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.

I do think it is something parents should teach and not just rely on schools to do it.

Most of my skills came from being in the kitchen whilst others cooked, parents (dad cooked as much as mum), grandparents, great grandparents, and being given jobs to do - like stiring the gravy every Sunday - this taught me how to make gravy - Bisto was a rude word to my mum!

I am involved with Guides and when we are away the girls are involved in the cooking of all meals, and I know I have to allow a lot more time now than I did 15 years ago to teach girls some of the basics - peeling veg, when things are done, cooking simple things like pasta.

The best example was a very bright girl who read the side of the packet of pasta and followed the directions - put pasta into boiling water - and then came and moaned at me that the pasta wasn't cooked but the water was cold - didn't realise that the water needed to be kept boiling!

A parent who was helping us that night admitted to me her girls have no idea about cooking as she thinks the kitchen is too dangerous to be in!

We cook on fire at camp so double the danger!

I was at University with an Italian student in his 30s who couldn't boil pasta or use a washing machine. Mama and his sisters had waited on him hand and foot until that point. I think he was a little surprised to discover that he was not regarded as much of a catch by any of the women in the house!

Oh it definitely heeds to be taught at home.

But that's sadly dependant on whether anyone taught the parents to cook.

I think. It's a good thing to have in schools. It's something that less academic children could enjoy and learn more maths etc without even realising and can result in kids teaching parents at home.

What use is a physics degree if you can't look after yourself.

I can't boil an egg and I'm 40. If I wanted to, I would google it on the internet. But since I don't have eggs and neither does DH nor anyone in my family, that would an awful lot of wasted eggs...

I can't fry bacon either - I don't eat fried food. Well at least I could probably fry bacon reasonably well even without doing it before, but I wouldn't want to eat it.

I can however do lots of other things involving complicated skills that took years to learn and need constant updating.

I do think that some people who can't do anything out of the ordinary or really skilled put too much emphasis on very ordinary things to make themselves feel better. You could pick a whole load of things a good housewife "ought" to be able to do and make a Nobel peace prize winning genetic scientist look incapable just because they choose not to make their own bread!

You can buy a lot of ready cooked food. I don't think cooking is as big a deal as it once was.

don't like eggs

I'm not quite sure about that, chandler. I'd imagine that it's having the appropriate skills that's at issue. If you can't change oil and your oil needs changing, then it is a problem. It's not the difficulty or otherwise that's at issue.

But a lot of ready cooked food is full of additives. It's also totally overpriced a lot of the time and people who aren't used to cooking don't realise they're paying way over the odds for a couple of potatoes and a tiny bit of chicken bulked out with tons of carrots.

If people knowingly fork out for this that's one thing. But a whole generation seem to be growing up with a huge lack of knowledge about home economics and that's another thing altogether.

I've never boiled an egg in my life. Because I don't like them, therefore have never seen the point in learning. I don't particularly enjoy cooking and as such cook very basically (mainly pasta/rice or things I can sling in the oven). My mum tried to teach me and encourage me over the years but it never ended well as I just hated it. I can cook enough for me, and to me that's fine.

I have however just started to learn how to bake, and aren't hating that so there may be hope yet.

And no, I wasn't spoilt, didn't have everything done for me and my mum wasn't a crap parent either.

I will be very upset if by the time my DC's leave home they are incapable of preparing a simple home cooked meal.
As the mother of a boy, I am determined that he won't ever be a pathetic manchild who "needs someone to look after him". It's 2014, not 1914.

chandler you have completely missed the point.

boil an egg is a turn of phrase. It just means that someone can't do the most basic thing.

It's not about feeling good about yourself ffs. quite the opposite. Most of the time it makes me almost resentful because if I don't cool then dc would live off an extremely limited array of rank food as produced by dp.

It's a skill that is vital. I mean what happens if foe instance your looking after someone's kid in an emergency and you only have enough micro lasagne for your child.

what happens if your car breaks down or bus doesn't show up and you can't go to get any food.

Surely it would be good for people to be able to look in the fridge and through something together rather than go hungry because they felt that being a neuro surgeon being able to cook was for those to stupid to do anything else.

what a bizarre way to look at something

I left home for uni at 18 having hardly set foot in the kitchen. Dm was horrendously house proud to the point that we weren't allowed in the kitchen except at meal times in case we made a mess! Washing and ironing was done for us as was all the cleaning in the house including our bedrooms as whatever we did would never come up to her standards! It also meant zero privacy as a teenager and an abiding need to avoid confrontation but that's a whole other thread!

My dc have cleaning chores, washing up rota and the 2 older ones (11 & 9) Cook supper one night a week each. Both younger dc can make flapjacks and can bake a passable loaf in the bread maker. They all also help with the meal planning and budgeting for the week.

Dm still complains that I am wrong for teaching them life skills and that they should be allowed to be kids - there is no way I am setting my guys up for the chaos and stress I had trying to learn to look after myself

Same as poolo here! Martyr mother who would not let me do anything, then would bitch that nobody would help her and how lazy all us kids were, she was just a scullery maid etc I used to offer to help tidy up after dinner as a teenager FFS! And I remember how much she shouted at me when I was 7 and I tried to make her toast on Mother's Day - apparently all I did was make a big mess for her to clean up. Toast!! Nice middle class household too, apparently

So when I left home I had no idea how to cook. I was really really dreadful at it. Also couldn't use laundry machine, budget (learnt some hard lessons with debt as a result) etc. I certainly couldn't boil an egg.

Anyway with the help of DH (who, thank my lucky stars, I met at 18) I learnt how to function as an adult. Now 12 years on I am an excellent cook, I'm very proud of myself for learning as an adult the things I was never taught or allowed to do as a child (I would've loved to have cooked! My mother took away books from me that suggested activities like baking as it would cause her "too much hassle")

Makes me so angry to think about it now I have my own DC. DS is 2 but I get him to help me with all the household things - tidying up after meals, putting away toys, put on the washing and hang it up, helping me to cook (eg "painting" salmon with honey and soy marinade before I put it in the oven, making porridge, using the Nespresso machine to make me a cup of coffee - all closely supervised of course!). Long before he and DD are 18 I want them to be able to cook meals and look after themselves.

I personally feel, given my experience, that it is a type of child abuse to not teach your child the skills they need to live independently. My parents would say they wanted me to focus on my academic work, but that is a red herring. Beyond the "oh let's have a baby/cute baby and toddler" stages they couldn't be fucked doing a proper job of raising a child into a fully functioning adult. THAT is what I think of people who don't let their kids help out/do chores/cook.

Sorry for the rant clearly I feel strongly about this

I think your post is a bit patronising Chandler. I do a job that only one other person in the country does, but I still like to cook and am really chuffed with myself when I manage to put something really nice together from a few bits lying around the fridge.
Cooking is an important lifeskill, regardless of what other skills you have.

I'm 43, I hate eggs. I've never cooked one in my entire life. MY DP loves them, he cooks his own.

I don't think chandler did miss the point. I think she's just saying that the point is not an important one.

I'm 25 can't boil eggs, scramble them or make omelettes, because I hate eggs! I only eat them in cakes or egg fried rice

My brother however is 23, and can't iron, operate the washing machine, operate the oven, boil pasta, cook full stop, lay a fire, dust, hoover (properly), wash up by hand, doesn't know where anything goes in the kitchen...

We had very different upbringings, despite living under the same roof

Surely it is a fairly important point to at least understand the absolute basics of cooking and how to look after yourself - or is that seen as being totally demeaning. . I suppose you could live off ready prepared meals all the time if you really wanted to.

I have a DS and would hate him to end up as one of the useless husbands that are constantly being moaned about on Mumsnet so I ensure he takes a share of the cooking and general household chores at home.

I do think some parents are complete martyrs to their children and secretly 'like' having their children dependent on them.

Falling am totally intrigued as to what your job is .

Being a useless household man used to be essential. But, times change.

I don't think boiling an egg is such a great indicator of basic culinary ability as it used to be, simply because boiled eggs are not such a staple as they once were.

DD1 is 11 and her culinary abilities are pretty limited atm, but she can make cheese on toast, hot chocolate, microwave chocolate mug cake (clearly a necessity) and put a pizza in the oven. As she gets older and taller we'll move on to boiling pasta and heating through a sauce, before other things.

If I told you I'd have to shoot you Ragwort

falling me too!

It's not that exciting, honestly!

boil an egg is a turn of phrase. It just means that someone can't do the most basic thing.

It doesn't actually. Most human beings can either work out or, if they have internet access, google it in a few seconds. Its not that they can't do it, simply that they aren't motivated to do it.

what happens if your car breaks down or bus doesn't show up and you can't go to get any food.

I'd never be reliant on a car to get food, since I spent my childhood not learning how to heat up soup or baked beans or boil eggs, but outdoors cycling, running and riding. I'm also pretty organised. Saying that, if the car did break down on the way to B&Q to get more plaster, paint or tiles, I'd diagnose it using my plug in diagnostics tools (since I'd already have checked the oil, etc.). Left home at 18 and successfully worked out how to use a washing machine and cook pasta without being shown. Its not exactly difficult, is it?

Cooking and boiling eggs - very boring. Not all of us were put on this planet to be cooks. I haven't starved to death or suffered nutritional deficiency yet.

Ragwort Falling am totally intrigued as to what your job is

Government issuer of edicts on what "healthy" food and diets should consist of, of which we are so fond?

Boiled egg inspector?

Home economics teaching overseer? (I took mechanics instead...)