Good fathers teach their sons DIY skills

[Pjotr]

.... but most babyboomer fathers seem to have missed that opportunity:
https://nypost.com/2019/06/06/millennia ... y-boomers/

[Moem]

Good parents teach their children DIY skills.

[Pjotr]

Good parents teach their children DIY skills.

Different kinds.

Speaking as a father of daughters, not sons, it was their mother who taught them the DIY skills that interested them: traditionally feminine things like cooking, sowing, knitting. They had no interest whatsoever in the traditionally male DIY skills.

[jimallyn]

Good parents teach their children DIY skills.

+1

I think I got a lot of my DIY skills from my father, but my mother was pretty sharp on many things, too, and I learned a lot from her.

[HaveaMint]

"Sixty-one percent would rather hang out with their children than spend that time on DIY, while 49% of millennial dads say they’ve done better than their own dad at spending quality time with their kids."
Spending time with your kids can include showing them how to deal with DIY skills. One must have the desire to learn however. If I can do the DIY job I prefer to do it myself instead of hiring someone. My father believed that doing it yourself is cheaper even if you make a mistake and have to redo it than hiring someone to do it.

[Pjotr]

Spending time with your kids can include showing them how to deal with DIY skills. One must have the desire to learn however. If I can do the DIY job I prefer to do it myself instead of hiring someone. My father believed that doing it yourself is cheaper even if you make a mistake and have to redo it than hiring someone to do it.

Yup. Spot on. Plus it gives you much more satisfaction to do it yourself.

I find this quote from the article hard to believe:

Many millennial dads reported not owning a cordless drill (46%), a stepladder (49%), a set of screwdrivers (38%) or even a hammer (32 percent) — an item owned by 93% of boomer dads.

I mean:

[RollyShed]

Why teach them? A dead loss. My daughter moved a few hundred miles north taking her welder and lathe with her. So what can I do? Who is going to do any welding for me?

Technology? My mother was the technologist, Meccano as a child in the 1920s, strip down her Austin 7 cars in the 1930s. So I was taught how to do things by her. Basically an attitude, if someone can make it, then it should be possible to fix it - story of my life.

[Moem]

They had no interest whatsoever in the traditionally male DIY skills.

Not sure why that is grin-worthy. Like Queen sang: "Some girls do, some girls don't". It's still useful to learn some basic coping skills, even outside of your area of interest. I think everyone is better off as an adult if they have learned how to cook a meal, sew on a button, replace a plug or cord on an appliance and unclog a sink.

Making and repairing stuff has a lot of inherent value. Repairing is also frugal, and helps save on resources. It's a valueable mindset, that should be encouraged in children.

[BenTrabetere]

.... but most babyboomer fathers seem to have missed that opportunity:

I am a boomer, and my most vivid DYI lesson from my father was how to repair a dripping faucet. The hot water tap for the kitchen sink dripped and he set out to show me how to replace the washers.
Step 1. Remove the faucet handle
Step 2. Remove the screw that seats the valve
Step 3. Remove the valve
Step 4. Find a large pot to put over the top of the entire faucet to control the geyser of hot water that shoots high enough to hit the ceiling. (After 50 years the water stain is still there)
Step 5. Open the cabinet under the sink and turn off the water.

I was never sure if he did that on purpose, to emphasis the importance of turning off the water before you start the job or if, as one of his brothers opined, "Naw, he's just an idiot when it comes to stuff like that."

[HaveaMint]

"Step 4. Find a large pot to put over the top of the entire facet to control the geyser of hot water that shoots high enough to hit the ceiling. (After 50 years the water stain is still there)"
Use your thumb to spray the rest of the ceiling so it is all stained and claim it as intentional.

[KBD47]

We fixed things ourselves because we couldn't afford not to Today it's even easier with youtube and the Internet, so really no excuse not to fix things yourself unless it would be unsafe or simply beyond average skill levels.

[cliffcoggin]

You mean one can't get an app for the smart phone that will fix the leaking tap? Oh calamity!

[ugly]

I think you need to look at how much times have changed.

The amount of free time that people have has been drastically reduced. Kids start school when they're 5 (and even younger for pre-school). Then they're expected to be in school to get college/university degree, which takes them into their early 20s. Now post-graduate degrees are common, just for entry level jobs. So people aren't even starting their careers until their mid to late 20s.

And since the cost of education has gone up dramatically, teenagers need to have part time jobs throughout the school year, or at the very least summer jobs. And in university you need to take some type of internship, or a summer job that is close to your field of study.

And mere education isn't enough anymore. Volunteer work has gone from something that is volunteer to something that is basically an unpaid mandatory expectation.

And then students are also expected to have other interests too, like organized sports, which take up a significant amount of free time. Parents now are expected to find ways to fill up their children's free time.

Most families are dual-income. So both parents have spent the whole week working and neither has the time or energy to take on a DIY project. The weekend is one of the few times both parents are free to spend time with their children. And, if you have the money to afford professional help, why wouldn't you take advantage of it?

And then, of course, there is the explosion of entertainment and technology that has become available. Whenever there is free time, kids can fill that up with video games, Netflix and social media. Certainly more 'fun' (or addicting) than taking on a DIY project. And if you're not picking up those skills as a kid, it's hard to pick them up as an adult.

And like the article mentioned, kids are now handier with computers. A baby boomer never needed to spend the time learning Linux when they were a kid. Instead that time could be used to learn traditional DIY skills.

Compare that to a baby boomer where it wasn't uncommon to walk up to a job site without much education, get hired and find a job that you could stick with until you retired. It was more more common for baby boomers to have a single income family. Kids had more free time, and there weren't as many options available to fill that free time. So with that free time, you could pick up DIY skills.

[Pjotr]

Compare that to a baby boomer where it wasn't uncommon to walk up to a job site without much education, get hired and find a job that you could stick with until you retired. It was more more common for baby boomers to have a single income family. Kids had more free time, and there weren't as many options available to fill that free time. So with that free time, you could pick up DIY skills.

True.... In some ways, a paradise lost forever.

[Sir Charles]

a paradise lost forever

...since the Fall of Man

[jimallyn]

I think everyone is better off as an adult if they have learned how to cook a meal, sew on a button, replace a plug or cord on an appliance and unclog a sink.

“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 A. Heinlein

[Moem]

Not many human beings around, by those standards...

[cliffcoggin]

Come the end of civilisation it will take more than button pushing skills for survival.

[Pjotr]

Come the end of civilisation

Not anytime soon, me thinks.

But DIY skills do have something to do with empowerment. A father should teach his son to be a man: stand tall, be proud, take responsibility, be the captain of your own ship, take care of yourself and your family, solve your own problems.

[RollyShed]

A father should teach his son to ...be the captain of your own ship, take care of yourself and your family, solve your own problems.

My father was the captain, a Master Mariner. He built us kids a dinghy and we taught ourselves how to be the captain of our own vessels. We also had to find out how to rig and sail a boat, using things called books and trial and error. And yes, I'd hand the helm over to my daughter, not her brother when sailing. So it depends on personalities.

Always remember it is the mothers who (REALLY TM) teach the kids so maybe they should also have the lessons. Maybe it is actually more important that they do.