If I were in charge of the Department of Education, I would create a curriculum for basic adulting skills. Things every student should learn to do, so they can be more effective adults.
1: Did anyone teach you how to wash, dry and fold a load of laundry?
2: Did anyone teach you how to write a proper business letter?
3: When did you learn to cook a meal from fresh raw ingredients?
4: Have you ever cut up a whole chicken?
5: How did you learn to make a hotel reservation?
My answers:
1: Did anyone teach you how to wash, dry and fold a load of laundry? My mother did, she wanted the laundry done while she was working outside of the home, there was hell to pay if it was not done.
2: Did anyone teach you how to write a proper business letter? I remember learning and practicing the basics of letter writing in about the 3rd grade. We even walked up the Post Office as a class to learn how to send and receive mail.
3: When did you learn to cook a meal from fresh raw ingredients? When I was about ten, my mother started working in an office, and she wanted dinner ready when she returned home in the evening, my sister and I taught one another to cook. I learned a lot from watching my grandmother cook.
4: Have you ever cut up a whole chicken? Yes, it is a basic skill that all of us should have. You learn cooking, and anatomy.
5: How did you learn to make a hotel reservation? I don't recall my parents ever making hotel reservations when we traveled, I taught myself, 1-800-holiday as the toll free number for Holiday Inn hotels. Today it almost all done online.
Please share your answers in the comments.
1: Did anyone teach you how to wash, dry and fold a load of laundry? I think I must have taught myself. I remember my mother offering her expertise on folding sheets. Hers looked like perfectly pressed envelopes when she was finished. I didn’t pay much attention.
ReplyDelete2: Did anyone teach you how to write a proper business letter? Learned that in school.
3: When did you learn to cook a meal from fresh raw ingredients? Not yet.
4: Have you ever cut up a whole chicken? No and not likely to.
5: How did you learn to make a hotel reservation? Hmmm. I never thought about that. I simply did it.
A whole chicken is a challenge the first 100 times.
Delete1. No one taught me. I had to learn when I went to college
ReplyDelete2. Someone did. I can't remember if it was at home or school. I think the former.
3. Self taught.
4. No. I like chicken but it seems a little barbaric when you actually see it done.
5. Pre-internet, it was a little more work, but i just did it on my own. Same with post internet, it was just easier.
Living solo, we learned a lot.
Delete1. By osmosis. Do I take the folding literally? It either wasn't ironed, underwear, bras and socks, or it was. Towels and sheets were the only thing folded.
ReplyDelete2. I learnt myself.
3. Cooking a meal from fresh is easy. I should do it. Making it enticing and attractive is not my in my skill set.
4. No, not my job, but I can't see why I couldn't.
5. It was and is easy to make a hotel reservation, but getting it right...a skill I am still learning. I generally do get it right.
With very rare exceptions, my parents just showed up at hotels.
Delete1: Did anyone teach you how to wash, dry and fold a load of laundry? Washing and drying I learned from my mother; folding I figured out all by myself!
ReplyDelete2: Did anyone teach you how to write a proper business letter? High school English class, I think.
3: When did you learn to cook a meal from fresh raw ingredients? Also from my mother who was a great cook and always used fresh ingredients. In fact it wasn't until I was in my early teens and at a sleepover at a friend's house that I learned of spaghetti in a can!!
4: Have you ever cut up a whole chicken? I haven't but Google could teach me.
5: How did you learn to make a hotel reservation? Just did it; back in the day you called the hotel, nowadays it's all internet.
Technology has changed a few things profoundly over the past 30 years.
DeleteI am self-taught in all these areas, except for #2 (we were taught that in school) and #4 (I still have never done this).
ReplyDeleteFive in a row that have not taken on a whole chicken.
Delete1: Did anyone teach you how to wash, dry and fold a load of laundry? Yes, my mother when I was very young.
ReplyDelete2: Did anyone teach you how to write a proper business letter? I learned in grade school. There was so much taught back when I was in school that isn't taught these days.
3: When did you learn to cook a meal from fresh raw ingredients? Probably when I was around 12. I watched both my mother and my grandmother.
4: Have you ever cut up a whole chicken? I'm pretty sure I have but I can't remember it. These days it's up to the butcher.
5: How did you learn to make a hotel reservation? This is one I taught myself. The same as you, I made the phone calls.
I learned a lot of cooking from watching my grandmother.
Delete1: Did anyone teach you how to wash, dry and fold a load of laundry? Yes, my mom and grandma. I also hung laundry on a clothesline and ironed my dad's handkerchiefs.
ReplyDelete2: Did anyone teach you how to write a proper business letter? Yes, I learned throughout school and how to address an envelope.
3: When did you learn to cook a meal from fresh raw ingredients? At a young age. One set of grandparents lived on a farm and when we visited them in the summer, the grandkids went to the field to pick the beans and peas, we sat on the porch to string the beans and shell the peas, and then Grandma showed us how to cook them.
4: Have you ever cut up a whole chicken? Yes, sir!
5: How did you learn to make a hotel reservation? Back in the day we called the hotel directly to make reservations.
I can remember looking up hotel prices in the AAA travel book, then calling.
Delete1. I learned it from watching my grandmother then my mother doing the washing, drying it on the line outdoors, then folding carefully and putting it away in the airing cupboard.
ReplyDelete2. I learned it from a book in the library. Applying for a job was all by handwritten letter when I needed to do that.
3. We lived with my grandmother in the 1950's and she had nothing other than fresh raw ingredients to work with, not even a fridge so things had to be cooked then eaten or stored in the pantry for a day maximum.
4. Only a roast chicken. Chicken was a luxury food when I was a child, only to be had at Christmas or Easter, unless you had your own chickens.
5. When on touring holidays in France, long before mobile phones or internet, we would phone the hotels using public telephone boxes and numbers from a brochure in the tourist office. In our best French.
We booked a hotel through the tourist office in Bath one time.
DeleteI remember on our family vacations that we would watch the motels for vacancy signs as we traveled along. We, the kids in the car, were always thrilled when the motel had an outdoor pool!
ReplyDeleteMy father would drive until everyone was exhausted, then stop.
Delete1: Did anyone teach you how to wash, dry and fold a load of laundry? Mom assigned folding and putting away to the nearest "responsible" child who was available, so I knew about folding laundry and distribution in junior high. I got the express lesson in how to work the washer and dryer the summer before college, as did my brothers.
ReplyDelete2: Did anyone teach you how to write a proper business letter? Egads, this is back in the mists of time in elementary school. Dinosaurs were still roaming the earth.
3: When did you learn to cook a meal from fresh raw ingredients? Not sure how this evolved. I remember watching both my mom and dad making dinners and helping out during Thanksgiving, however I'll have to assume that this occurred during the last two years of college when I moved off campus.
4: Have you ever cut up a whole chicken? No. If I have a whole uncooked chicken, I am going to roast or put it on the grill. I will carve it afterwards using either the "American" or French method depending upon the weather and the mood of the cook.. If I want chicken parts, I will buy chicken parts. I was assigned poultry carving duties when my dad started on anticoagulants in the late 1970's. BTW if your taste runs to spatchcocked chicken preparation, save up and buy a good set of kitchen shears It makes removing the backbone easier.
5: How did you learn to make a hotel reservation? Probably phone from the AAA guides. During the 1960's I remember my mother writing to European hotels months in advance and requesting reservations and waiting for the replies. The internet makes it so much easier. However I have run into situations in which the hotel has contracted out the reservation service. I have reservations about this.
Will Jay
I have become paranoid about double checking hotel reservations. If possible I book directly with the hotel company website.
Delete1: Did anyone teach you how to wash, dry and fold a load of laundry? No. They did not.
ReplyDelete2: Did anyone teach you how to write a proper business letter? Covered in English lessons.
3: When did you learn to cook a meal from fresh raw ingredients? When I was in my late twenties I guess.
4: Have you ever cut up a whole chicken? Yes... but not a living one.
5: How did you learn to make a hotel reservation? Well - it's hardly rocket science is it? I just picked up the phone and did it. What was there to learn?
Mastering life skills.
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