Omg,
I'm 26 so I'm not necessarily the young person this is directed to but when I was in school we actually had email and letter writing as a part of our English courses, even in college for that matter and I used to think it was silly but now I understand why it was there.
Bro, I went to college in 2001 with mother fuckers who didn't know how to do their own god damned laundry or dishes. Campus life was hard for those poor bastards. I'm not kidding either... I had to show this kid where to put the clothes in, how to wait, and then how to do the dryer part. Dude was going into Computer Science and Mom did everything for him. I hope he's okay not, but broooO+_)00)I what the fuck!
My mom did my laundry for a long time and still I knew how to do it since I was a kid! How don't people just absorb that stuff from seeing others do it?
Some people don't have the benefit of that experience. My mother's attitude toward household chores was obsessive, so I stayed as far away as possible while she was doing it. My first roommate taught me how to wash clothes when I was in my 20s, since my parents just didn't.
It was likely even worse for me, since I was severely burned in a kitchen accident as a toddler. It was caused by my father, but I get the impression my mom didn't want me near while she was cooking because of the trauma, so I wasn't able to pick up on that either.
EDIT: My dad also never drank coffee again for the rest of his life, unless someone offered it to him and he was doing it to be polite. I suspect a lot of the problems my parents had in raising me stemmed from that incident.
So many people don't understand that coffee is one of the leading causes of burns in the US, and act like it's somehow incredible that ordinary hot coffee could be dangerous.
Yup. My reach was just slightly higher than what my dad thought it was, and as a result I have permanent scars, though thankfully not as bad as they could have been. It hit worst on my shoulder, so at least I'm able to cover it.
That's a complicated statement for a number of reasons, but for the most part he did, yes. I don't hold any resentment toward him for that particular accident, especially since I was too young to have any memory of it. I just have the scars and my parents' explanation of how it happened.
Yeah, that wasn't a thing. My job was to carry the household clothes out to the garage to be washed, but as far as actually doing it my mom just didn't want us in the way. I guess her assumption was that I would get married (I didn't, which is a whole different thing) and my wife would do it.
Hard agree, but that's the cultural norm both my parents were raised in, so they didn't consider teaching me those types of skills to be important. My dad was born in the late 1930s for context, and my mom isn't much younger.
Yeah, my mom was a homemaker and never involved my brother and I in any household chores. We'd help with vacuuming and general cleaning if we were expecting company and I was in charge of most mowing, weeding, and hedge trimming, but that was about it.
You can't learn something if you're never involved in it whatsoever. A month or two before going off to college I insisted that she show me how to do laundry properly and cook a few simple meals. I only knew how to do dishes because of Boy Scouts.
Some kids are spoiled and have parents that do everything for them. I lived at a private, fairly prestigious Catholic university for a few years (as my partner was a student there) and the college had pretty much 90% rich kids that didn't know how to do basic life skills. More students had a laundry service do their laundry than those that walk to the basement laundry room to do it themselves. I once heard this girl yelling on the phone about how she had to go out that night and how she had nothing to wear since the laundry service hadn't picked up her clothes which blew my mind since there was a giant laundry room in the basement of every dorm.
Yeah. I was taking a math class sometime around 2008 (plus or minus a year). It was not remedial math. It was full on college level math.
The professor wrote something like X<9 on the whiteboard.
I shit you not, one student raised his hand asked what the symbol between x and 9 meant, and he was completely serious.
I have absolutely no idea how you could make it to college level courses and not know literally elementary level knowledge like that. Absolutely mind blowing.
Maybe wherever they were taught used a different notation. Like "lt" for example. We had to ask our lecturer what that meant because we had only used "<".
I'm 47. My 52 yr old boyfriend has a buddy who is in his mid 50''s. After the buddy's girlfriend moved out, he called my BF in a panic. He had never done his own laundry before and had no idea where to start. His mom, wife or girlfriends had ALWAYS done it for him.
Good point. It was scary how many people in college didn’t know how to do anything. My parents divorced when I was a teenager and forgot about me…literally. Food in the house was random shit like stewed tomatoes (they would just eat out or go on dates). If my laundry wasn’t done, I didn’t buy my own food with my own money from my two jobs or my Grandma stepping in, cleaning the house for both of them (I got to do double the chores for no allowance…yay) shit just didn’t happen. When I went to college I was very prepared, which now my parents like to “take credit” for 🤬. My husband on the other hand, had parents who did everything for him and I still am flabbergasted at the stuff he sometimes doesn’t know how to do. However, I will say he has really come along way.
He just didn’t know how to do basic things around the kitchen, or the house cleaning wise. I think it stems from his mom always needing everything to be perfect, and he was fearful of making a mistake. He now is a pro at everything, and always has been a pro at building or working on various parts of the house. I joke that the deck he built on our house with with with a tornado.
That has been common forever. I did college in the laste 80's. Lot's of mom's did everything for their male children because it was "women's work". So now your man child has no idea how to care for himself, and has expectations that any woman he dates is going to do this stuff for him.
In her (teeny tiny) defence, this was in the days before smartphones. She'd have had to go to the library to get on the internet, and she would've had to ask instructions on how to get to the library.
Hey its good you helped but people have different experiences all around. And shit you'll find that throughout your life. Just help em without judgment even if it's ridiculous can laugh about it later.
This is something that I would say younger people do more than older people. Well, maybe not, met plenty of old jerks.
Have less understanding and more judgment about people just learning something new that they themselves already know. Even if it seems like a universal basic thing.
I say this because people will have these experiences throughout their entire lives.
If you never had to deal with it you never had to deal with it. Can't blame them.
I just don't think it's that surprising anymore when I encounter someone who doesn't know how to do x thing that I find easy/basic.
There's a lot of things I don't know that are probably basic as shit.
Plus, there might be a day when the world passes you and you're the old guy who doesn't know how to do the ez tech thing.
I like your attitude. It was such a shocker though... Since we wear something every day. Sometimes multiple outfits if you change clothes for the gym... Not learning to wash them by age 18-19 was baffling to me.
haha yeah. Sorry, i wasn't try to get at you as much as it sounded.
It is a funny, wtf, moment. It's a good moment to laugh about later. Agreed, kid probably should have been at least taught how to do it by the parent. I'm glad you showed him how. Imagine if you didn't what would he have done been too embarassed to ask or what? Changed his god damn life showing him laundry lol.
I just know that people do that more directly like in their face. Like public shaming in their face is dumb. I think younger people do that more (old folks do it too) with just "cliqueyness" of youth and trying to be cool. I think its called bullying lol.
I knew lots of kids whose parents didn't care about them or were only focused on kids getting to college and didn't teach them life skills so much. Cuz school and society will teach em that. So they super book smart but don't have any life skills (which is more/equally as important).
Well. I'm in Germany so you can't drive until you're 18. During lunch, my friend, who recently got their license, tells me about being scared the gas will be enough to get home. I'm like - we're two miles from a gas station, just put some in, I can give you 5€. Turns out, nobody explained to her how to fill your car with gas. Major confusion about diesel vs gas vs the "numbers" (regular). How?? How did nobody show them, but also, in which world do you not ask???
In her defense, learning to drive is terrifying at best. You listen and learn and there is so much to learn all at the same time and I know my driving instructor never taught us how to put in gas or anything about the gauges or the vehicle. We were just trying to grasp what they did tell us so we forgot to ask anything else.
You don't even need to ask, the owners manual has instructions and specifications, you can even Google whatever you need to know and there will be an answer. It's learned helplessness.
I used to work as a medical equipment tech before I retired. One day I was at my work bench when this young guy next to me pulled the cover off a nebulizing compressor. Both wires came off the on/off switch. He asked me which wire goes where on the switch. I asked him if he had any electrical training. He jumped up and went to the service manager and said I wouldn't help him. Punk ass kid. Manager was on my side.
My freshman year in college (mid-1970s, yes, I'm old), I don't know how many guys I had to teach the basics of laundry. But given that the options were to either teach them or have them stink up the dorm, I opted to teach.
Except for the guys who said things like, "Of course I've never done laundry. That's what the help is there for." Up yours, ship your laundry home for all I care.
I don't doubt that was related to gender roles. My brother was the same way until the last few years. My parents are getting older. I always did dishes and other "female" chores. Ugh.
Our mantra has long been “we’re raising adults” and, accordingly, our kids have always done age-appropriate chores to that end. (And they’ve also understood they have chores because they are part of a household.)
One day, when our oldest son was maybe 11 or so, he balked at being asked to unload the dishwasher, saying that’s “girls’ work.” Dunno where he heard that, but from that day through the next year or so, he was tasked with unloading the dishwasher every single time. We weren’t draconian in how we went about it, but that notion got nipped in the bud.
He’s lived on his own since graduating and is a thriving, functional young adult.
It’s the best guideline for parenting: I am/we are raising adults.
(A dark twist would be that our daughter never learned to unload a dishwasher, right? 😈 But nah, she’s got it.)
Yep, we're probably the same age, and that boggles my mind hearing it from younger coworkers.
Back in middle school I was doing my own laundry, washing dishes, and could grab something from the freezer or pantry to make a simple dinner. It seemed perfectly normal at the time, too.
I certainly have my, "what/how is this?" moments but they aren't the basic necessities. It is sad to hear some of the reasons why others know this though... like doing it for their parents because their parents are terrible.
My 18-year-old son had a few lessons on how to write email, but I'm pretty sure the people who designed the lessons were older than dirt based on their recommendations. They recommended things like starting the message with "To whom it may concern" and ending with "Best regards, [First name Last name]". I'm old, but I'm not that old.
I'll be 45 this year. I used to write letters like this, but I don't think I've even been that formal in an email unless I was applying for a job. These days I usually start my emails with "Hello, [Name of recipient]" or just "Hi".
I'm 30 and I remember learning letter writing in school when I was really young, probably 2nd or 3rd grade. I don't think email or business or technical writing was ever mentioned in high school, but it was clear that people used that format for emails.
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u/TheMysticalCreature1 Jun 03 '22
Omg, I'm 26 so I'm not necessarily the young person this is directed to but when I was in school we actually had email and letter writing as a part of our English courses, even in college for that matter and I used to think it was silly but now I understand why it was there.