Home Ec

 

In school a lifetime ago boys took Shop. I suspect most gardens of people with sons had a bird house made in that class. Maybe many bird houses if they had many sons.

Girls took Home Ec. The first half of the year was cooking. We made cocoa, something I already knew how to do. We baked cookies. I'd done that at home for several years.

The second half of the year was sewing. I made (more or less) a blue and white sailor style blouse. My alleged friend Diane (I've forgotten or blocked her last name) suggested if I help her with hers than she would help me with mine. Didn't work out that way. I did learn a valuable lesson about trusting people to keep their word. I never wore the finished-in-a-rush blouse.

What a waste of time. 

It doesn't have to be.

My belief was boys and girls should take both. Girls need to be able to handle tools change a tire, be able to do simple plumbing, etc. Boys need to know what goes into making a home.

For Home Ec it should be more then cocoa and blouses. Nutrition should be included. A bit of analysis on how to be a wise shopper for things like appliances, etc. Financial knowledge about credit, interest, saving, budgeting. Decorating wouldn't hurt.

Homemaking as a profession is gone. My grandmother, Dar, was probably a top professional in that pre-Betty Frieden era. She had systems for everything that produced nutritious meals, ironed clothes (also sheets and pillow cases) and a clean house through weekly, monthly and annual schedules. She was a frugal Yankee. Socks were darned (when I tried to do the same with my ex-husband I seamed them which were uncomfortable in his army boots), everything was used and reused. Nothing was wasted. She was also a financial manager that consider allowing her family to have any debts as unacceptable as running naked through the town center.

I do not mourn that I lived and prospered in the after-Betty Frieden era. My domesticity is limited, yet I still want a clean, neat house. I want meals to be good AND healthy. Of course, I have juggled this as a working woman and single mom. We won't even mention the years I spent with two housemates renovating a house where there was still some order in the chaos of paint cans, ladders, plaster and piles of tiles. I have mini-systems that reflect some of Dar's values and role-modeling.

I want to live debt free and have most of my adult life, but didn't learn that in Home Ec. And I wish I'd learned to be more a DYIer. 

I don't think either Home Ec or Shop are taught in many schools. It should be, but far more in depth than we were taught. Both boys and girls could benefit from these life-easing skills.