AIBU to think that we need traditional home economics lessons to return?

[applesauce1]

My Gran taught home economics. She taught children how to properly budget, to plan meals for the week, and to shop and budget for that, how often to change bedding and how to launder clothes properly. She basically taught 'home making'. Maybe the fault with this is that it was only taught to girls. I believe that it was pretty much scrapped in favour of food technology.

Do you think that fewer young people today have these skills? I've met young people who tell me they can't boil an egg or make toast (a hyperbole, I'm sure?), or have the latest phone on an expensive contract, while simultaneously struggling at the end of the month, and I don't really know what to suggest.

Would it be very unreasonable to wonder whether for some of the millennial generation, differentiating between needs and wants as a result of not being taught budgeting has set that generation up for financial struggles? Obviously, for many, wages are far too low, but in lieu of that being addressed, do you think being denied these essential life lessons in school, young people find it more difficult to balance the lot they are being dealt by the powers that be? Should traditional home economics be brought back or is it an antiquated lesson structure that we're well shot of?

disclaimer not everyone who struggled financially has the latest phone, that was an anecdotal example of what caused me to wonder about this issue.

[MiddlingMum]

Unfortunately a lot of parents can't or won't pass skills on. So we have 12 year olds who can't iron or make a cup of tea, never mind preparing a whole meal. It's a huge shame and it's going to get worse.

Recently I was sewing some buttons on to a shirt. A woman aged about 24 saw me doing it and said "That's clever."

[Noodledoodledoo]

I do cover financial stuff within my maths lessons when appropriate, linked into interest, compound and simple. I am always shocked I am having to explain to mid teens what a mortgage is - I really wonder what parents talk about with students in terms of general life stuff.

I am shocked at how few have a a bank account, let alone have any idea how the banking system works. I teach in a ver nice middle class area were a lot of the parents commute into London - we are not talking of parents who don't have bank acocunts themselves!

I have done separate mini topics on general costs of living scenarios and am shocked at the students understanding of the costs of things or basic living expenses. I understood how this all worked and rough costs as my parents had conversations about such things at dinner times.

As for cooking - I learnt nothing in my HE lessons as my mum and dad taught me to cook.

I also run a Guide unit and the skills of 10 year olds has rapidly declined in the past 20 year I have done it - parents who have come in to help have admitted to me that they don't let their kids into the kitchen as its too dangerous - then send them to camp and we make them cook on open fire!!

[IonaNE]

YABU. School should not take over the role of home/parents.

[Fuxfurforall]

Can't parents teach their kids how to use a washing machine, cook a simple nutritious meal, iron clothes and budget money if they don't learn it elsewhere? My kids learn/ have learned some of this at school but no one ever taught me and I am 53. I had regular Home Economics lessons at school way back then - we learned how to make a cup of tea, bake cheese straws and make pastry. In contrast, my 14 year old daughter learns all about nutrition, cooking family meals and budgeting money.My older sons didn't - they learned from me.

[lapsedorienteerer]

YANBU at all, I'm proud to admit I have a BSc Hons in Home Economics ...at times other have described it as a 'basket weaving' degree...

[TheCountessofFitzdotterel]

Orange I asked dd about that and she said 'Miss just tells them to use different ingredients or make it for someone else in their family.' I don't think it's a barrier at all tbh.

[glueandstick]

Home Ec taught us how to make a basic dinner party and a white sauce. I still bring it out when I can't think think of anything else to do.

Fond memories

[orangeyellowgreen]

Out of a class of 30 there would be 10 vegetarians, 3 vegans, 5 with allergies, 4 gluten-free, 2 dairy-free, 4 with autism who only eat beige, 15 overweight who shouldn't eat sugar and 7 who have other special dietary needs.
The days are gone when everybody cooked and ate rock cakes.

[WhooooAmI24601]

I teach in a primary school and also run several cookery clubs. I love seeing children learn to cook, to use their maths knowledge to weigh out ingredients, to use their english to understand recipes, to work as a team and feel good about what they've created, to understand nutrition and not just this god-awful 'good' food and 'bad' food nonsense some have their heads filled with. To teach them about what their bodies biologically need to survive and thrive, to find ways around allergies, intolerances and dislikes, to teach them that skills like these are enjoyable rather than a chore.

However, my opinion is that stuff like this starts at home. Since the DCs could stand they've been at the kitchen worktop with me helping to prep meals and bake. They've known how to safely use kitchen equipment and to keep themselves safe; DS1 (11) can do basics and can cook a roast dinner but doesn't love to cook. DS2 made a pavlova over christmas and reads cookery books in his bed (he's 6). Parents need to do more of this with their children long-term to ensure they have all the survival skills needed for adulthood. With so much to teach every day, schools are limited in what they can cram into the curriculum. Supporting it at home makes so much sense.

[EB123]

I think the ability to cook some basics is so important and should absolutely be taught. It should come from home ideally but often through lack of time, lack of knowledge or whatever it isn't happening.

My boys have been involved with cooking with me from really tiny and not just baking the obvious fairy cakes. Tonight my 6 year old (with supervision)made the white sauce for our lasagne and he was so proud. It's really important to me that they are able to make a basic meals.

[Crumbs1]

What stops parents having this responsibility?

[sashh]

I wonder how it worked in the past when my Gran was a teachers

Depending on age she might have been teaching girls who would leave school at 14 or 15 and who were being trained to be mothers and wives.

Nowadays we expect girls to have a career.

Also parents don't want this, they want their child to come out of school with a string of exam results, the school has to play the results game too.

You won't get an ofsted outstanding by teaching cooking.

Education is about results, and until things change so none GCSE subjects are valued schools are not able to facilitate it.

BTW we used to have a bank come in and tell us how to write cheques, probably one of the more useful, although now obsolete, things I learned.

[Graphista]

Titanias some councils do offer 'healthy eating' courses that include basic cooking classes, ask your council.

If you consider when 'proper' cookery lessons stopped and when we started getting problems with child obesity there is a rough correlation (yes I know correlation doesn't prove causation and that's not the whole story I think common sense lets us realise it's a factor).

Ditto the increase in food waste, popularity of takeaways and debt I think is not unrelated.

As for schools couldn't fit it into timetables - why not when it was done in the past? I went to high school on the 80's and did the following subjects

Maths - financial education can be included here
English
Biology - nutritional education here
Chemistry - little more nutritional ed here
Physics
History
Geography
Sociology
French
German
RE
PSE - this included sex ed, rights and responsibilities,
PE
Home economics - included cookery basic cheap nutritional dishes like soups, lasagne (including pomodoro and bechamel sauce from scratch), cottage pie, 'normal' pies, curry, stew/casserole, basic cake recipes (sponge, scones, flapjacks), budgeting, meal planning.

Textiles - we all had to make a skirt and yes girls only then but in the process of making a skirt we learnt how to fit a zip, sew on a button, do a hem...

We just didn't do all of them every term eg a different science per term, or switching at half term, then at end of 3rd year we selected options according to what exams we wanted to sit.

Yes ideally parents should be teaching but I'm certainly aware of too many parents who would have been teens in the 90's when home ec was done away with in many schools, who can't cook can't make even a basic sauce even from a dried packet! So as they don't have the skills they can't teach THEIR children.

It may not be right but it's where we are and as the consequences affect our economy and health as a society it's all of our
Problem.

I do think that one thing that HAS to come from parents is not STOPPING children from doing things at home. It's honestly not going to kill high school age children to boil kettles, use hobs, ovens and sharp knives yet I hear so much about children my daughters age (almost 16! So in theory almost old enough to be mothers!) not being allowed to even make a cuppa in case they hurt themselves. Ridiculous!

[CateGory8]

Titanias Like you my Mother died when I was young and I have vague memories of her being a terrible cook. My Dad didn't know how to do anything other than fried breakfasts. I luckily had home economics lessons at school (late 70's/early 80's) which really gave my some basic skills. I learnt how to make bread, white sauces, gravy, pasta sauces and of course cakes. I still make my own bread and I cook from scratch most of the time.

My Dad taught me DIY but I would have loved to have information available for things like laundry, housekeeping and money management.

[Dawndonnaagain]

I went to a very progressive school in the early seventies. Our home economics were taught over three terms, each year and consisted of budgeting, shopping, cooking (from scratch), making menus, darning, sewing, knitting. It also included interview techniques, social skills, sex education (which included how to say no, where to get the pill and the number of what was then the brook advisory clinic). So, no need to give up Shakespeare!

[Foxyloxy1plus1]

There was a time when the curriculum was far more flexible than it is now. That allowed for vocational subjects and certainly all the things described would be appropriate in that context.

The trouble is that the curriculum is so prescriptive now and schools depend on increasingly good academic results for their survival. Things that are useful life skills just don't figure any more, because there's no curriculum space.

Having said that, I think there are many skills that children absorb at home, whether explicitly taught or not. I do realise that not all parents will be teaching their children how to do household tasks, but I think that many have an expectation that they will tidy their rooms, put away washing, help to bake cakes, wash up and so on.

[gluteustothemaximus]

Things I wish were in the curriculum:

First aid
Money management
Food hygiene
Cooking
Basic DIY
Body language
Self defence/awareness

Ditch Shakespeare in favour of some very useful skills

[Birdsgottafly]

Do schools still do a 'Health/Social/Pastoral' type lesson? I think banking etc should be in that.

I agree that 'Cooking' lessons should be about basic skills and equipment, then how to store, freeze and recook different food groups.

That would mean that they are set up to cook anything.

My eldest DD is buying her first house, as a single person. She's living bill free, but says that she's struggling to save the buying fees.

I've been trying to help, but can't get my head around her unwillingness to cut back and penny count. She tells me that she knows no-one who lives within their means.

She, or her peers certainly weren't brought up to be spendthrifts and all were taught and witnessed their mostly LPs having to budget.

So I don't think there's an answer to modern spending, it's the lifestyle and values, that dictates that.

[TitaniasCloset]

My mum died when I was small so I had no one to teach me these skills and just managed through trial and error. Never mind school children, if my local authority offered a good home economics class now I would pay to go.

[TheCountessofFitzdotterel]

11yo dd has been doing food tech this term and demonstrated her knife skills by cooking us stuffed peppers for dinner on Saturday, so they are definitely getting the cooking part right in some places. They are lucky because it's one of those comprehensives formed from a merger of a grammar and secondary modern so it has all the facilities from both.

If we were serious about this schools would use each other's kitchens just like they use each other's swimming pools, it's just not seen as a high priority.

[Gileswithachainsaw]

know that parents should teach their kids this stuff, but the fact remains that lots of them don't, and that's how the cycle of families not knowing how to feed themselves properly perpetuates

Thing is the more schools take away from parents the more parents expect school to do for them.

[applesauce1]

The thing about need and wants was also a criticism of myself.
When I left school, I worked in a shop and paid rent but didn't plan ahead for the money that I had. I started up a phone contract for this amazing phone that I really really wanted, but didn't do the budget to see if I could afford it. For a whole year (back when year long contracts existed), I was saddled with this unavoidable monthly expenditure that meant I couldn't afford the driving lessons that I needed.
If I were to do it again, I'd sit down and look at exactly what my outgoings were going to be each month, what I had spare and the things that would come up in the future (birthday presents, driving lessons etc). I'd realise that I couldn't really afford that really lovely phone and stuck with prepay. Am I really the only person that didn't know the difference between what I really wanted, and things I actually needed when I first started this adulthood thing?

[maddiemookins16mum]

YANBU, but I'm 52 and did Home Ec/cookery/parentcraft etc. I had my daughter relatively late in life (at 40) and I basically teach her what I was taught at school and home (everything from a basic roux sauce to make lasagna, to sewing a hem on her school skirt and changing a plug etc etc, I'd do the same with a boy).
Many of todays young men and women (in their early 20's through to early 30's) could technically also be my "child". What I don't get therefore is why there appears to be so many "youngsters" who struggle when their parents (my generation) were taught these skills. Is it just we don't pass them on anymore?

[dollydaydream114]

I certainly think it would be a lot more useful than 'Food Tech', which is what my nieces and nephews do and which frequently seems to involve things like designing a logo for a pizza box, planning a menu for an event and making scones that are precisely the same size to 'meet manufacturing standards' rather than ordinary domestic cooking skills. I have a niece who knows how to package flapjacks to be sold in a shop but doesn't know who to cook pasta.

I did 'Home Economics' at school which consisted of alternating between 'food' (which entailed virtually no actual cooking and a lot of lectures about how wholemeal flour was good for you) and 'textiles' (ie needlework, in which we made an utterly useless cushion).

I definitely think those sorts of lessons could be more usefully replaced with basic cooking skills - such as making a pasta dish, soup, a curry or chilli and a cottage pie - and maybe some household cleaning/maintenance tasks.

I know that parents should teach their kids this stuff, but the fact remains that lots of them don't, and that's how the cycle of families not knowing how to feed themselves properly perpetuates. If every kid learns some basics in school, even the kids who are fed takeaway every night and live in neglected houses will at least have a chance of being able to manage when they leave home.

[Broccolirevolution]

Corythatwas my recollection of home economics around 1990 was a cheese toasty. Not the same as understanding the world wars in a history lesson.
Maybe your experience was better but I also remember learning to wash salad!