To wonder how someone can reach their early 20's without being able to even boil an egg?

[IceCreamAngel]

Just that really. I could boil an egg at about eight years old! By the time I was 10/11 I could fry bacon and heat up some soup, spaghetti or baked beans on the hob. I could also operate a microwave to prepare myself a ready meal. It wasn't of my parents making me do it either. I wanted to do it all myself, and once I could their response would always be, "ok well you know where everything is".

So quite frankly I'm disturbed that there are young adults out there who can't even manage the most basic of life skills. How the fuck is that even possible? It's appalling and quite sad really.

It's poor parenting quite frankly to allow your child to get to the age of 18 without knowing basic life skills such as cooking, cleaning, laundry, budgeting....I'm a firm believer that it is your job to prepare them for the big wide world and making their way in it, not mollycoddling them and treating them like babies forever.

At uni I lived with a girl who was bright enough to be a medical student, but had no idea how to change bedsheets . 18 years old and had never done it.

Having said that, I always have to check with DH how you boil an egg because they are absolutely rank and I don't eat them myself.

I can't boil an egg. I can cook a full roast though. Can't iron either. Never iron anything so I've never bothered to learn.

I went to uni with a girl who must have been about 21 who had had quite expensive private schooling. Couldn't cook anything except toast and sausages nor could she change a light bulb.

Surely if you don't know but want one you can look up the instructions online? It's hardly rocket science. That said, cooking a boiled egg to the precise stage of runniness desired is quite a skill.

When I started nurse training I thought the others in my set just liked pot noodles, vesta curries and toast, it was only 3 months in when I cooked for the 5 of us they fell on it like a pack of wolves and it turned out Only 1 other had been taught to cook and she like me Mum had always worked so she and her siblings had had to prepare the evening meal.

The others had what was called a house wives in those days, their mothers just saw it as their job and got on with it, they could all bake a cake as this was an activity, treat, but not a meal.

So me and the other girl took it on ourselves to teach them, they where keen pupils and 24 years later me and the 2 that couldn't cook have a love for it and produce the most amazing meals, me and the one that could, never progressed beyond good basic home cooking

I think you've a better chance of learning how to cook eggs in a saucier's house and a better chance of learning how to fix a wagon in a wainwright's.

I thought I'd taught DS rather well until one afternoon DH and I were out and my mobile rang.

"Muuuum, how do I make Smash?"

He was 17

This drives me insane. If you don't know how to do something, at least give it an attempt, or ask someone to show you. I'm quite intolerant though, once threw an ex boyfriend out my house and asked for my keys back because he didn't know how to chop an onion (he was 28 at the time)

I'd be cross with a 17yo who asked me how to make smash (and please don't laugh because I said cross).

There is a random "and me" in my post
Plus me instead of my
wish we could edit

My mum made us get up at 7am every morning when we were younger and she made sure we made our own beds, helped cooked, clean the house from 11 yrs old.

My sis husband knows nothing his mum did everything and she now has a lazy husband in their own home who will help and do things when she nags but left alone for a weekend will not do any housework. Last weekend he washed his clothes but not hers - who does that! He didn't think to wash her with his at all.

I get the same bewilderment with people at work too - people who work on documents all day long because its part of their job t oproduce and format documents but yet even after 5-6 yrs do not know how to use Word properly. How is that pssible surely in all that time of having to creat,mainpulate and format documents you would of picked up a good working of using word.

I left home at 21 having never done a load of laundry or done any cooking more complex than baking a cake or sticking chicken dippers in the oven.

I now have an overgrown manchild fiance to look after so I've come on leaps and bounds in those few years!

Seasons I was brought up in military family the whole family would clean the house on a Sunday night ( like a block night where everyone in the accommodation block would clean ) mum would keep the cleaning ticking over but on sunday we deep cleaned everything

When my DC were little my ex and I ( both ex military would do the sunday cleaning) dd2 loved holding the wire for the hoover and follow you around at the age of 3

I like to think I'm a competent cook and was always, always involved in cooking when growing up. And I've boiled and fried eggs since young too.

But! Never cracked it (sorry) until met DP at 30. Eggs were generally either over or under boiled/fried. He taught me magic techniques and transformed my life. Maybe partly why I fell for him?!

(Delia for boiled eggs, lid on frying pan for frying. In case anyone cares.)

All that said, I take your general point about people not doing things for themselves.

Food technology is shocking around here. The things my 15 yo nephew has cooked in school so far are fruit salad, filo parcels (with ready made pastry), fairy cakes and flapjack. All well and good but why not be cooking things like cottage pie, spaghetti bolognese and chicken supreme?! They should really be teaching real life cooking skills to prepare children for adulthood. I am lucky because my dad always let me help him cook so I have always been able to whip up a meal from a very young age.

I have a little gadget that tells me when eggs are soft boiled and when they are hard. it goes in the pan with the eggs.

I never bothered to learn the timings as I hate boiled eggs, but my kids like them.

without the gadget they come out very well boiled!

I agree OP. Of course a person may not actually like eggs so not cook them, but knows enough of the principles of basic cookery to make one if required. I don't like hummus but I could make it.

I work with kids of 16-21 and nothing winds me up more than a faked attempt at being thick and incompetent usually to avoid doing a menial task.

Wasn't the boiled egg a requirement for a Brownie badge? Seem to recall having to serve it on a made up tray.

It's the overprotective parents, who won't let their teenagers near boiling water. Or martyr mums (it's always the mums) who want to do everything. It must be such a shock to the system, if one day you discover that food and clean laundry does not magically appear.
I had a friend who complained that his mum had forgotten something, when she packed his suitcase for the trip. He was 25!

thats terrible hazle! was he not embarrassed to be saying that?

Making filo pastry in school (or at all) would really be going some. I think learning about rising agents, germs/thorough cooking, heat/duration, (not washing chicken) salmonella, -- the technical stuff, in school would be great. Whipping up a lovely dish is a combination of technology and taste. You can express your tastes at home. But, somebody does need to teach you the technology.

I don't know what chicken supreme is !

I taught myself to cook once I left home at 18. My mum and dad didn't cook much mainly ready meals so didn't teach me.

I think chicken supreme is chicken cooked in mushroom soup.

sounds horrible I wouldnt want to teach my kids that