Essential Life Skills Through The Years
- mamaeryncc20
- Feb 2, 2021
- 3 min read
Updated: Feb 17, 2021
There are essential life skills that we don't learn in high school anymore. The first one is learning how to cook. In the 50's one life skill taught was learning how to cook. It was more for women and they learned to be able to run there house. There was also basic car maintenance. They taught basic checkbook balancing. They taught them how to do basic maintenance on there house.
Our grandparents were taught certain life skills. Now they didn't learn in school. Our grandmothers were taught how to cook. But not just the basics most of us know. They learned things like how to bake bread. They were taught how to preserve meat. The time was different, they weren't just taught for skills. They were taught these skills because there wasn't a grocery store like Kroger.
Our grandfathers were taught how to fix their cars. There was no mechanic for them to take their car to. They were taught how to hunt, just like the women. They had to learn to how to live. But they had it easier than their grandparents. They didn't have refrigeration, so they had to keep food cold on ice in a box, hence the term "icebox".

Then comes the 1960's and the school started teaching these life skills in school. Cooking, cleaning and gardening (not just flowers, food too) for the women. Fixing cars, yard work and balancing a checkbook for men. These were essential skills for life. There was not grocery stores or mechanic shops. They had to have these skills to live life. The woman was a housewife at this time so they needed to learn how to take care of a house. By this time people were farming and trading crops.
Then we get to the 80's and 90's. At this time we are less farmers and more office workers. We have become more dependent of quick foods. We have stopped learning the essentials for life. There is no need to learn how to fix your car because you can just take it to a mechanic. Why learn how to bake bread when you can just go to the grocery store. After work it was easier to throw together hamburger helper than make a dinner from scratch. As the woman in the workplace became more and more common place a scratch made dinner became less and less common. Then after that the 90's leading in the fast food trend. That is where we are as a society decided it was easier to buy but in the process of everything being so easy to obtain.
We lost our essential skills. It is rare you find somebody who bakes fresh bread. People just take their car to a mechanic. At some point people don't even know how to change a tire. And if they did, it would be easier to just call AAA. Most people don't know how to cook. There is no need, there is plenty of fast food out here. Cheap or healthy, whatever you want.
Now we get to this generation, where we are all about convenience. Life is so fast paced, people don't have time to cook. And if you don't have time to cook, you don't have time to teach your kids how to cook. It's not really our fault. As the world evolved, people were home less and less.
But now it has gotten bad, most teenagers cannot even boil water let alone know how to cook. How can we change this?? We have to teach kids essential skills again. Let's start with cooking. How do we do that? Well Mama Eryn CC offers cooking classes free/discounted for teenagers. The only one that can change this is us. So let's change the world.
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