"Doug Kanter" > wrote:
> Like any societal change, this one requires 2-3 generations (or more) to
> change. My teenage son has other things on his mind, like talking on the
> phone all day while functioning as a heavy weight to keep the sofa from
> flying out the window. During his occasional moments of partial awareness,
> I rag on him about how he might want to spend some time with me in the
> kitchen so he learns, and doesn't starve to death when he's living on his
> own. What would sons have been told in the 1950s? Maybe nothing? Would
> there have been the unspoken expection that as soon as they were done with
> college, a woman would magically appear to cook for them? I don't recall
> what I absorbed when I was 8 years old. What I *do* know is that in
> college, there were plenty of guys whose entire relationship with women
> involved having someone to do their laundry.

Maybe the sons were taught nothing by the fathers in the 1950s. But my
father taught us (1960s) how to work on the car, how to do plumbing and
electrical work around the house, and a lot of similar stuff. In fact, my
father bought an old 1948 Chevy that we restored specifically to teach us,
and we built a house so we could learn the trades a bit better than just
with the normal projects around the house. My mother taught us how to cook,
do laundry, iron, sew, and the financial stuff like budgeting and balancing
a check book. None of us were exempt, though some resisted more than others.
We were well prepared when we went out into the world.

One of my father's requirements for driving a car was knowing how to change
a tire. It was interesting with my sister and my father's 1971 Mercury
Monterey. My sister did learn the whole procedure, but she couldn't
physically lift the huge tire and balance it on the wheel studs. She could
just manage to get the tire up there, but couldn't get the studs to line up
with the holes in the wheel. So her girlfriend, a much huskier type, picked
the tire up for her and got it on the studs first try. It was kind of funny.

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