Hello Baby Boomers, do you remember learning skills without the help of YouTube videos and virtual assistants? Skills learned from trial and error, grandpa and grandma and mom and dad were priceless. Here are some of those skills from the time we learned them, before anything existed in the digital world.
Table of Contents
- 1 1. Reading a Paper Map
- 2 2. Jump-Starting a Car
- 3 3. Basic Sewing and Mending
- 4 4. Starting a Fire
- 5 5. Writing in Cursive
- 6 6. Basic Car Maintenance
- 7 7. Cooking Without Recipes
- 8 8. Making Change Without a Calculator
- 9 9. Home Repairs
- 10 10. Weather Reading
- 11 11. First Aid Skills
- 12 12. Gardening Basics
- 13 13. Social Navigation Without Phones
1. Reading a Paper Map
Planning routes and navigating with mere paper maps was once a necessity. We had to learn how to read contour lines for elevation, distance and scale, and then folding them to stay within the size of our glove compartment? The ultimate challenge. Every road trip was a lesson in geography and spatial awareness (except for the dad that would never admit they were lost).
Save for later
Want to come back to this story? Save it with your email so it is easy to find again.
2. Jump-Starting a Car
Almost all teenagers with a drivers license knew how to jump start a car. \\”Red to positive and black to negative and DON’T let them touch!\\” This was something we learned with guidance from a stranger in a parking lot. How to create automotive and community spirit.
3. Basic Sewing and Mending
We learned how to sew buttons and mend seams in Home Economics classes or maybe with some patient instruction from Mom. These teachings helped not only extend the life of many clothing items, but also instilled the importance of taking care of what we owned. Every family had a cookie tin filled with sewing supplies, and we all knew how to use them.
4. Starting a Fire
We also learned how to build fires for cooking without fancy technology like electric starters. We knew how to arrange the kindling, how to create and maintain a system to on the right temperature to cook at. These skills from Boy and Girl Scouts and can come in really handy for cooking outdoors and during power outages.
5. Writing in Cursive
We spent a lot of time looping and connecting letters, and this practice made us masters of the written word. Strong penmanship meant that you had given extra special care to the note, letter, or thank you that you had written, and it was a source of pride if you were garlanded with a lot of gold stars. At the time it felt endlessly repetitious, but we acquired a very valuable skill that is sadly lacking in most people today.
6. Basic Car Maintenance
All car owners need to have basic maintenance skills, and so we learned how to change oil, spark plugs, and tire rotations. We also learned how to listen to the engine and hear any irregularities, check the fluids, and perform other regular maintenance tasks. We manually helped Dad in the driveway, and those lessons saved him a lot of money in professional mechanic services.
7. Cooking Without Recipes
We did not learn how to cook by following along to online video tutorials. We learned by watching, helping and most importantly, doing. There are family recipes that have been passed down through generations and have vague, unhelpful measurements like “a pinch,” “grab some and throw it in” and other similar instructions. Although these measurements sound unhelpful, the hands-on experience helped us learn how to trust our instincts and understand how to work with the ingredients.
8. Making Change Without a Calculator
Daily mental math was required, especially for those who worked retail jobs. It was necessary to be able to calculate customer change without a register telling you what the amount was. It was important for our brains to keep doing these calculations and to be able to catch mistakes before they became problematic.
9. Home Repairs
Every child can remember basic home repairs as learned by watching and doing. Fixing a leaky faucet or patching a hole in the drywall. Parents have shown kids the safety and confidence of having a fully stocked toolbox. They taught kids how to address simple repairs which can provide savings. Also kids gain a sense of independence.
10. Weather Reading
Long before phones, kids learned weather patterns to forecast. They learned what a red sky at night and in the morning meant. They learned cloud patterns and animal behavior. This taught kids to pay attention and look more closely.
11. First Aid Skills
These practical life skills come out of confidence and scouting. Everyone learned a basic medical care like cleaning up and dressing a wound, treating a burn, and how to stay calm in an emergency. This givens a person confidence to address issues before seeing a doctor.
12. Gardening Basics
Planting food and building a family garden has been a learned practice in many family lines. Everyone learned what the seasons were for growing food, how to prepare dirt, and how to fight pests like ants. Growing food is a life skill that helps develop patience and care.
Most children learned, and sometimes forgot a responsible way of making plans along with friends. They would have to meet at a point and not use any phones to do it. This is a surefire way to keep people responsible and to pay attention. It can be one of the most reliable ways of keeping people responsible.
