a twin bed and had two very different types of pastel colors. I crocheted it so tight she still had it in high school, she said it had some holes, but they never unraveled 🙂 since then i make “ruffled rugs” or “hump Needle Rugs” from recycled wool clothing and i took up Pine Needle Baskets. yup, out of pine needles. i still suck at clothes, but i like making quilts and tote bags. do what you love or are interested in.
I worked with my mom in the house so I learned all the girl stuff. Chose to switch schools as a freshman so I could take Home Ec and learn to sew. Mostly I’m a project person adequate in many skills master of none. I’m not a perfectionist but I have to meet my standards. I can shingle a roof and run a chainsaw and wood splitter and build a fence from scratch. No money to spare equals figure it out and fix it yourself! Love that feeling of accomplishment!
Interesting reading! I was more the nerd in high school. Computers were just becoming a thing, and I loved them! Starting programming with punch cards. Then I got married at 18, and realized someone had to cook, and we both assumed that was me. Not too long after we moved into our house, a friend who was a reporter for women’s section of the local paper asked if she could interview me about how a new bride felt about housekeeping, cooking, etc. She would contrast that to someone married for 20 years or more. The headline in that Sunday section was “New Bride Hates Housework”, complete with a picture of me in the kitchen! How to announce my complete lack of housekeeping skills to the world! I can cook, but cleaning still isn’t something I can’t put off indefinitely, or at least wish I could.
Perfectly put. There are a ton of “womanly things” I’d like to learn, but don’t have the aptitude or time to, a lot of “manly things” (oh how I hate this bs about gendering stuff) that same. Some of those I’ll probably end up learning with time, many I won’t. Although I don’t hVe all the skills I ever wanted I also learned enough to consider myself a well rounded person. The world is certainly richer for having someone like you in it and your daughters are also certainly very lucky to have a mom like you, if I ever end up being a mother I hope I’ll be able to do at least that, raise self sufficient well rounded good people.
My daughter once told me “Grandma dusts when there is no dust”. I did not inherent her perfect cleaning skills. I am in my 60’s now and decided a long time ago that there were more important things in life than being able to eat off the floor.
You can eat off my floor. Literally. There is enough food down there to sustain pets and small children.
I actually typed out a long list of things I do that are not “womanly”, but then I realized that the point is not what I can do, but that ANYONE can learn to do ANYTHING that interests that person. The secret to it all is something my mother taught me as a child, which actually has been passed on by me to anyone who will hear it. Learn to read. If you want to know how to do something, someone somewhere has written a book on how to do everything, and all you have to do is find that book and read it, and you can do what you want to do.
There is no such thing as “feminine” versus “masculine” skills. There are just skills to learn, and people to learn them. We’re free of those stereotypes for the most part, and I lived through the societal shift that made it so.
I see Robin Williams playing Mork, tossing eggs into the air, proclaiming, “Fly! Be free!” and I know it applies to us all.
I learned many of the “Feminine” skills, but it was more through classes i took throughout childhood. My parents were more focused on “life skills” and all 6 children in my family 3 boys, 3 girls, were required to learn those life skills. We all learned to clean, basic cooking/baking, basic car care, how to balance a check book and make and keep a budget, how to plan our schedules, to swim, and to play the piano, to sand wood, and sew up a hole in clothing. From there my parents let us add in extras to make us more well rounded like debate, or theater or sports. But I see while i see value in many skills, i don’t necessarily agree any of them should be gender specific. Gender is tied to biology, everything else is societal expectations and as you pointed out with the scrap booking, there is no reason it should be tied to one gender over another. Hobbies should be fun not stressful.
I would have been a major failure, then. Went to a private (military-style) school and had endless evening detention because my handwriting was subpar. But I did learn to make beds with military corners…
When I was a telecom manager in a luxury convention hotel, my staff of operators received a call from my 7 year old son. “No need to call him back, we took care of it,” they assured me. Apparently he wanted to make us dinner and needed to know how to make roast chicken. At 7. He’s much older now, and his yeast rolls rock. He is an excellent engineer as well, although he still occasionally calls with network or cabling questions.
Life skills
Thank you for this post! I find interest in those awesome skill you listed for your kids. I really regret not pushing my parents more to know about budgeting, car maintenance, insurance, and other necessary infromation. (Had to have my Dad talk me through a tire change in college since I was 2 states away.) As a math teacher I wish for far more memories of money discussion and the numbers we use every day! I’m currently trying to buy a house (In California… dumb me but this is where I teach) and I am baffled and overwhelmed by the description, meaning, and AMOUNT of 30 different fees in a loan. Thank you for having these hard discussion, and thank you for sharing these insights!
Born in 1940, I had a brother and 3 male cousins. I was a grave disappointment as I had no interest in girl things. I spent my free time either reading or off in the woods and fields, observing or possibly chasing tadpoles. When confronted by my mother with the question of what would I like to learn to do, sew, play the piano, or ballet, I promptly responded I wanted to learn to ride a horse and shoot a rifle. I was signed up for elocution and ballet. Both were a disaster. I have the balletic skills of an elephant and managed to play hookey for every elocution lesson after the first. I cook, garden and bake well. I’m a terrible housekeeper, but manage to avoid having actually aggressive dust bunnies.My fifty something year old kids still like me, and after 58 years together my husband and I still think we made the right choice. I suspect many or most of the female members of the BDH probably kicked over the stereotypes of their age. And all the better for it.
I get you so much here. I’ve never really done well with the girly stuff. I like to build things with wood, girls didn’t take wood shop in my day. I cook OK now and sew a little but I sucked at home economics class. I remember one of my first dates with my husband, a faucet in his kitchen started leaking badly. I took it apart and straightened out the washer that had somehow kinked up. He was floored. Even now, in our home, quite a lot of the male task are mine and he takes traditionally female task. Works for us.
A woman’s life has changed so much in the last 40 years..,
Love this! Thank you for sharing.
I spent my childhood in rural Southern Russia, where Kuban Cossacks kept their traditional requirements for “womanly skills” even during Soviet times. My Grandma was “returned with shame” to her parents next day after her wedding, because her borsch was not good enough for her husband’s family. She was told that she had to improve her cooking skills before she would be accepted back into her husband’s household. She had no choice but to improve – and she did quite well, since later on her home-baked bread was considered the best in all nearby stanitsas (Cossack villages) and she catered her loafs, pies and pirozhky to all the local weddings, etc.
Thanks to Grandma, I learned very young how to cook a mean borsch, butcher and process a chicken and knit decent socks. Knitting skills helped when USSR collapsed and money was tight for my family – by that time, we had moved to Siberia where “womanly skills” were not that common among the neighbors. I was 7-8 years old – and I made socks, scarves and booties for neighbors, thus bringing my own small share to our family budget.
I’m very grateful to Grandma and Mom for all the skills, as well as to Dad who made sure I knew basic carpenting and plumbing. I now work as a white-collar digital media expert and haven’t used my chicken plucking skills for a while… but if there’s ever a need – I’m am ready! 😀 … and in the meanwhile, I’m growing my secret glittery gel pen and watercolor markers stash!
I have a thing for coloured pens pencils too ???? one of the life skills I wish that I had learnt earlier was how to budget my finances extremely important when you fly/leave or get shoved out of the nest.
Water soluble colored pencils. … addictive.
Sounds like you latched onto the skills that mattered! As a boy who never concerned himself too much over his success at “boy things”, this is fascinating and has no personal parallels.
I am reminded instead about how frequently I’ve heard people say they’ll never need to know math in the “real world”.
This frightens me. My job doesn’t require any math to speak of. Yet I still use the math I learned long ago, from time to time.
Basic arithmetic in my head? Daily.
Prealgebra? Monthly.
Probabilities? Quarterly.
Geometry? Off and on.
Solving a system of linear equations? I’ve done that twice since school.
Trig? I forgot it, but occasionally wish I hadn’t.
Calculus? Again, I forgot but occasionally notice when it would have been handy.
Lern iz gud!
Just out of interest what is prealgebra? Is this just an American term for algebra? I tried a quick Google but am none the wiser, especially as it seems you don’t learn maths anything like we do in the UK.
From a math teacher: Pre-algebra consists mostly of the vocabulary, number sense, and basic processes (think finding the greatest common factor of two numbers aka the biggest thing that evenly divides into both) along with some starter understanding of variables. I am CONSTANTLY telling my students variables are symbols for unknown numbers but many look and go “OH NO! THERE ARE LETTERS IN MY MATH…” *Facepalm* They are NOT letters!!! Sorry for that extra little rant bit.
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I couldn’t help it! If they’re having that problem now, what are they going to say about statistics (if they eventually have to take it)? This is coming from a biostatistician. ????
I too consider pens treasure. I always buy something during school supply time. They have new and exciting crayons and markers (twist, glitter, metallic). They discontinued shop/home-ec classes by the time I was in middle school. All the kids helped set the table and cook dinner . We were also taught how to do are own laundry and once you hit 12 or so everyone did their own clothes. I enjoy cooking and love baking. I hate housework and know the theory of hemming pants but never did it . The closest we came to albums like that was the sticker craze. Me and my cousins and I had old photo albums filled with the pages of puffy, multi-colored oil, and regular , or scented. The puffy style was quite prized.
I still feel compelled to buy nice stickers. I have some from my Scholastic Weekly Reader days and that is more than 30 years ago.
I used to cut out pictures from magazines to do decoupage. My stash is still under the bed but thankfully I have stopped adding to the collection.
I also taught my daughter to change a flat tire. I am a woman. I explained how when I was working in an office with another woman and two men that the woman came in, bypassed the men, and asked me to help change her flat. We didn’t make a big deal out of it. She knew I had the knowledge and I taught her how to do it rather than take over or talk down. She learned about breaking lug nuts while the car was on the ground. My daughter agreed it was something she needed to know. And, it was something she had to do. She got out of sticky point all by herself. And mom got proud brownie points.
Growing up, my father made damn sure I could do the “men’s” tasks that my mother never learned to do – change my own tire (favorite time I did this was on the way to a professional photoshoot), read a map, dead reckon, and do my own taxes. And he taught me as much as mother did about cooking (they got married in their 30’s – all my mom’s friends said, “Wait, and he can cook too?!” Her answer was, “Yes, or he’d have starved to death by now.”)
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All 3 of our now adult children (2 girls, 1 boy) can sew, cook, do basic auto mechanics and use most hand tools. Our son sews better than his sisters, one daughter is a millwright apprentice and the other daughter is a wonderful DIY person. We taught them basic life skills and sent them out to the world able to take care of themselves. I never really got the male/female divide as much as a lot of people. Thankfully.
Different culture, different Mores and Milestones, but I totally understand. I was a Pawpaw’s girl too… both of my grandfathers had me as the first grandchild and I took complete and utter advantage of my First status to wiggle my way into their every waking activity (when I was present.) Both worked with wood, animals, and gardening/farming (big scale). I do woodworking and dearly enjoy it to this day… they worked on tractors and vehicles, and so do I (usually better than my father.)
I was forced to learn to cook (as the oldest child) but when I finally got to cook what I wanted to cook, I found I like that–I just hated washing up.
The disaster of trying to learn sewing from my instinctive seamstress mother haunts me to this day. She is able to take multiple pictures and make a gorgeous prom dress with every attribute requested, but can not explain how she did it. I have learned how to sew, on my own, thanks Craftsy, and can now sew bras and lingerie, and fit and alter patterns, and like the triumph of success, but yes it takes a committed campaign.
I now do fiber parts (spinning, knitting, sewing, tatting, crochet, and needle lace) but it was the act of “making” that interested me… the journaling/scrapbooking/quilling/card making/stamping/papercrafts never really interested me… I guess I want more tangible tactile craft end-products.
In the before times I ran sewing programs in my library (because being a children’s/technology librarian was the best). In talking to the parents and caregivers I was shocked by how many stories they had about being told how bad they were at sewing in school. It doesn’t have to be everyone source of joy like it is mine but WTF it’s a skill like any other and encouragement goes a long way. I just can’t understand discouraging people that way about anything they are learning. /Endrant
my son and daughter shocked his friends in college because not only could they wire a light switch, but they could bake, and do laundry. The Horror.
I remember my first couple of weeks at university, in the laundry room. I was stunned by how many freshmen had NO IDEA how to do laundry. One guy was taking up every machine, because the instructions told him to separate colors.
Oh, that is SO FUNNY! As the fifth child in my family, I started doing my own laundry as soon as I could reach the controls on the machine, and the only explanation I ever got on how to do it was, “They’re your clothes! You wash the d*ed things!” My children needed to know how to do laundry, and I taught them, “When in doubt, use cold water.” But they understood the separating out of whites, at least!
One hint to pass along: If you read the label on “bleach” for colored clothes, you’ll see that it’s basically just hydrogen peroxide, which is cheap. It gets the whites white and the colors bright, all in one washing together.
OMG!
I grew up in a 1 parent (mother) household in the 1960s/70s. As mother was a single parent, if she didn’t do things, they didn’t get done…
There wasn’t a lot of money to spare, so mother became a proficient make do and mend person. The shorts and t shirts for me made from old dresses spring to mind.(Her clothes for my dolls too) and a lovely mashed potato, cheese and tomato bake,
which she told me years later was cooked at the end of the month when there wasn’t as much money.
She was apparently taught to cook by my Dad initially,(he died before I was 2) but then she took it up in a big way after he died. Having a dependent child does that to you!!
She enjoyed reading and cooking most, but she could knit and embroider. All this as well as working full time, driving and doing some basic house and car maintenance.
She could wallpaper like a fiend.
I just expected that all Mums would work, which was not as common in the early 60s.
Saturday was for cleaning shelves etc which we did together.
I don’t remember learning to read or cook!
Knitting was a struggle, as I am left handed. I loved stitching though.
Much to mother’s disappointment I could not play music by ear. I hated learning the piano, when I gave up she told me I would regret it. I never have, even 50 years later.
I have 2 sons, both of whom could cook, clean and stitch by the time they were teenagers. The one skill we wanted them to have early was to learn to swim. Anyone can fall into water.
They are also good with mechanical stuff, but their Dad is the one that gets sent photos of weird unworking parts…
I guess I wasn’t really that aware of gender roles as a child, more of expecting to work and look after myself when I grew up.
“As the result of this and industrial shortages, markers became highly prized.”
When I moved to Austria, I found a really fascinating perspective. Austria isn’t part of NATO and was never part of the Soviet bloc, and that very neutrality leads to some interesting stories and lessons.
And this sentence reminded me of one of those stories/lessons. My husband said that growing up, it was just known that if you traveled to the USSR or to other Soviet bloc countries, you could leave thousands of dollars worth of currency openly on your dresser, and it wouldn’t be touched. But ballpoint pens, from Bics to Mont Blancs, would disappear instantly. The money was safe because there was nothing to spend it on, and the pens were nabbed because they were a luxury (also see: lighters).
As a lifelong school-and-office-supply addict*, I was both amused and horrified. And would absolutely have been a pen thief.
_____
*when your birthday is the beginning of September, birthday presents and school supplies are synonymous.
Thank you for making me smile (and laugh out loud) today! May your day be blessed.
I can sew, my grandmother was a seamstress and a quilter, but in a pinch a stapler will fix a hem or a missing button.
When I was in jr. high, girls had Home Ec (cooking and sewing), and boys had Industrial Arts. By the time my youngest brother got to jr. high, all the kids took cooking skills, sewing skills, and shop skills. Much more rounded curriculum choice for all kids.
My brother could mend his own clothes, which was good because he was particularly hard on his jeans, torn out knees, etc.
I learned how to use power tools in high school theater. Our tech director taught everyone on the set crew how to use power tools because “if we have to wait for the one person who can cut the lumber for the set, we’ll never have the sets ready for opening night”. Design work went to the people with the art skills, but we all learned basic building skills.
I took the one semester high school typing class that taught basic skills so that I wouldn’t be dependent on other people for typing papers in college. Good thing, too, because I always rewrote and edited my papers as I typed them. (Some times my handwritten drafts were not the polished work they needed to be. Ha!)
YouTube is a great resource for learning life skills which I’m interested in. I don’t take great enjoyment from housekeeping so I’ve watched videos on product reviews and how-tos from people who are much more efficient.
I do find it absurd that some modern women who learned these traditionally female pursuits later in life try to gate keep them from men. Guys can color and knit if they want to. If they enjoy cooking or cleaning, enjoy the rewards of their friendship. A straight man who is good at concealer and foundation due to acne? Sign me up for color matching and application tips.
In some ways, I do wish I had a “ask grandma” tutor because my bff’s grandma “Is from a time where you don’t consider the kitchen clean if there’s still something on the counter”. There are lot of tutorials on specific topics but not as much daily process and routines which might work for people with full time jobs outside the home.
I feel like an optional summer school course on home care, entry level food science & food safety, budgeting, taxes, and modern basic etiquette would have been useful in high school as a life skills course at my college prep school. Maybe an online version would work? These days, I’d also include some cultural specific etiquette and pronunciation for undergrad STEM majors – both “How to American (region specific edition)” and “How do I pronounce this Russian/Indian/Chinese/Korean/etc name” since many sounds can be unique to the language.
I don’t have YouTube references, but here are a couple of good references for basic household management:
Clean in a Minute by Don Aslett – has some good instruction for efficient basic cleaning, deep cleaning and streamlining all of the cleaning products.
FlyLady.net is a good resource for establishing easy routines and decluttering.
Good luck!
I am with you on the “womanly skills” thing. I do know how to cook and enjoy cooking for others; I can sew things, but only do so if it is something I can’t have otherwise. I am now in my early 50’s and have decided that there’s no reason I have to wear a skirt or dress – and certainly not hose. Ever. For the rest of my life.
My two daughters are in their early 20’s and know enough to care for themselves and their home, buy a car and do taxes. When they were in elementary school, they got picked on for being “nerds”. My advice was to not engage (easier said than done) unless someone got physical with them. “At that point” I said, “you finish the fight. Don’t worry about what the teachers or principal say; I’ll back you up.” So, yeah, not very womanly. LOL
How timely! I’ve been reading You Do You by Sara Knight, today, and this blog post just fits right in with it.
Had to look up washi tape to see what it was.
Why did you write “just say no”? Is it hard to deal with, or is like the caption for the photo where you called people blasphemy for buying already-decorated albums (loved that caption, BTW)?
Because washi tape is impossible to resist ????. You have to summon self control to leave the stationary store without buying it all.
I want to make some comparison of guys and duct tape but it would come off as sexist. Did you know they make duct tape with pictures on it now? Just sayin’.
This is an interesting post. I learned how to sew and cook out of sheer necessity. Sewing helped me with my fractions. I didn’t make an apron. I actually sew couture clothes. According to my mom, I reminder her of her mother (my maternal grandmother). My maternal grandmother sewed my mom’s formal gowns for my mom’s singing recitals. I still have a sewing machine when I bought it in my early 20s.
Cooking I started when I was 10. My thought was there was going to be a time I was going to be on my own, and I may not be able to buy take out. So, I needed to learn how to cook. 🙂
I can crochet and knit too. I mainly crochet afghans. I don’t use a pattern. I just create my own pattern.
So if an apocalypse happens, I’m ready!
I forgot to mention this above. I also learned how to work on a car. That was thanks to my dad. At one time in my life I wanted to be an auto mechanic. However, at the time that was a “guys” profession. So it didn’t work out.
Every time I bought a car, I would always ask to see under the hood. I got the weirdest looks, but the hood got opened. I started pointing out where the windshield washer fluid was, where the battery was, where the break fluid was, etc. When I bought my Escape, I looked at the wheels in relation to the frame. Why? The more the tires are near the center of the car, the more chance of a rollover. The more the tires are in line with the frame, the less chance of a rollover.
thats cool! I didnt know that and i work in a tire shop. admittedly being a female i was slow to gain the skills and strength needed but I am way more efficient and thorough than more than half of the shop. Being a female in a shop of any kind has its advantages, mostly your more than likely smaller than your coworkers and can fit into tighter spots than they can. I love working on headlights or batteries because they use a lot of dexterity that i have in spades.
In my humble opinion, it isnt a gender thing to know about the things you need in your everyday life.
When I was a kid I often cooked me and my dads meals as dad was vegetarian and the rest of my family weren’t so I helped my mom with the dinner. My mom taught me the basics and I learned the rest following a recipe. I was good at savoury meals but cakes and pudding always turned into disasters. Annoyingly at secondary school all we seemed to do was make cakes and pudding in DT. I don’t mind that we made cakes, pudding and biscuits because we got to try each others work but that’s all we did (no bread either) and I would get stressed because I couldn’t get it right. I did do a rebellion when we had a cooking exam and while everyone else made cakes, I made a spinach and ricotta pie. I used the hob and oven, made my own pastry but still got a lower grade then everyone else. My class said it was delicious too and no soggy bottoms, so I didn’t take DT cooking the next year (though I did enjoy eating my friends cakes who were good at that). I can make lemon drizzle and brownies now but I learned to do it and I’m still better with dinners then desserts.
My dad taught my mom and me knitting and she would often go to him when got stuck at a particular part, especially when doing fair isles, he was also good at cross stitch. When my teddies had a hole or limb hanging off I would go to my dad even though my mom could sew too, because he was very precise with his sewing so you wouldn’t notice the stitches. My mom thinks he was good at these because he was a data programmer for physics department, so he had a mathematical mind.
So my dad was much better at those skills then me and my mom but she made her own garden bench and table, and upholstered chairs. Both taught me the value of money, cleaning, basic DIY, etc.
I love this. I never took home ec in school, opting for autos instead. To this day I can only do the basics of cooking and I can’t even see a button to a shirt (arguably, this could be a life skill). The invention of the buttoneer was a game changer for me!! There are a couple things to regret not learning, especially since my mom was more of a “you’re smart, you’ll figure it out” type teacher. ????♀️
Have to laugh! Thanks for sharing! The requirements of womanhood were sure different here. Cooking was a big one. And growing up in the south, if you didn’t know how to wear makeup, you weren’t very womanly!
There was neither time nor money for anything so frivolous as scrapbooking when I was a kid. And it sure sounds like that was true for you, too. My mom showed me how to mend my clothes, sew on a button and iron without scorching things. To this day, I buy nothing that requires ironing, although not having to make my own spray starch is certainly a plus. (Just dated myself!).
I can also crochet a mean rag rug. And I got the basics of cooking, but I noticed over the years how most of the cooking eventually came my way. She hated cooking, whereas I loved it. If we had a spare coin, my brother and I bought a comic book, since they weren’t available at the library. And I still prioritize buying books over many other things lol.
I’ve long felt that basic skills are lacking in this society. You know, how to make a budget and live within it. And why you should! How interest rates work and why paying attention to them is important. How to interview for a job. How to button your lip and hold onto that job. And of course the basics of taking care of yourself. Eg. cooking, cleaning, and the afore mentioned button replacement????.
Your not supposed to take cold medicine & Tylenol?
Acetaminorphin is very easy to overdose on so you need to check the dose in any cold medicine you are taking before adding any Tylenol on top. Acetaminorphin overdose must be treated very fast because if it’s not it destoys your liver and there isn’t a cure for that. Sorry to be so brutal, but it is something people die from every year because they don’t realise how dangerous it is, please take care with it so you can read many more IA books!
its best to know your pain med fever reducer dos and don’ts, don’t od on acetaminophen/Tylenol take only the recommended dose, do alternate with ibuprofen/Advil every four hours as needed to manage pain or break a fever. also knowing that ibuprofen, acetaminophen and aspirin are all different and what they do is also a good thing to know.
This is beautiful, thanks so much for sharing. From a fellow washi tape enthusiast who has taught many men how to change the tires on a car.
???? So glad that many young women today aren’t subjected to useless skills.
When I was in school in northern Germany, “Poesie Albums” had a revival. they are pretty little books with blank pages. You give the book to others, so they could write a poem, a little text or wisdom on the next free page. Because they would be given to people of all ages (neighbors, grandparents, teachers, friends, family, etc.,) there was a fantastic collection of poetry. Some would do a little sketching refering to what they wrote and some would put stickers or even dried flowers to their page. I lost mine ages ago, now, that you made me think of it, I would love to see all the contributions again and remember the people who wrote them.
Greets from (stormy today) Switzerland
Inga
Regarding being taught life skills by a parent . . . the man on YouTube who realized kids weren’t being taught the basic things because either their parent is absent or uninterested is fascinating. Look up “Dad, how do I . . . ” on YouTube. It’s fascinating.
In the comments sections it’s heartbreaking to read how many young adults are grateful to have someone finally take an interest in them and teach them things they’re ashamed they don’t know.
My mother hated cooking and sewing and I flunked Home Ec, but she always told me I’d be smart enough to figure it out when I needed it. And I did.
For us it was learning how to cook. The full spectrum from meal planning, grocery shopping and then cooking the meals. We learned from my Dad as he is the cook in the family. My granny on my Dad’s side had three sons and she taught them all to cook. It turned into a blessing because after the first week of marriage and my mom’s cooking, my dad volunteered.
Every once in a while I hear someone say, “I would love to hop into a time machine and go back to (insert romanticized time period)”… I’m always like, nope. Nah, I’m good here thanks. Birth control, indoor plumbing, womens’ suffrage, non-obligatory scrapbooking. All good things.
+1
And Dentistry!
+1. Nothing particularly good about “the good ole days” in my book
+ 1!!
Also, antibiotics!!
Yes! Life skills! You also demonstrated some pretty sharp life-skills there, yourself. You demonstrated forgiveness of yourself and your mortal enemies (slight exageration). You demonstrated being a great human successfully raising offspring, and then successfully letting them be great humans on their own. And my favorite, learning to enjoy life and do what you love is next-level.
You are a life-skill Jedi Master. *Slow clap* Well done. Well done.
Yeah, reminds me of a theory some people have about high school. Every student should take a ‘life’ class where they learn how to change a tire or the oil in a car, how to do laundry at least semi-decently, how to run a dishwasher, how to iron, and some basic cooking. Passing is required for graduation. Wouldn’t that be so much better than trigonometry?
Actually, the high school in our town *does* have a class like that. Life Skills is a required course for graduation, and it covers quite a few topics. Yes, cooking and sewing basics, but also meal planning, grocery shopping, budgeting, banking, how to balance a checkbook, and do laundry. They even go into looking for an apartment, reviewing a lease, and getting furniture. There’s more, like auto buying and maintenance; it’s a pretty in depth course with homework and projects. My Kid 2 really learned a lot, especially about budgeting. To this day he keeps a color-coded excel worksheet that tracks his finances.
Also? I forgot to say that EVERYBODY has to take this course. It doesn’t matter which track you’re in: college prep, standard, or vocational, it’s required. And it ‘s required even if you say you already know that stuff. No trying to test out of it. I think that’s great!
I feel this in my bones, for us it was cooking sewing, music and the usual pretty things. from the time i became a functioning adult i always thought that the useful things would be budgeting, how to cook proper nutrition on said budget and not make it taste awful, parenting up through the terrible threes, Time management 101, and how to make clothes fit properly along with sewing. my son has a few of these but i am kind of grateful I am not raising a girl. glad to know that these odd and absolutely random expectations crosses all the cultures.
When I was in junior high school many years ago, girls were required to take Home Economics. One class in cooking and one class in sewing. I learned nothing from the cooking class. In sewing, I made a black and white check skirt that was so badly made, the teacher used it as an example of what not to do.
I think ours were called Slam books too … we made them out of binder paper with yarn binding bows i the holes. No glitter pens in the 70s, but we all loved our Bic Banana color pens. You were cool if you could draw pictures. We all wrote out questions that the other person had to answer, so it was a little more like spin the bottle.
Scrapbooking I LOVE. I have all the pretties but no time for it now. I do books for the family on Shutterfly. I love to make cards, but saw this as me liking to draw.
I was at school just as they started girls sports, so enjoyed that. I was raised to balance my bank account and be a mindful shopper. I started working odd jobs while in elementary school – dog waking, gardening, pet sitting, and a paper route. I got a lot of experience working with kids but I stunk at sewing and cooking. I too do not like to clean. As a mom I have gotten better at cooking, nutrition, psychology, home medicine, and being an advocate.
It’s funny because at the height of the ERA making a national push, I read Little Women, and decided I should have cooking and Home Ec lessons, like Rose did. By the time I got to HS and could take those classes, I’d lost interest. Now, I think you people in general could benefit from an update of Home Ec, which should have a Shop crossover.
See lots we are taught is now useless. But now I can do lots. My Apricot fruit leather. Is very sort after.
And, you make the best chocolate cake in the entire world. Last year after my mother died, and Covid hit, and I felt as low as I could feel, I gave the recipe to my husband who made it for my birthday. It healed part of my soul. What else is a woman expected to do, beyond healing of the soul?
Social mores! A lot of the feminine ‘accomplishments’ described were the lingering remnants of how women socialized/competed with each other when their primary goal in life was to marry, bear children & perform all household tasks. Earning a salary to pay for a household was a task reserved for men. Of course women did engage in paid work, but it was understood that this was meant to end once they ‘caught’ a husband. Since competing ‘at work’ wasn’t an option, women competed in the household arena. Martha Stewart would have fit right in. ‘She took her revenge by eating but a single bite of cake, knowing that by doing so her hostess would wonder what was wrong with it.’
Thank you.
As a very odd child, who almost was kicked out of graduation because I would.not.take.home.economics, I so relate to this. They had to let me graduate, because I was valedictorian. They made up a special ‘life arts’ class for cooking, for 2 weeks only, so that I would have that credit and be allowed to grace the stage with all 35 other students (yeah, it was a pretty low bar to be #1).
I love to cook, I love to garden, I’m an artist. But sewing? Nope.
I remember those Survey/Questionnaire booklets! The torture and stress of not being asked to fill out out. Like the yearbook signing.
Yes. I agree there are more important life skills for anyone. How to cook a meal. How to read labels on medicine and understand them. How interest works. How to communicate to am mechanic about car issues. How to ask for help.
How to budget and how to save.
I also have a weakness for art supplies and dream in watercolor.
I would totally suck as a Russian woman!
Southern Belles and Gentlemen underwent similar nonsense, at least through 2000 (I had younger cousins to sympathize for). It was ALOT of rules and behavior modification which came off weird at the time and patriarchal and misogynistic once I was a bit older.
And in my city, a fairly large one in Florida, it was oddly elitist too, as it was run through the Rotary Club and only certain kids from each school were invited. Cotillions (yes plural), dinners, faux embassy functions, it’s was an odd marathon that started in middle school.
“In the South, pre-adolescent children are forced through a process called cotillion, which indoctrinates them with all the social graces and dance skills needed to function in 18th century Vienna.”
My mother still has deeply treasured memories of her Home Ec class from high school. She clearly felt as if it were valuable to her and she excelled at it.
When I was a sophomore in high school, she forced me to sign up for Home Ec. I was in Algebra II and Geometry and Biology and Chemistry and I had zero interest in Home Ec.
The two big things in Home Ec were cooking and sewing. I didn’t want to learn to cook and I could already sew about as well as the Home Ec teacher since my grandmother (an expert seamstress and tailor) ran a sewing shop out of our house and had given me my first sewing machine (which I viewed as a super-fun toy) when I was nine or ten. I sewed Barbie clothes all summer and when I needed to know how to to do something (add a ruffle, do a buttonhole, install a zipper) I would ask Granny and she would show me how.
My mother was worried about me, I can see that now. Then all I could see was that she wanted to turn me into some sort of 50s housewife-in-training and I was having none of it.
I made an A in Home Ec because I cared about my GPA. I have resisted cooking for anything but a grade from that day to this (except if the odd mood strikes me).
My mom is 80 and in her world no woman who had the headstrong super-feminist ideas I have ALWAYS had was ever going to “land a husband” and she just couldn’t see how I could be happy (or safe) without one.
I went on to make my own living as a teacher and then a professor (math) and I was very happy living all by myself. As it happens I DID find someone who wanted to marry me (unfortunately neither of us can cook, so that was poor planning) and we have been married for nearly 33 years. Very happily married, I hasten to add, even though I never changed my last name and consider housework just as much my husband’s job as my own (he completely agrees with that assessment, but my family was scandalized).
After a few decades we wore them down and even the cousins have quit mailing me cards with the wrong last name on them. *eyeroll*
Taught my daughter go to university from a young age. Husband also encouraged her. She was good at math’s, science so was her brother. They both became engineers.
I am now a patient, nurturing, adult who diffuses and avoids confrontations. However I admired the teenager me who had balls of steel and knew just how to make a point.
I come from a similar background (somewhere in the less desirable part of Europe) but I had a lucky break when my parents emigrated to New Zealand when I was around 12.
Notably, I went from a good student back home to a brilliant one in my new school due to the differences in curriculum – they all seemed a few years behind with what they were teaching and the amount of what they expected you to actually learn, understand and apply. All seemed like a bit of a joke to me and I loved to dazzle my new teachers with my ‘potential’. Long story short, when I turned 13 my mother (who always worked in the old country and was now bored) decided it was time for me to learn how to cook, clean, keep house and generally become ‘her project’ and pride and all that so that I can one day get married and be a good wife. This was all to be done in my free time. Now, My mother is not what you would deem to be the reasonable type where a clear argument could prevail. She was a hard woman from a hard country who had a hard life – a situation that was not helped by my father who was mostly indifferent to anything that didn’t involve his career.
Instead of having a futile argument with her I went to school the next day and refused to participate in all activities, answer any questions or engage in any way. I just sat there and stared off into space (which believe me is a lot harder to maintain than one would believe). At home I dutifully learned to mend clothes and remove stains. After about maybe a week of this I was called into the counselors office who enquired as to what was going on and to inform me that my teachers were worried about me. I told her to ask my mother. So they invited my mother to school the next day, explained that I had gone from being a ‘gifted’ straight A student to someone who was disengaged and would fail if I continued that way, and what was going on. My mothers English was not great but she smelled a rat at this point, and quietly asked me to explain to her and the councilor, home teacher, principal and social worker, which i did with a smile. I told them that as I was now learning how to be a housewife under the direction of my dear mother I wouldn’t need any of their academia as the plan was ‘to get married, keep house and be a good wife’ and this was of outmost importance and would determine the rest of my life. I was simply a dutiful daughter. They did not know what to say to that so we left.
My mother was horribly embarrassed and utterly furious with me. You simply did not discuss such things in public (with them) and I had made her sound positively medieval and twisted all her words (which I had happily quoted). That afternoon we made a deal – I didn’t have to cook, clean etc. as long as I always got straight As and was the picture of good behavior at all external functions – no more stunts. I just had to come top of my school and specifically did not make a spectacle of myself or my parents. I remember being proud of myself as I thought I had won!!!! My mum was true to her word.
Fast forward 5 years when I moved out of home and found I had zero actual life skills, did not know how to turn in a washing machine without reading the instructions and ate fattening takeaway which tasted like crap 5 days a week. I gained weight and lived like an absolute slob until I met a boy who inspired me to do better. I still hate all that stuff. But hey at least all my degrees keep me warm at night… and now I can afford cleaners…. and better takeaway.
Not quite sure who the winner was anymore.
It took me a long time to understand that I do not want or need to be like my mother who always has a clean, tidy home and amazing cooking skills. Even when she was still working.
My husband does most of the house cleaning, other chores (also those for children) are allocated regardless of gender. Recently I made a bed frame for the older kid, because he didn’t like any of the beds in the furniture store. I love sewing and playing with watercolors, but I learned it as an adult.
I’m over 40 and have always hard time when I try to share something from my stash of glittery gel pens or other awesome items with my children 🙂 They really can’t appreciate it :):):)
I never excelled at girl things either. I hated cooking. I hated sewing. Crafting bored me to tears. I have three handwriting styles, depending on my mood, which are perfect cursive that no one under 60 can read (thanks to my mother), print that looks like a type font (thanks to the education system), and a bastard combination of both that automatically qualifies me for medical school (thanks to my lack of patience).
My dad had the joy of teaching me about cars and power tools. God, I love a power tool. He even bought me my own drill, because we had an ongoing custody battle over his, and then he started stealing mine because it was better. He taught me how to balance books, read contracts, paint walls and fix fences.
As an adult, I taught myself to bake, to do my own nails, and the art of eyeliner – although I still suck, a lot, at doing hair. But my dad taught me to be functional, and that’s a hell of a lot more useful than turning a foam ball into a christmas tree bauble.
Oooooo!!! Sparkly gel pens and pretty papers are my kryptonite!!! I have a secret stash, too…this is just between you and me, right?!? You won’t tell my husband?!?
I LOVE working with my hands. I can sew some and crochet sone. I do it because I enjoy making things, but if I had to make and embroider a trousseau, I would be bored to tears! I can cook, but don’t enjoy it. My husband is much better at coming up with delicious dinners.
When the kids’ car seats needed to be installed, I put them in. My husband’s parents are divorced and my MIL’s man friend was at her house when I went to install her carseat. My husband’s grandma suggested I let the man do the men’s work. ???????????? I still don’t understand that comment.
That is what drew me to IA books. I love the strong and independent women. Of course the writing has kept me coming back ????
Mmm…. beets. I would eat any kind of beet salad. I grew up with many, many Ukrainian (-Canadian) friends in Alberta so I have great appreciation (and cravings) for pyrogies, dolmas/golubtsi, nachynka, and of course borscht. Yum yum.
I had a whole long reply written and rewritten, that got deleted when I tried to post it. Which is good actually, because it was a little ranty. Really just want to say that its ok to be good at traditionally “women” skills that you learned from your mom and home ec class. I liked home ec, these are good skills to have. Why is everybody dissing cooking and sewing and housekeeping skills when these are very important things to be able to do? I’m teaching my boys traditional women skills so they don’t die of starvation or botulism from a dirty house. I think that’s as important as being able to change a tire or use power tools.
PS I work and am a single mom so I have to do all the other stuff too so yay for housekeepers, gardeners, AAA and handymen when needed.
PS again, before my husband died he helped with all the chores 50/50. No woman or man chores, although I did the gardening and he mowed the lawn. I’ve never mowed the lawn, I’m ashamed.
Hi Erika,
No comment from you came through before this one, I’m afraid. Perhaps the page timed out? Just want to assure you it was not deleted on purpose ????.
I’m not sure whether you mean the skills are dissed in general by society, or on this comment section. Having read through every comment that came in, my impression is that most people agreed with Ilona’s point in the article, that cooking and maintaining a functional space etc are very valuable and not gender specific people skills ????.
No worries, I think the error posting was mine.
I think it’s more the expectation of a skill than the skill itself. The gender specificity of it that’s imposed upon a skillset by cultural and societal conditioning.
Both my brothers are better cooks than their partners and enjoy it, but I the female sibling, dislike cooking.
My youngest brother called on me to help him seal his bathtub because he, the male, didn’t know what was going wrong but knows I am good at DIY.
My mum was sort of the black sheep of the family, my grandad was very ‘traditional’ and my aunt has passed this attitude along to most of my cousins, one of whom is such a disgusting specimen of male obnoxiousness we don’t speak to him anymore. Behaviour, like skills, are learnt.
More domestic skills are traditionally imposed on females and removed from the male jurisdiction which doesn’t make them bad skills, it just means that society still needs to change its attitude towards what is considered gender and so-called gender-roles.
Well, I’m certainly of a younger generation (29 this fall), but at least as far as I know, even for my parents and grandparents when Soviet Union still had occupied Latvia, we didn’t really have required woman skills to show off to everyone ????
But this for sure does bring out memories – while scrapbooks weren’t really a thing, but anketas…oh yeah, those had a boom while I was in grade school (grade 1-9) as well ????
And we used lots of flomasters to make them pretty????
I am always amazed at the younger generation (anyone under 65). They can do anything by just looking it up on the internet. We have raised a generation of can do young people. Yea! They are not afraid to try and who cares if they get it wrong sometimes. Not everyone can be good at everything. I have really enjoyed everyone’s comments and the look into other lives. Thank you
So true. Cooking, how to do taxes, how to sew on a button even. Mums are a big thing here in Texas, and I never got that one, but my daughter can make one. But only because she wanted to take floral design for fun. I was much more invested in her learning how to cook. And I taught my son how to cook too. But I do have a remarkable amount of gel pens on my desk at NASA for note taking.
*sew on a button (obviously)
Fixed it for you :).
I was more puzzled by how your daughter could make a mum, until I realised I shouldn’t be reading in British and you probably didn’t mean she’s crafting a flowery parent haha. I know about giant Texas corsages now ;).
????????????
My mom grew up in boarding schools and dorms (orphan with cash). She didn’t know how to cook, could care less about housework and could budget like a fiend. She never taught us how to cook, clean, laundry or anything about house/car maintenance. My dad was an artist an museum curator who ‘creatively’ fixed things around the house. We are probably lucky it didn’t burn down. When I read stories about poor Victorian households with scholarly and impractical parents I can relate. All of us kids learned to cook, make investigative phone calls, schedule appts, balance bank accounts and read the fine print and handle people interactions. It was survival skills. We also learned to make pottery clay and batik prints, use pastels and water colors, and cut beveled mats for frames. I really appreciate it all now.
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” – Robert Heinlein
I can do all these things (including the woodworking.) But, only because it interested me learn them. My boys can do all these things, too. Because their mother taught them. And, as you pointed out, these skills don’t make me more feminine and them less manly. It just makes us skilled.
I think the advent of the internet has helped a lot with giving people confidence that they can do things on their own. I learned how to change a tire and sew a hem from Youtube, and I worked out what materials I needed in order to build a desk by going through the Home Depot website. Having the margin to afford mistakes also helps (sometimes it’s worth paying more upfront for a guaranteed good result than it is to risk wasting money in an attempt to tackle it yourself).
Most important is the mindset of being willing to look stupid or risk failure. I’ve never really had to go to Home Depot much before because I lived in apartments, so going over there to buy lumber was a little scary for me. I had to keep reminding myself that even if I completely screwed it up and made myself look like a total idiot, that the worst that could happen would be I’d have some crappy lumber to throw out and that the opinions of the Home Depot staff would have absolutely zero effect on the rest of my life.
This was wonderful! Thank you!
I love this. Growing up in the community that I did, I too had specific “woman” things I was supposed to magically not only learn, but enjoy. I failed spectacularly at every single one of them. My father (RIP) swore that I failed them all on purpose because I was absolutely the smartest girl / teenager / woman he knew. He also knew I was teaching our community leaders a lesson in F You politics. I may or may not have consistently ripped them new ones with no thought to their manly feelings – it got so that when our landline rang, my dad just shook his head before even answering the phone. LOLOL. Keep in mind, I grew up in Canada in a major city.
I was too old for those scrapbooks, and my kids were too young, thank God. Although they were *all about* glittery gel pens.
My mom made a valiant effort to teach me to sew. She gave up after the first project, a nightgown. She had better luck with my younger daughter, who actually owns a sewing machine and learned basic knitting technique.
However, that is the same kid who, when her college friend buried her car in a muddy grass parking lot, knew where to borrow a three-ton jack and how to use it. We’re not big on rigid social roles in our family. Function over form, every time.
I had a friend who grew up in the Black Forest of Germany. Sewing was a major school skill. Starting from a small handkerchief, on to an apron and in 8th grade the dread pair of socks. My grandmother in law, an Austrian Holocaust refugee, made all kinds of fancy clothes. Matching brother/sister outfits. Lederhosen.
She once crocheted a black metallic floor length evening gown with rhinestone designs around hem..shaped like a 1920’s Art Deco building. Stitches looked like a modern machine made the dress. Tiny, delicate, perfect.
I went to small town Catholic school in the 1950’s. Majority of our nuns only finished high school, one only finished 8th grade back in Ireland.
A world far gone, I hope, for the current generations of young women.
Although those tiktok Ideas do seem pointless to old, old me.
What a fascinating post! Thanks for sharing your perspective – so much of it obviously resonates with so many of us.
I also didn’t end up being a “traditional” Indian girl (my family immigrated to the US in the 60s), thanks to my very open minded parents. I was the first female engineer in my department and was on the managerial track before health issues derailed me. I can’t sew or knit, can’t cook Indian food or know how to wear a sari and honestly couldn’t be happier about not being to
They believed both my brother and should learn basic life skills and I feel that we do our younger generations a disservice by not teaching them the same. These necessary skills aren’t “womanly” or “manly”, just skills you need to be prepared to be an independent adult.
Must be genes, but all us siblings are quite handy. I am the only left-handed child in my family of 8.
Right-handed people would show me writing and chopping wood and stuff, and I would learn it my way, but I never got the “feminine crafts” when learning from others.
I can do a lot, really, from both gender boxes of crafts, but anytime I had no interest (like knitting or embroidery), I pretended I need edleft-handed example and when they couldn’t deliver, they gave up.
Ah, but can the ‘pretty scrapbook girls’ of your youth write books and tell engaging stories as well as you can? I think not!! ????
I am being assisted by my husband (who can do anything mechanical or electrical) in rebuilding an engine and transmission for a spiffy little 4×4 Chevy tracker. This is the 2nd one we are doing together, and I’m now driving the first, which will eventually go to my daughter. I am, on the weekdays, an accountant. What I am truly delighted to see is the MANY how-to auto rebuild/fix and race their car videos that are cropping up on YouTube that are being done by women, young and not so young. I am delighted to see their subscription and viewers rising each time I click on one. I don’t have the patience to ever do a YouTube channel, but isn’t it a great time to be female?
I can sew pretty well now. I have several pairs of pants that I made from a pattern I made for myself as well. My swing coat is now about 20 years old and I still get compliments on it.
I didn’t even try to learn to sew till I left home because my sister is an absolute master of the skill and I hated getting my nose rubbed in how much better she was at everything (she wasn’t, but tell our mother that). My sister was, and still is, definitely a master of the sewing machine – though I have made dresses using just needle and thread while riding the bus to and from work in Los Angeles.
I’ve never learned to knit, but I’m really good at embroidery – which is the most mindnumbingly dull thing I’ve ever done in my life, even when I was designing my own patterns. The designing part was kind of fun, but I don’t enjoy boredom, so I don’t do embroidery anymore.
I knit and embroider, my husband sews, we both cook. Both of our children will never starve for lack of knowing how to feed themselves, and don’t panic at the sight of blood. Yeah, I think we’ve done okay.
Beautiful. Best thing you’ve ever written. Ever.
I’m only good at handwriting. Not so much cooking, sewing, knitting. But I had an affinity towards math, studied business in college and became financially independent and secure in my 20s before I got married. As a result I have a fundamental confidence that I am capable of standing on my own two feet. I could probably sew an apron but its easier to buy one. I didn’t participate in many girly rituals growing up. First school dance was in the 8th grade. The next one was my senior prom. First (and only) slumber party I hosted was in the 6th grade because one girl started her period that night and stayed in the bathroom the whole night whispering to a few select friends. I didn’t even know was a period was until that night!
Loved your story. Thanks for sharing.
Ilona, you rule. SO enjoyed this post.
I got a heavy dose of “women’s” skills from my mother, but, happily, she was not weird about it. My brother got almost the same dose of those skills. He’s perhaps a better cook than I am at this point, and he owns and can operate a sewing machine.
From my Dad I definitely got the message that I should aim to be self sufficient so that I would never be forced to depend on some man. He taught me about cars and many other “guy” associate things. I can do the basic car maintenance (oil changes, etc.) and was so proud of myself when I repaired my college car’s radiator with household radiator putty (a fix that held for a couple of years, by which time I could afford to replace the radiator).
The “you can do/be anything” message stuck well – I wound up as a military pilot. Have since retired and am on to my next career. That whole time and up through today I have had a hard time passing up gorgeous stationery, glitter gel pens, pretty ribbon, etc. – and also, happily, I don’t have trauma associated with them, so can just sort of enjoy the compulsions and indulge them from time to time. And washi tape, yeah. For sure.
I think I grew up in a pretty progressive area/time. I’m a child of 70’s and 80’s Southern California, and when I was in 5th grade, one of the books our teacher read to the whole class (boys and girls) was “The Practical Princess and Other Liberated Fairy Tales.” We all loved it. The show “Chips” included fully fledged female CHP officers as supporting characters (still, progress!), and of course there were Star Trek reruns with Uhura, and then Princess Leia(!!!). It was a sprout eating, fern loving, herbal tea discovering, roller disco with unicorn stickers time. Girls and women were becoming less and less constrained. No one gets away from their formative years without collecting some baggage, but some of mine might be on the lighter end. Fortunate.
You probably wont see this amid the sea of all the others but you just blew my mind! We call them flomaster in Cyprus too! I always thought it was a remnant of an old brand name, like we call all correcting fluids tipex and all vacuums hoovers. The Cypriot language never ceases to amaze me with it’s amalgamation of languages of all the conquerors that went by.
Thank you for this snippet of a different culture. I have read many books lately centered in Russia and I am starting to love it.
I love this post SO much. The things I was taught to be “successful” were pretty useless and the things I needed weren’t taught. Golf, Tennis, how to set a pretty table for “my husbands clients/co-workers – utterly useless. How to read a bank or financial statement and to understand how interest works – Priceless. You did a great job from the sound of it.
My German grandmother (Oma), who grew up the youngest of 9 children on a farm in East Prussia, told me that a girl had to be able to cut an even slice off of a loaf of bread before she could marry. Mind you, the bread she described were large loaves you had to hold in one arm while sawing a slice off with the knife held in the other hand. I remember being very proud of myself for slicing thin, even slices out of a (much smaller) loaf of bread. Using a cutting board and a proper bread knife.
Oh my goodness – I enrolled in shop and took it one week in school. Until my mother found out and had a cow. I had to quit and enroll in home economics class, which I Hated! (Yes with a capitol “H”). I was not allowed to play little league either. When I married, it turns out I should have kept the shop classes as my beloved husband stinks at those things. I’m the one that puts up the rods, finds where the studs are etc. I never let my mother forget it either :). She was okay with that :).
Thank you for this glimpse of your life in Russia .
Home Ec. was a nightmare in middle school. After my father died when I was a kid, my mother basically closed her kitchen so I never learned how to cook or sew from her (although she knew how to do both, she had no interest). I was totally lost in Home Ec. class both about how to use a sewing machine and how to cook. I didn’t even know what a measuring spoon was – you just used teaspoons or tablespoons out of the drawer – what? I’ve still managed to become a woman (and have taught myself how to do both things now – kinda sorta).
All I remember being popular in middle school was autograph books. Purchased ones not hand created. You would run around and get your friends, etc. to sign. I still have mine and I treasure it because many of the people who signed are now gone.
This post is so timely. I was just thinking about this yesterday. I was primarily raised by my grandparents and my grandmother excelled at ‘womanly’ activities and my grandfather was great at ‘manly’ things. They both taught me skills. But since I am a girl, I was praised for the womanly ones and patted on the head for the manly ones. Not in a bad way, but it was just what they thought would be most useful.
We’re Persian. I can make, pour and serve tea properly. I can entertain guests the ‘right way’– making sure I have food, sweets and fruit on hand and out even if someone is just dropping by for a couple of minutes. I can sew. I can knit if it’s in a straight line– so I can make a blanket or scarves. And I can cook well and I even did a stint as a floral designer when I needed funds in college. And I know how to talk to people ‘properly’ in the Persian way.
That said, I am very much an American as I have been here since I was 4, went to school here, and my husband is also an American. I am always uncomfortable with people my age that are ‘more’ Persian than me, because to them, I am very American in my way of thinking.
The reason this came up yesterday is that I went to my cousin’s new house, and it was an interesting experience. When I first went in his wife was glued to the TV. She didn’t greet me. Which is odd, because she’s is generally very sweet and friendly. So I just sat down and waited until the show ended, and then she greeted me. My cousin went over to the fridge and got himself some snacks. Didn’t offer anything to anyone else. And when he came over, snacks in hand for himself, he asked me if I wanted something to drink. Now, they had invited me over for 5:30, so I mistakenly assumed that would be a dinner invitation. Nope. They just expected me to visit briefly, having driven 40 minutes out to see them, and then go home. They did eventually say, “we have enough dinner for another person, we got frozen pizzas, do you want to stay.” Which was a backhanded sort of thing.
On the way home I called my mother and said, “this was a very strange experience” because my aunt, their mother, and their father (American) are both excellent hosts. They are generous and polite and welcoming in every way when you go to their home.
And my mother says, “well they are American” as if that was the answer to everything. And I replied, “Mom, all my friends and my in-laws are American. I can assure you that all of them know how to properly greet and entertain guests.”
But it did get me thinking on how I was raised, as a girl raised by her grandparents, versus how they were raised.
I have a lot of skills that aren’t essential to surviving. But I a couple of primary skills no one taught me: I can’t budget, I can’t manage money, and I am awful at anything related to finances. And it has gotten me into trouble. I figure that if I had learned that stuff, instead of how to properly iron a man’s shirt, it would have been more useful. That cousin of mine? You know what he’s excellent at: financials. That’s why he has that lovely house (that they did not show me around or take me through in any way), and I am still renting.
If you have interest in budgeting and money management, I’ve seen a lot of recommendations for “You Need a budget”. There’s also reddit.com/r/personalfinance which has a flow chart for getting started.
I’m pro women being able to do some of these personal finance basics especially as they get older or were raised with traditional gender roles. Scammers target older people and especially widowed women who relied on someone else for basic finances. Trust yourself to be the most invested in your personal finances. Also, as a woman who will politely & non-invasively ask close friends & family about finances (who kindly share if they are willing), don’t assume that others who look like they’re well off have a lot of personal wealth or live lavishly. It’s great if they do/can but sometimes people are more alike than you think (maybe choosing to eat at home to save money because they’ve got a lot of expenses). Traditional cultures often make talking about money taboo and that would have been better to demystify & learn common pitfalls than spending $10 more for a wrinkle free fabric dress shirt.
Paying it forward for some cleaning tips in response to my own post :).
We had Scouts in the USA. But it was fun for us & not a competition well except for selling Girl Scout cookies – that was a nightmare. It even sent us to a first aid class at the hospital so I learned some basic stuff like the Heinrich. Other useful things like car care, interest rates, home repair and maintenance my parents taught. So I can take care of myself and sew, cook, clean clothes and the house, scrapbook, knit, crochet etc. But even though my poor Dad tried gardening did not click. I have a black thumb. Math did, I do stats for a living
Thank you for sharing that. Interesting to see the commonality across cultures. Sure the specifics may be different, but ideas have connections……
Ooo meant to ask you have you ever baked Black Russian pumpernickel? I just had some for the first time but it is a seasonal thing that the grocery carries and may never be back. It is delicious. If so do you have a recipe you could share
This is one of my favorite blog entries in quite a while, thank you! I love your list of real life skills. I work in the student health clinic at a major university, and I am amazed on a daily basis how few REALLY SMART young adults are prepared to be on their own. It’s the basic stuff, not the rocket science that throws them.
A life of contentment and simple joy requires good markers and glitter pens. Have you tried using glitter pens on black paper? Sometime back, I bought a black-paper sketchbook, just for using with glitter pens. Magic!
I fully agree, priorities are really messed up sometimes.
My scrapbooking were dresses, make-up and jewelry. I actually used to feel really bad because I didnt know how to make-up and didnt like my legs enough to show them off. I am not talking only about elementary school but up until I went to university. For family weddings or other religious events I always felt self concious because I didnt like dressing up. To be honest when you arent used to wearing dresses or make-up, you look funny to yourself in the mirror even if you may look good to others.
I now dress up and use make-up and jewerly whenever I feel like it but looking back, I still remember how I felt when my grandma or my mom told me “but child, you are so pretty, why dont you dress up a little?”. Those things arent important, what is important is health.
Dont get me wrong, I love my family. It is just these silly “standard” comments that are not ok. They may dig deep and generate insecurities.
Make friends and take care instead of being careful with the boys, learn who to trust instead of distrusting everyone, love yourself instead of not acting weird. Mental and emotional health first!
Thank you, Ilona Andrews for the comment.
In my case and siblings, my Dad took over child rearing before I was six due to health issues. Mother and her family had fits. Dad said he did not know how to raise girls because he was a boy. So he taught us all kinds of boy needed life skills. Which we have always found more useful that “girl” skills.
Well, Dad had been military so he had the everyone is equal mindset. He taught us to sew with parachute repair thread when we ripped ourshee He taught us to write, play sports and shoot according to our dominant hand. That caused waves and he ended up in parent teacher conferences. He was quiet with little to say but he meant what he said.
My point is be happy you know what you know. Enjoy life. It’s too short anyway.
Sheets that we used to jump off chicken house.
Sorry. Technical difficulties here. ????
Thank you for reminding me of my childhood. I grew up in Ukraine probably at the same time you did. So everything you described is so familiar. I remeber the pecennick -basicaly we wrote the popular songs into the notebooks and decorated it . I think it is hard for people who did not grew up in former USSR to maybe understand the whole picture of what it was really like. I still to this day hate sewing and cleaning .
I normally only read your blogs via email, but am so happy I clicked on the comment thread today because WOW! So many women with such different backgrounds sharing a collective experience. THE FEMININE POWER!
Happy about your test results????
I’m still a work in progress, and love to learn.
I’m not a fan of scrapbooking, so there goes facebook, and instagram. ????????♀️
I’m learning how to knit!!
We have alot of potholders, alot!!
I was trained by my father who believed ANYTHING could be repaired using Duct tape and brown shoe polish! Between Dad and my grandmother, whose recipe box I absconded with when she passed (my aunt went for the jewelry, the fool!), I am a pretty good Southern cook and I raised a daughter who is a high end chef quality cook! Needless to say, I offer lots of opportunity for her to visit!
<3
Happy (Belated) International Woman’s Day!
Reading Ilona’s Post and the comments in response, it reminds me just how strong the influence of social programming is and the gender divide is still very much alive and kicking. As the mother of a teenage daughter, I think its really important to raise her to be financially independent, to think for herself and not follow the crowd, and to have the life skills to look after herself. I’d do the same if I’d had a boy. We are all products of our own upbringing and have the baggage and conditioning that goes with it but it’s our choice how we mould the next generation
Ps that’s what I love about the Andrews female leads. They’re strong, feisty independent women and challenge male characters who try to force them into a traditional mould
Ah, fairly unrelated to the post but my husband’s great-grandmother was also Don Cossack! 🙂
Just wanted to share so random…
Last week I got called back to a 2nd interview and literally fell off my chair when the person calling gave their name, and I asked them to repeat it twice, as Curran ! Curran !! I only really came to when I got the email stating Kurranbir, shortened to Kurran I guess…but for 7 short minutes Curran was real !!
I also wanted to share that when I have a bad day and am feeling vulnerable as I go to bed, I play Kate Daniels audios to keep me company and feel safe. I know its sappy but super hero’s are found in unexpected places 🙂
Nooooooo! The glare! The sparkly glare of 100s of gel pens!!!!! Hahaha!
I have always found it interesting how “women’s” skills are required learning (but only for women) while being simultaneously devalued and deemed “crafts” instead of art. Any kind of sewing / knitting / etc. is both an art form and a damn good way to ensure people had functional and beautiful clothing. Cooking is “women’s work” right up until it’s considered an art, at which point the chef is a man. I could go on and on about the sexism apparent in arts/crafts (i.e., men’s work/women’s work) but at least the so-called “lesser” crafts kept people alive. Fine art is of much less practical use…unless you have to burn it for heat.
Raising a successful adult, let alone 2, is a huge accomplishment. You do all this other cool stuff too, but you chose to raise 2 adults and was successful. Not everyone can do that. Kudos to all that can.
I love learning about the different journeys of woman hood for people. Or life hood for that matter. It sprung up a wonderful conversation with my daughter. She reminisced about the time I taught both my daughters Princess Manners when they were 10 and 11. They both loved Disney and Dreamworks so we had a lot of manners to choose from. I also made it a game so it was a lot of fun. When I was a girl my mother changed the concept of a dowry to a hope chest. She let me decide what I wanted in it to bring to a marriage to benefit my household. It was also fun. Looking back my mother was a very peaceful revolutionary. She would say things like, “If someone looks at material possessions to determine your suitability to marry their son run away. They will be in charge of your marriage for the rest of your life with him.” My father would just laugh. I didn’t realize the full extent of that wisdom when I was 16 but I am so glad she was y mom and started to change all that stuff. Thank you for sharing!
I started quilting when I was in college and I needed time to distress from finals. It always calmed me down and focused my thoughts. Not a life skill but I still value it 🙂
So how did you and Gorden meet? If it hasn’t been posted in another snippet of a blog somewhere. Russia is pretty far from America and not something that crosses paths often.
Go to the menu and click on learn more about us… it has a biography that says they met in college, both taking a class that Ilona got a better grade in… I have also seen it in their books about the authors. It also has an interesting, good read about their road to publication, scrolling further down. So happy they did not give up… their writing has given many so much! They are one of only a very few authors that I enjoy all of their series!
Hey Marc,
The story has been covered here https://ilona-andrews.com/2020/coming-to-america/. Ilona and Gordon met in college in English Composition 101.
I hope this helps ????
Thank you, ModeratoR, for the link for the more detailed info of how Ilona came to America! So happy it all happened and that she was given the opportunities! Would love a sequel about Gordon and Ilona meeting, marrying, etc.!
You’re welcome ????! Hehe, believe me I bring it up every time I get a chance.
We homeschooled our kids from kindergarten through graduation from high school. They both learned how to cook, how to sew, do laundry, how to change a tire or spark plugs or oil, how to balance a checkbook, make a budget and monitor their bank account, and how to set up an investment account and the value of a 401(k) at work (amazing what falls under Economics when you think about it). There’s no male/female differentiation, because ALL of these skills are needed when they move out on their own! No more the days when my brother called me in a panic after he graduated and moved out, because he was hosting poker night and he didn’t know how to cook ANYTHING to serve his guests.
I can’t go to office or stationary stores, the rainbow siren that is pencils, pens and markers are irresistible. And I never end up using them.
I do that with cookbooks. Love to read them.
I’m guilty of that too. Luckily (unluckily?) book stores are in short supply near where I live.
I grew up in the 50’s and 60’s. Every thing I wanted to be was not allowed since I was a girl, so I became a nurse. (I’m 2cond generation Italian) Later at 35 I became a Commissioned Officer, learned to ski at 38, fly a plane at 39, became a firefighter at 48, (both structure and wildland), [same requirements as everyone else[ and trained as Tactical EMS for SWAT at 50. Also first female in my family to go to college and get a Masters Degree. So don’t let anyone tell you that because you’re old or the wrong sex that you can’t do or be anything you want to be and are willing to work for it.
For completely unknown reasons, I grew up believing that a necessary “mom” skill was slicing cheese in perfectly straight, even slices. It frustrates me to this day that I can’t.
My cooking skills, when I first left home, included making pretzels, fortune cookies, and gingerbread houses from scratch. Boil a pot of rice? Not a clue. My boyfriend had to teach me how.
One of my favorite photographs of my husband, who was the same boyfriend who taught me how to cook rice, is of him teaching our two kids how to use a drill press safely. Our daughter was only three years old at the time, stylishly dressed in adult-sized safely goggles and ear muffs.
“You weaklings.” Lol
Ahhhhhh! The lovely pressures of society on womenhood….
some day, some day, some day, society support appreciation of each other as humans and not be invested in tying skills, accomplishments, interests to gender, sexual preference, age, race, or ethnicity.
some day.
In the meantime, we must fight for each other’s individual, unique space….
My dad told me, “Take a basic mechanics class and a typing class. You’ll always need to know these things!” I took him up on the typing, I didn’t on the mechanics, and I regret it to this day! I can check the oil, jump a battery, and change a tire though, he made me learn those himself! I think those should be added to basic life skills, and I agree about the basic cooking, cleaning and basic health stuff that everyone should know to survive!
This resonated with me so deeply. I grew up in Croatia, which, while no Russia, was still communism. We had what you call “anketa”, only we called them “spomenar”. And my kids have like five million “flomaster”, glitter pens and every other conceivable stationery item because I did not get to have any as a kid (and they aren’t the least bit interested in them, go figure). We didn’t have Lenin, we had Tito, but thankfully we didn’t have to do any scrapbooks!
I too was a failure at most of the womanly arts. Although I took up cooking early in self-defense, as my mom was a terrible cook (she tried) but not great. Then I married a man whose mom was also a terrible cook – and he prefers canned food and pizza to most home made foods. Hahahah. He also is better with the sewing machine than I am, because he has a lot more patience. We all have our gifts, right?