Friday open thread: unlearnt life skills
Oct. 21st, 2022 09:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12Greetings from another Friday on Catastrophe Brexit Island. The mists have rolled back in, I've been swimming this morning, and I picked up a very nice cup of takeaway coffee on the way home, but unfortunately these kinds of small pleasures aren't enough to distract from the ongoing slow-motion car crash that is British politics.
However, life must go on, and so I bring you another prompting question for this week's open thread:
Is there any life skill you wished you learnt (as a child, as a young adult, at some unspecified point in the past) but for some reason never did? How would this skill have helped you in your day-to-day life? (Please feel free to interpret 'life skill' in whatever way you like.)
My answer to this question is sewing — specifically, sewing items of clothing from scratch, using a sewing machine. I grew up with a mother who had never learnt this skill herself (she came from a generation where all girls were taught to sew at school, but proudly told me that my grandmother had done all her sewing assignments/homework for her and she never learnt a thing) and was for this reason unable to teach it to her own daughters. Weirdly, she did know how to knit and knitted almost all the jumpers and cardigans my sister and I wore as small children. She and my dad have fairly basic sewing repair skills (like sewing a button, fixing small tears), and I did learn these things myself, but I can't do them neatly and my RSI makes it very hard to hold and thread a needle.
Obviously I could have learnt how to sew another way, but there was no opportunity at school and therefore I would have had to pay someone to teach me, and do so during my free time, and this never really seemed like a worthwhile thing to do. However, I still regret not knowing how to sew, because sewing my own clothes would be cheaper, and I would be free to make things in styles that fitted me properly and suited me, rather than being beholden to whatever cut of dress or skirt the fashion industry deems in style in any given year. (There have been large swathes of time in my adult life — think periods of five or ten years — when every cut of dress and skirt, and sometimes even jumper or shirt has been deeply unflattering and virtually unwearable. As for trousers, I haven't worn trousers (other than leggings and pyjamas) since about 2004.)
Weirdly enough, I have a cousin the same age as me who is a sewing expert. She has two children and makes all their clothes, and loads of clothes for herself. She was taught by her mother (one of my mother's younger sisters, who is really talented at all kinds of crafts). However, this cousin has often vocally complained that her mother never taught her how to cook, and that she struggles with this particular life skill. For my part, my parents are incredible cooks, my sister and I were in the kitchen basically since we were able to stand up, and have been capable of cooking independently since we were about ten years old. It's funny how life works out — the things you pick up as a child as 'crucial life skills' tend to be the things your own parents value, and the stuff they perceive as tedious and unimportant fall by the wayside.
However, life must go on, and so I bring you another prompting question for this week's open thread:
Is there any life skill you wished you learnt (as a child, as a young adult, at some unspecified point in the past) but for some reason never did? How would this skill have helped you in your day-to-day life? (Please feel free to interpret 'life skill' in whatever way you like.)
My answer to this question is sewing — specifically, sewing items of clothing from scratch, using a sewing machine. I grew up with a mother who had never learnt this skill herself (she came from a generation where all girls were taught to sew at school, but proudly told me that my grandmother had done all her sewing assignments/homework for her and she never learnt a thing) and was for this reason unable to teach it to her own daughters. Weirdly, she did know how to knit and knitted almost all the jumpers and cardigans my sister and I wore as small children. She and my dad have fairly basic sewing repair skills (like sewing a button, fixing small tears), and I did learn these things myself, but I can't do them neatly and my RSI makes it very hard to hold and thread a needle.
Obviously I could have learnt how to sew another way, but there was no opportunity at school and therefore I would have had to pay someone to teach me, and do so during my free time, and this never really seemed like a worthwhile thing to do. However, I still regret not knowing how to sew, because sewing my own clothes would be cheaper, and I would be free to make things in styles that fitted me properly and suited me, rather than being beholden to whatever cut of dress or skirt the fashion industry deems in style in any given year. (There have been large swathes of time in my adult life — think periods of five or ten years — when every cut of dress and skirt, and sometimes even jumper or shirt has been deeply unflattering and virtually unwearable. As for trousers, I haven't worn trousers (other than leggings and pyjamas) since about 2004.)
Weirdly enough, I have a cousin the same age as me who is a sewing expert. She has two children and makes all their clothes, and loads of clothes for herself. She was taught by her mother (one of my mother's younger sisters, who is really talented at all kinds of crafts). However, this cousin has often vocally complained that her mother never taught her how to cook, and that she struggles with this particular life skill. For my part, my parents are incredible cooks, my sister and I were in the kitchen basically since we were able to stand up, and have been capable of cooking independently since we were about ten years old. It's funny how life works out — the things you pick up as a child as 'crucial life skills' tend to be the things your own parents value, and the stuff they perceive as tedious and unimportant fall by the wayside.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-25 08:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-26 06:48 pm (UTC)