Posted on 10/03/2010 7:23:17 PM PDT by Immerito
NEW YORK — Second-graders who can’t tie shoes or zip jackets. Four-year-olds in Pull-Ups diapers. Five-year-olds in strollers. Teens and preteens befuddled by can openers and ice-cube trays. College kids who have never done laundry, taken a bus alone or addressed an envelope.
Are we raising a generation of nincompoops? And do we have only ourselves to blame? Or are some of these things simply the result of kids growing up with push-button technology in an era when mechanical devices are gradually being replaced by electronics?
Susan Maushart, a mother of three, says her teenage daughter "literally does not know how to use a can opener. Most cans come with pull-tops these days. I see her reaching for a can that requires a can opener, and her shoulders slump and she goes for something else."
Teenagers are so accustomed to either throwing their clothes on the floor or hanging them on hooks that Maushart says her "kids actually struggle with the mechanics of a clothes hanger."
Many kids never learn to do ordinary household tasks. They have no chores. Take-out and drive-through meals have replaced home cooking. And busy families who can afford it often outsource house-cleaning and lawn care.
(Excerpt) Read more at thechronicleherald.ca ...
Susan Maushart
journalist, radio host and single mother of
children, aged 18, 15 and 14
Apparently she lacks the common sense to recognize that legal documents require a person’s signature—in cursive.
Thank you for your input; I have enjoyed (and hope to continue to enjoy) people’s stories as to how their children are against this grain, or how their own youth went against this grain.
“read an analog watch,”
What’s that?
It makes me wonder if we are in a transitional stage, much like the industrial revolution. Kids didn’t have to live off of the land any longer, it wasn’t necessary to know those skills. It was only necessary to know how to operate machinery. Many have learned those “live off the land” skills, myself included, but not because it was necessary for survival (today, anyway).
I have a good friend who is a teacher. They no longer teach cursive. I don’t quite get that. And spelling is not as important as it once was. I guess I’ll have to learn text talk to be able to survive.
One of the things that worry me the most is...a great deal of the younger people I know mumble. I blame this on texting and other forms of cyber-communication. I worry that we will eventually cease to be able to have “voice to voice” communications.
Well, stop worrying! I was born in 1949, and I'm an inveterate mumbler. I will vouch for all mumblers that we are perfectly coherent from our end.
I taught all three of our sons, and our daughter how to read a recipe, and all of them like to bake, and could survive with their own cooking. They all had chores growing up, so housework isn't foreign to them, though they still don't like it, just like their Mama!
Hey thanks. Learn something everyday -— Pierre 1580.
I was thinking I might bake sugar cookies using a pumpkin cutter, decorate them with Jack o Lantern faces, put them in individual plastic bags and hand them out this year, instead of candy. I'll put my name on the bag, so their parents will know who made them, and won't mind their kids eating them.
Hah, my kids cannot read my cursive handwriting! But then I do have really crappy handwriting. It was the source of the only “D” I ever made in my life. My Daddy laughed and said I got that from him. My Mama was not amused, because she had lovely handwriting.
Not true.
US law states: “A signature may be written by hand, printed, stamped, typewritten, engraved, photographed, or cut from one instrument and attached to another, and a signature lithographed on an instrument by a party is sufficient for the purpose of signing it, it being immaterial with what kind of instrument a signature is made. ... whatever mark, symbol, or device one may choose to employ as a representative of himself is sufficient.
Penmanship will always be useful, so long as folks write. The same goes for usage of a dictionary and a thesaurus.
The nine most terrifying words in the English language: "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."
Take note, because that's exactly what you just proposed.
If American parents need government to do what they are unwilling to do, i.e., educate their own children in "basic life skills," as is their parental responsibility and their parental right, then we as a society have far more serious foundational problems than young ones who can't write in cursive, balance and reconcile a checking account register, or tie their own shoes.
Mine are well trained too. We do private school and closet home school. This works out best for us. Band and Jazz Band is a favorite - can’t do that homeschooling ... so for now this is how it is.
When my daughter was 13, I could give her a grocery list and send her into the supermarket to do the weekly shopping.
She could also prepare just about any meal, including making the sauce from scratch.
(I wouldn’t let her deep fry or take hot dishes out of the oven, though.)
Analog, not analogue, and that’s horrible.
...about that addressing an envelope...
The USPS is trending towards going out of business because people don’t send letters anymore. Folks even pay their bills by computers nowadays.
I personally would be lost without the Post Office. I use it all the time.
How hard is it to figure out? I was never “taught” to use one that I remember, I simply saw my mom do it and did the same.
Parris Island SC.
I haven’t written in cursive since 1999 or so (when I got my Bachelor’s degree).
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