Today’s 20- and 30-somethings don’t seem to possess your traditional “dad skills”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thin...-decline-because-todays-men-are-too-soft.html

Have you noticed this? I have. Talking to my kids friends they have no idea how to do any sort or wiring, plumbing, or general construction.

When I ask them if they ever built a gun, they look at me as if I'm from Mars.

"How can you build a gun? That's impossible."

With ones that say "I want to be a ME." I just tell them that its a skill that many other engrs just pick up ... that they should get an other engr degree than the lowly ME.

We have talked about this at work several times. What it comes down to is the lack of shop classes in High school and a push towards college in stead of the trades.

"Real men" don't do menial labor - that's what the lower classes are for. "There' always going to be some uneducated, uncultured bufoon that I can hire to get their hands dirty," I was told by some young metrosexual who was calling AAA to come and blow some air in his tire - while he was parked in one of the few gas stations that still have air pumps (even though you have to feed it three quarters).

This country no longer makes things - we dream up stuff that is supposed to make the world a better place. The lack of shop classes is but a symptom of the notion that one must graduate from college in order to have a "good" job that pays "good" money. Shop class had to go to make room for another class that was suppoosed to be necessary in order to get into college. We fall back on all the "losers" who could not make it into college to do the scut work. Soon we will be like the Roman Empire with menials hired to stuff peeled grapes in one end and wipe the other end. (Hopefully two different menials.:uhoh

stay safe.

people have become..............

totally reliant on something or somebody else. There is no self sufficiency anymore. Result, the government will assume a greater and greater position in the overall framework of things, because without it, no one will be able to do anything in the future.

Very sad state of affairs for this once great nation.

Ineptitude

You obviously don't know that 'there's an app for that.'
If it's not resolvable via smartphone then it cannot be done.

I watched a man trying to change a flat tire; he had the wheel off the ground and was trying to loosen the lug nuts. Of course the entire wheel was turning as well.
I told him to put the tire back on the ground... et voilà !

Are they not shown this stuff or what?

the "I can't do anything for myself generation, aka I need the government's help"....

lack of even basic daily living skills, how to change a tire, drive a nail, run a saw, push a lawnmower, run a shovel, nobody seems to know how to do any of that anymore. Perfect coming generation for total government dependence. Just as the Obamanation wants it to be.

davidmcbeth said:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thin...-decline-because-todays-men-are-too-soft.html

Have you noticed this? I have. Talking to my kids friends they have no idea how to do any sort or wiring, plumbing, or general construction.

When I ask them if they ever built a gun, they look at me as if I'm from Mars.

"How can you build a gun? That's impossible."

With ones that say "I want to be a ME." I just tell them that its a skill that many other engrs just pick up ... that they should get an other engr degree than the lowly ME.

Click to expand...

Go to some of them. Ask them if their father did any of that kind of thing with them.....



I am doing 'that kind of thing' with my 16yo son as often as I can. One recent example was to break the bead on a trailer tire using a hi-lift jack, so we could replace the valve stem.

It isn't so much that i am teaching him to do all of it, but to show him that a little ingenuity will go a long way towards being more self-sufficient.