I was doing laundry the other day….sheets….and as I took the fitted sheet and just barely crumpled it into a little ball I realized that I was failing. As I looked at this sheet I realized the material was already wrinkled, I suck at folding fitted sheets, and I went as far as to realize that my daughters generation is screwed. Or maybe it’s just me who sucks at doing these things, and it’s not a generational problem at all. Maybe it’s just my poor daughter that will suffer. There are so many home making skills that I am not good at. I know my Grandma rocked them….I still call on my mother daily to help me with questions or things I need done, and then I worry that that information will not make it beyond me. How do I help teach my daughter when I don’t know how to do it myself?
I call my mom with questions about cooking, cleaning, stains…pretty much everything. If I get a stain on something I still send it to PA with her so she can work on it and try to fix it. I feel lost when it comes to most home making activities. I can maybe sew a button, but if it came to hemming pants I have a feeling my poor kids pants would be higher in the front then in the back! I remember going to my Grandmother’s house to see her ironed curtains hanging up in the closet with tags on them with the dates that she last washed them. Everything is labeled and clean. I don’t think I ever washed my curtains, and to be honest when I buy new ones I ask my mom to iron them!
What if I don’t know how to teach my daughter anything? Let’s go back to that fitted sheet? When my mom visited and washed my sheets that fitted sheet was perfectly folded flat. Not mine….It’s folded almost to a ball and I don’t bother because the crappy supposed “Egyptian cotton high thread count sheets” that they sell us these days get wrinkled no matter what I do. I have a set of my Grandma’s sheets and they come out of the dryer perfect with no wrinkles. WTF?!
Is it a lack of pride? Is it just that I count on my mom too much to do these things for me, or are women just no longer taught these home making skills anymore? Whatever the answer I must say I’m concerned that I won’t be able to teach my daughter. I say my daughter over my son because our house has very separate gender roles and I am OK with that. Yes I will teach my son to do laundry, but I’m not sure he will learn how to sew a button. My daughter on the other hand will one day be a wife….and these skills are needed. Call me the worst feminist ever but it’s true.
So to my dearest Tessa I am sorry. I am sorry that I am nowhere close to having the skills your Jaju has….or even farther from the skills MY Grandma had. My guess is that when you ask for my help I will have to wing it and pretend, or maybe there will be google “how to’s” when the time comes for me to teach you. For now I will continue to call my mommy to help me do what needs to be done. I will take all the help I can get!
Really??? In this day and age you can say that your daughter will be a wife and these skills are needed. Not only archaic but unfair to her. And your son will do laundry and not much else because of your choice not to teach him? Every person should have basic skills so that they may live as adults and not dependent on someone else. Cook, laundry, sew a button, rewire a lamp, grocery shop so that they may eat. Yes, you are entitled to raise your children as you see fit but I think you are doing them and their future partners a disservice.
Thank you for the comment. I’m not sure you fully got the point of this post. I feel like I am a good wife and mother even though I still need my mother to help me with these things, and I hope that over time I too will be able to learn and then teach my daughter.