[gibbsgirl]

this article is too funny. i'm sure it's not pc to say it, but I totally get this article. too good not to share.

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

 

[Litlbits]

Thanks so much Gibbsgirl, that is too funny and so true.

 

[Ozarks Tom]

My wife's son is making a good living in Dallas doing "odd jobs" and renovations for people in the Indian community there. Apparently in India the idea of doing it yourself is unheard of. They call him constantly for some of the most trivial things - commode won't flush - put the chain back on the lever!

He's making as much as when he was working for Texas Instruments, and enjoying it much more.

 

[willow_girl]

I think one part of the problem is that so many boys (and girls) are growing up without dads in the home. The traditional skills aren't being passed down between generations like they once were.

My second husband knew how to build a house, from soup to nuts, because he'd learned from his father, who had learned from his father. This gave him a huge advantage in life -- even though he did not work at a high-paying job during the time we were married, he was able to use his skills to build us a much nicer house than we would have been able to afford otherwise.

 

[Litlbits]

So agree with you Willowgirl. There are all kinds of skills being lost both by young men and women. No one is around to teach them and sadly, the young ones are too high tech to want to learn "hands on" skills.

 

[gibbsgirl]

i think part of it is the whole disposable and instant stuff. there is so much now that is made as far as vehicles, appliances that isn't designed to be repaired. and the prices for parts make it almost as much as buying new.

for girls, I think there is so much that is now ready made, whether canned or frozen or just packaged snacks, that we've just been getting groomed for decades into not doing for ourselves and just paying for the convenience.

now that so many of these skills have been lost through multiple generations, we're really in a pickle, cause paying for the convenience is no longer reasonable.

I know we really have to make a concerted effort at our place to teach our kids how to do a lot of this stuff, so it's not lost as a skill set to them.

 

[simi-steading]

No more wood shop or auto shops in school.. No more Home Ec.... We have gotten lazy about teaching our kids.

 

[BlackFeather]

Maybe too much wealth too, people can afford to pay others to do things. I had to learn to fix a car when I was young for example, because I couldn't afford some one else to do it. I figured out how to do electrical work, plumbing and carpentry because I had to. Genetics also plays a part too I suppose, don't ask me to play an instrument, sing, be artistic in any way, but mechanical things I can figure out, usually without being taught.
From the article above:

an additional benefit in doing DIY: you get more sex. A study by sociologists at the University of Washington found that couples who follow traditional gender roles around the house – wives doing the cooking, cleaning and shopping; men doing the DIY and fettling the car – reported greater sexual frequency.

"If women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy" Red Green (Steven Smith)

 

[cfuhrer]

If you can find it on the web somewhere, Mike Rowe's (Dirty Jobs) testimony before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is phenomenal.

 

[gibbsgirl]

If you can find it on the web somewhere, Mike Rowe's (Dirty Jobs) testimony before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is phenomenal.

I saw a great TED talk he did once that I bet is similar to the testimony you're talking about. it was awesome.

i'm gonna look for it to find a link.

 

[gibbsgirl]

found it

http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs

 

[JJ Grandits]

I agree with Willowgirl. In Boy Scout there a many woman Scout Masters. They do a great job, But part of the reason for Boy Scouts was so that men could teach boys how to be men. The sissyfication of our society probably explains many of the problems we have now. Would your Great Grandfather take the crap the government is giving us today?

 

[hawgsquatch]

Excellent references. I am going to go weld up some dinner forks, dig a well, and split some wood....with my face.

In seriousness I have been watching the taming of the lions for some time and I truly wonder what our guys would do if they had to fight the real men that Russia is producing. Would they throw their latte at them or try and get them to talk about their feelings?

 

[JJ Grandits]

Make sure you use a moisturizer when you split wood with your face. You don't want to get all chaffed up.

 

[gibbsgirl]

this article I think is along the same lines.

it's called "family hour extinct as sitcoms get more vulgar"

http://nypost.com/2014/10/25/family-hour-extinct-as-sitcoms-get-more-vulgar/

it's not just sitcoms though. there's very little left we can watch as a family on tv. so, we just watch less, cause what's the point?

 

[mmoetc]

The nostalgia for the good old days when men were men and had all those manly skills passed down through generations makes me wonder how all those old town handymen, tinkerers and shade tree mechanics ever survived, let alone made any money back in the day. Maybe it was by cleaning up after and fixing all the mistakes made by those manly men of yore.

All those skills are much more easily accessed, learned and attainable in today's digital age. YouTube and a variety of other social media and even business sponsored sights will tell you all you need to know about everything from unclogging a sink to building a house. We no longer have to rely on that dusty collection of Time Life home improvement books to lead the way. And there will always be a place for the "experts" to fix their mistakes.

 

[unregistered358967]

No more wood shop or auto shops in school.. No more Home Ec.... We have gotten lazy about teaching our kids.

Thankfully, we still have it in ours and both sexes must take it. My daughter actually preferred shop class! She already knows how to cook and was amazed at how little the other kids knew. I don't think any of them are taught or allowed to cook with their parents..for the reasons brought above.

Anyway, she made a most excellent shelf. :rock: ..and both the kids are in Scouts. We actually teach them stuff and make them work outside. Sad to say 'what a concept' but we stick out amongst our friends..nobody else does this.

My SO is always talking about the feminization of American men..I think he's correct. There needs to be a balance. I like a guy who can make me a chicken coop and then turn around and feed a baby a bottle..is that too much to ask?

 

[Mrs Katzenchix]

The nostalgia for the good old days when men were men and had all those manly skills passed down through generations makes me wonder how all those old town handymen, tinkerers and shade tree mechanics ever survived, let alone made any money back in the day. Maybe it was by cleaning up after and fixing all the mistakes made by those manly men of yore.

All those skills are much more easily accessed, learned and attainable in today's digital age. YouTube and a variety of other social media and even business sponsored sights will tell you all you need to know about everything from unclogging a sink to building a house. We no longer have to rely on that dusty collection of Time Life home improvement books to lead the way. And there will always be a place for the "experts" to fix their mistakes.

It's good for some things. Example: DH replaced the pump on a washer and a switch on a dryer after I did a web search of the model and symptoms and found repair instructions. If not for the internet, we would needed to call an appliance repairman. I've learned alot from the net, but there's always a lot of little things that youtube and websites gloss over. That's when I miss having an experienced ole timer who could show me what I'm doing wrong.

 

[Oggie]

The root cause of this sort of thing is the domestication of cats.

Oh, your typical barn or feral cat can do a lot for themselves, but once cats are brought into peoples homes, they quickly lose the ability to do much of anything for themselves.

"Meow! Meow! Meow! Feed me!"

"Meow! Meow! Meow! Carry my poop outside and bring me clean litter!"

"Meow! Meow! Meow! Wake up and entertain me!"

It never ends.

And children growing up in the home see this example and wonder, "Heck, if the cat can get away with it, why should I have to do anything for myself?"

This sort of thing is not the product of the feminization of society. There are still many folks who happen to be female who know how to do for themselves.

Rather, it is the result of the felinization our households.

 

[MO_cows]

First off, the article is about the UK, which always has been much farther down the path of wussification than the US, the upper classes anyway. And the declining sales at their home improvement stores might be as much due to their economy as loss of skills.

So I think that while you could find plenty of examples of men who have never been taught the typical "manly man" skills here in the US, it's been that way for 100 years or more. That's where we got expressions like "tenderfoots" and "dudes" and "greenhorns" in years gone by. Today, we have "metrosexual" men, just a little too civilized and citified for their own good. But there are still plenty of men who know how to build things, fix things, etc., even if they don't make their living that way. Women, too. Does your kid know how to swing a hammer, turn a wrench, any of that? Yes? Then the future is not nearly so bleak as the writer makes it out to be.