By Wren Lee
Staff Writer
@LeeLaurenWren
Can you boil an egg? Can you iron your clothes? Can you buy a train ticket?
If you answered no to any of those questions, then you might be a Millennial, a generation of people raised alongside technology.
I have learned how to cook pasta because my mom taught me. I read books about people surviving on their own and being the ‘parental’ figure to siblings; because of this I yearned to be self-sufficient like the characters in my books. One day, I asked my mom to teach me how to make pasta. My mom was confused, but she obliged.
There are currently two “home economics” classes, classified as family and consumer science.
“[The name changed] because the subjects [family and consumer science] embraces has changed. Home economics had the connotation of the cooking and sewing and cleaning. […] During the 70s and 80s, women were being placed in careers. It was more of a balance of family and career management,” CHS career and tech teacher Becky Richards said.
According to Richards, the shift from traditional home economics came about because of women were getting careers and moving away from the traditional housekeeping roles.
Family Circle says, “Kids who can handle everyday tasks, from laundry to banking, are happier and more confident.” Sadly, teenagers cannot always do basic life skills.
We need home economics classes because one out of three teenagers going into college cannot boil an egg according to the Daily Mail, a publication in the United Kingdom.
Forty-eight percent of survey-takers said they could not cook a basic meal, namely spaghetti bolognese. Fifty percent did not know how to use a dryer. Tasks like making a bed seem easy to some people, but the Daily Mail discovered that 23 percent of college students do not know how to make a bed. To you, that might be a saddening fact, but, for others, it is their reality.
The assumption is that students need to learn these basic life skills on their own. Not everyone will learn these basic skills. Adults cannot, or do not, always teach them, and the students cannot always learn on their own. When they enter college, they will be left in the dark.
High school is supposed to prepare you for your life beyond school and even college. While learning mathematics and English is beneficial to entering college on the academic level, learning basic recipes and personal finance will benefit us for the life beyond school.
Life outside of school is not the pretty picture culture paints it to be. In the real world you are faced with taxes, paying for insurance, healthcare and debt. You actually have to make your meals, not have your mom cook and serve it to you on a silver platter.
But instead you are stuck in your 21st century teenager bubble, staring at the monster you call your dorm room bed. Hopeless, you turn on a YouTube how-to video titled, “How to Make a Bed” because you do not know where to begin in accomplishing this basic life skill on your own.
Personally, my college life will be full of unknowns. I cannot boil an egg. I learn best through teaching, so I need a home economics class; learning on my own ends up with me casually tearing out my hair.
