To be furious at this article?

[CatThiefKeith]

Article linked to our local paper listing 50 things that lazy mums are failing to teach their children.

Presumably their fathers can't teach them anything because their penises get in the way!

https://www.mykentfamily.co.uk/primary/the-top-50-forgotten-skills-120839/

It's not really real is it? When was it written, 1928?

Maybe the author assumes Dad's do not have anything of note to pass on? Or that they live at wherever they work on zero hours contracts? Or that they have to split their time going between multiple families and children they have spawned to start arguments and then move on before everything gets 'too heavy'?

Let's face it the article is a fiction anyway....

Not sure it's something I could get worked up enough about to be furious. It's more a read it and move on type of article.

Whoever compiled that list clearly isn't living in the real world, or even in this century: darning socks, heeling shoes, really? Yes, they maybe skills that mothers no longer teach their children but in most cases there's probably a reason for that; most mothers no longer teach their children to hunt wild boar or skin rabbits either.

It was half term last week in my area, can't imagine many mothers were spending it teaching their DCs how to clean the oven.

Most of the skills on that list I needed as an adult I managed to teach myself.

I'm 35 and pretty sure my mum wouldn't have a clue how to do most of that list.
I think it's great that most of these things have died out. Darning and recycling soap??!!

Oh, yes, and DD seems to want to cook from Katy on CBeebies - sod Mummy!

(She's prepared to learn to drink with me, though! )

Load of bollocks. I'm good with a needle, but who darns these days? That's a hangover from when jumpers were wool and the elbows wore out. The same with socks. I've never learned.

'Make a trifle'? FFS, if you don't know, you google it!

I think it's a pity so few kids know how to knit these days, but hey! If you don't know yourself, you can't teach your kids. I've personally taught 3 people (one girl of 9, one adult woman, one adult man) how to knit. Knitting has NEVER been the preserve of women. My dad and grandads could all knit.

My DM is nearly 70, and couldn't bake or sew to save her life. She did teach me how to clean brass though. As a result I have never had brass in my house. Oh and if god had wanted me to re-heel my shoes, she wouldn't have invented cobblers who cut keys.

Do you know one thing that has always bothered me? Cleaning silver with horrible stinky polish and then using it to eat and drink with. Why????

"A spokesman for Addis Housewares said: “Our research shows many traditional skills are not being passed down from mums to their children any more."

www.addis.co.uk/contact-us

I think this is where we should be aiming our comments.

I haven't read the list but I want abbsisspartacus to tell me how to kill spiders from a distance. Please?

What a ridiculous article.
Darn socks?! Recycle soap?! I throw out most old clothes, because replacements are so cheap.
I can't knit, crochet or make jam. Have never needed to hem a dress and learnt all my make-up skills from Youtube...but sure I can teach my son them

This article is based on the facts
Hahahahaha - gee some people are gullible/thick! It is based on "estimates" given in a survey of unknowns by a commercial organisation hoping to boost their profile at spring cleaning time. These are far far far from "facts"

The survey was by Addis Housewares - presumably to boost sales with all the "lovely ladies" who buy their plastic tat.

Come autumn we will get the "Dad's aren't teaching boys to chop wood and gut fish anymore" survey by PointlessBastardCorp.

Addis have a tiny twitter following.

Well I handknit my own socks and darn them as well, but it sure as shit wasn't taught to me by my mother. YouTube rocks! (Like my socks). I don't know anyone who uses an actual bar of soap anymore, and I pay a nice man to clean the oven for me.

My husband can do a great many things on that list far better than me.

1. Darning socks

Fuck off, I'll buy new Nobody darns cotton socks.

1. Patching trousers or jeans

Sure, if you want to look like a 1990s toddlers' TV presenter, you could learn to patch your jeans.

1. How to darn a woollen jumper

Not gonna do that. Thanks. But there's always YouTube.

1. Re-heeling shoes

Cobblers.

1. How to polish brass and silverware

LOL. When I need to polish the ancestral silver I'll get the maid to do it.

1. How to recycle soaps

Alternatively, just use the soap.

1. Letter writing

Word has a million templates.

1. Making jam/marmalade

There's Chivers now.

1. Handwashing clothes

It tells you on the side of the packet.

10. Crocheting

Random hobby is in here why?

11. Making chutney

Can't be fucked. Also, recipe sites exist.

12. Knitting

Another random hobby. Most mum's don't teach their kids decoupage or model ship-either.

13. How to hem a dress

Buy a shorter dress.

14. Sewing buttons

Useful skill. If you really can't figure it out, guess what? YouTube.

15. Making a trifle

YouTube.

16. Making homemade ice lollies

Hardly brain surgery.

17. Descaling a kettle

Read the side of the packet.

18. Sewing

We've covered sewing on buttons. Anything more than that, see: crocheting/knitting. Why the obsession with fabrics?

19. Making a white sauce

Recipe site.

20. Storing winter/summer clothes away properly

Really?! This is something people's mums have to tell them? Okay. Well, there's always wikihow.

21. Making dough and pastry

Buy. Or, again, there are recipe sites.

22. Handwriting

Surely this is still taught at schools?

23. How to recycle vintage furniture

24. How to make Yorkshire puddings

Recipe site. Alternatively, go to freezer section, buy YPs, done.

25. How to compost

My council handles this for me.

26. Making proper gravy

Recipe site.

27. How to skip (a rope

Playground skill. Why would your mum teach you that?

28. How to line a cake tin

Really?

Okay. Recipe site.

29. Making biscuits

Recipe site.

30. How to grow vegetables successfully

You do know they sell carrots in Tesco?

31. Baking a cake

Recipe.
Fucking.
Site.

32. How to spring clean a house

Same as normal cleaning, but all at once.

33. Which season to plant seeds

It tells you on the packet.

34. Fashion tips

Hahahahahahaha I'm not taking fashion tips from my mum.

35. How to clean an oven

Ovenpride.

36. What certain flowers and plants are

Has it got petals? Probably a flower. Green and leafy? Probably a plant. This is one of those things you just kind of pick up, if you need to.

37. How to landscape a garden

Haha. Please buy me a garden first.

38. Washing up

Well, washing up is something that will probably come to you at some point. If not, prepare to eat off paper plates for the rest of your life.

39. How to get stains out of clothes

Read the stain remover packet.

40. Folding clothes properly

There's a "properly"?

41. Telling when fruit/veg is ripe

Does it taste ripe? Then it's ripe.

42. How to wash a car

Fail to fight off carwashers at Sainsbury's.

43. How to get stains out of carpets/furniture

Google it.

44. Writing cards

Take card. Write on it. There. Card written.

45. Applying make-up

Not something I have ever felt the need to learn.

46. Making pancakes

Recipe site.

47. How to clean windows

Um… you just clean them With window cleaning stuff. Probably there's a YouTube video for this. There's probably one for breathing, too.

48. Interior decorating

YouTube.

49. How to organise/sort the laundry

I'm sure you'll figure it out… it only takes a couple of loads of grey knickers to provide incentive to find out for yourself, if you have an objection.

50. Ironing clothes

Apply iron to clothes… am I missing something?

TheOtherSock

Darning socks? I hand knit my own and I don't bloody darn them. And who the fuck re heels their own shoes? That's what a cobbler is for!

My phone puts in an apostrophe every time I write mums. I think I missed removing
one or two there.

Actually if I tried to teach DS how to skip a rope I'd probably black both my eyes & take the world of its axis with my swinging norks. Not to mention need weeks of physio afterwards. And DS would need therapy.

@abbsisspartacus

Yes, please tell us how to kill spiders from a distance!

TheOtherSock

"Probably there's a YouTube video for this. There's probably one for breathing, too."

And only 50 "skills"?? They are too easy on these useless women... I sit around all day hording skills and not passing them on. Millions of them. Billions even. I tell you.

I've taught ds eyebrow maintenance and how to text using words. Admittedly words like cock womble, but words nonetheless.

Both essential life skills imo. And very much absent from that list

It's just nonsense. Even jam. Nobody needs jam, it's not a vitamin vital to our health therfore nobody needs to make it and if people want to learn how to make it they can go right ahead... and that's one of the least nonsensical items on the list!

And marmalade is fucking awful anyway.

OP I hope you are going to complain properly about this as well as this thread? I'd also complain to Addis - because this is a PR news article based on a 'survey' they have done . I wonder if its popped up anywhere else? Name and shame Addis on social media as well and I'll join you!

I teach my children all these things by teaching them how to google.

Really easy.