home making fundy style

[vicka]

for people who put SO much emphasis on doing housework and home making what is it with fundies not knowing how to actually do any of it?

i'm reading a blog mentioned in one of the other posts and this is a gem i find:

thelegacyofhome.blogspot.com/2010/02/teaching-home-economics-through.html

her daughter's "apprenticeship" in making a dinner consists of cutting up hot dogs and following instructions on a pasta roni box. she is proud of teaching her daughter to make hot dogs and pasta roni? seriously? When i think of an apprenticeship style cooking lesson I think of 3 course dinners or at least some chicken cutlets, fresh mashed potatoes and homemade salad. boiling a hot dog does not make one into a home maker. sure, its fine in a pinch and better than going hungry. but really, how much effort does it take to teach a 15 year old girl to boil a hot dog? and considering she is not teaching evil science or much of anything else the least she could do is give this girl some homemaking skills she seems to be so proud of. I can't believe she even posted this on her blog. frankly i'd be embarrassed that my family is eating a dinner like this if my ass is home all day (being a home maker) with children who are old enough to take care of themselves. i think she is just lazy and not very bright.

how about some other examples of laughable home making skills.

[Wolfie]

By the time I was 15, I was making dinner for my siblings and I- and my parents if they wanted it. Usually it consisted of chicken, a veggie and a salad, but it could vary. (we all had "jobs,' my sister usually packed lunches, and my brother would either do dishes or step in on days when we couldn't do one or the other. (yes, my brother was taught to cook too.)

I remember by 3rd or 4th grade, I was allowed to make a lot of meals with minimum intervention from my parents. (they both can cook) There is no reason why a 15 year old can't do more.

[BravaAmica]

I think the hot dogs and pasta shows the fundy diet of processed and boxed food.

[bananacat]

You know the best way for learning how to cook? Being independent and living on your own, which is something fundies will never allow. Public school also does a decent job of at least learning how to follow a recipe.

I never enjoyed cooking and I'll never be a gourmet chef. But I've been living on my own since I was a freshman in college and I haven't starved to death yet! Yeah, I ate some really cheap or disgusting stuff, but eventually I figured out how to cook enough food to feed myself, and on a tight budget. I didn't need an apprenticeship to do it either. In middle school, we practiced cooking in home ec. But even without that, how hard is it to follow the directions or follow a recipe? It can take some practice for people who have trouble reading or with math, but even then it's not rocket science.

It sounds like this girl is getting a basic lesson in reading and following directions, which is a skill that most 12 year-olds would be taught in evil public school.

[Extricated]

That's shameful.

Fundies pride themselves on daughters being able to run a household singlehandedly by 12-14 years of age. Any child old enough to turn on a stove could prepare that meal. Especially with a parent sitting right there. That's just a parent teaching life skills, who cares if the schools don't teach it any longer? That's not something I'd be bragging about. :?

[Kelya]

In my family and consumer sciences class in 6th-8th grade, we learned how to cook, budget, make good decisions, etc. Our final project in 8th grade was cooking a dinner for our home and compiling a photojournal/essay project about the meal. I made chicken cutlets, roasted potatoes, squash, a salad, and a fruit tart. It was excellent and my family still talks about it now- it really marked a point in my growing up, and demonstrated that I was capable of not starving when on my own.

The assignment also had different aspects, such a nutrition, budget, practicality and then of course taste. This blogger's meal might win on budget but utterly fails the other categories.

[clibbyjo]

Funny, I just told my son(before reading this)that I expect all 3 of my kids to be great cooks when they go off to college.They will all know how to make anything when I am through with them.:) My oldest son and daughter bake homemade bread and cookies several times a week. Tonight my son made biscuits and gravy for dinner. His first time making white sauce and with just minimal instruction from me. I could barely cook when I went to college because my SAHM did everything for us. I don't want that for my kids.

[darareaksmey]

OK, my kids (15 and 12) can at least make omelets and toast and cut up fruit for fruit salad. It may not be 4-star dining, but it beats hell out of processed food.

[Doomed Harlottt]

The thing that struck me about the entry is that it sounds like her two younger daughters don't really enjoy domesticity. And that Mrs. White feels this is something she needs to "work on" with her daughter. Her daughter is gonna be a housewife and damn well like it, by golly!

[emmiedahl]

My 15 yo son does not like cooking, but he could do a whole lot better than this! He can follow directions on a box without my input at least.

[Doomed Harlottt]

Now for true confession time: At 15, learning how to boil water to make myself some instant coffee was kind of an accomplishment for me. At 14, I had never made my own bed and at 17, I was nervous about starting to do my own laundry for the first time. My youthful domestic incompetence was due to two factors: (1) My mother, herself a domestic goddess, was trying to steer me away from being a housewife; and (2) when I was getting to the age when normally I would have been doing some of my own chores, my family moved abroad to a place where we had a maid and a cook. (Sorry to sound so annoyingly privileged, but them's the facts.) I definitely had some embarrassing moments when I was young when I'd be at someone's house or at a team pasta dinner, and I'd get a deer-in-the-headlights look when someone would ask me to wash the dishes, because I felt self-conscious at never having done it before!

But here is the thing: I didn't really need a domestic apprenticeship to become a competent adult. At boarding school, I figured out on my own how to make my bed, how to do my laundry, and how to balance my own checkbook. In college, I taught myself how to use a vacuum cleaner, and how to clean the bathroom on the suite I shared with my roommates. In law school, I started experimenting with cooking for the first time and even wooed my husband by making him a fab homemade chili. As a young married couple right out of law school, my husband and I taught ourselves to be pretty good cooks, and we both enjoy experimenting with all sorts of recipes. We've always had a clean house, a balanced budget, and good meals on the table -- and this is in spite of my having been kept in deliberate ignorance of basic homemaking during most of my upbringing. (I will admit that I have never been able to learn how to sew a button -- but that's what husbands are for.)

This stuff is important, and yes I would certainly teach my own child basic domestic skills at a much younger age than I learned them, but it's not rocket science. Most of this stuff is easy to learn or teach yourself.

[fundiefan]

My non-fundie grandmother taught me to cook by involving me in the process from a very young age. No apprenticeship needed and no fundie daughter in training crap necessary. She taught me to clean and do laundry the same way. She also taught me to sew and iron but I hate them both so much I only do the bare minimum if and when absolutely necessary. She taught me just as she taught her own kids, and as her parents taught her and their eight other kids. Just as families have been doing since, well, since as long as women have been having and raising babies. They were taught to hunt and gather as part of life. Period.

When I lived on my own, I poured over cookbooks and tried recipes just for fun. An old roommate and I used to get cookbooks from the library and plan meals in three week intervals (the length of time we could keep the books from the library). Oh, that was meal planning and budgeting, wasn't it?! Not a fundie stay at home wife in sight, just two unmarried, twenty-something women who shared an apartment and an interest in trying new foods and recipes.

This stuff was never forced on me as my only future goals or responsibilities. It was simply part of life; growing up, learning as I grew, just like most families do with their kids. As life went on I learned a whole hell of a lot of things, through experience and being taught. Um, that's kind of the process of life. Admittedly, not all parents do it the same way or at the same time or even at all, but for the most part, we learn to do these things the same way we learn to walk and share and have friends and do math. By growing up and being involved in life. It happens.

As for fundies who don't know squat, I say look at Candy. The self proclaimed homemaker extraordinaire who doesn't know the difference between wet & dry measuring utensils and feeds her family some of the most unappetizing, disgusting foods I've ever come across. She has no idea of balance in meals or nutrition. Spaghetti & baked potatoes? Great meal, a regular on her menu. Baked potatoes and a salad and a pork chop? Unheard of. Canned salmon on a bed of brown rice with a side of mashed potatoes? Awesome, a family favorite! Baked cod with a side of seasoned rice and steamed vegetables? What's that? She makes videos of her cooking and it is, in short, disgusting. She doesn't know how to create a decent, appetizing meal that is affordable and healthy. Partly because her idea of healthy is not draining ground beef after browning it (because you need that fat, don't you know) and only full fat milk (skim milk is what cows drink to get 'fat'), and any number of off the wall ideas.

[ladypuglover]

At age 15, I had to cook one meal a week when everyone else would be getting home late. I could make hamburgers on the griddle section of the stove. I could pop in the roast my mother had left for me to do so. I could make my mother's gawd-awful meatloaf that everyone else loved. I could make a lot of sides from scratch such as mashed potatos, salad ect. I could fry eggs and make toast. And bake cookies, cakes, pies, sweet breads ect as well as make a lot of homemade candy. So not so much other than out of box meals like mac and cheese but enough homemade meals to survive on my own.

At 15 I had some chores that had to be done. I had all the yard work until I broke 4 lawn mowers one summer and then my dad hired yard men. No, I didn't break them on purpose, I'm just a clutz.

I had to do half the laundry, mop our floors (on my knees mind you and the floors were about 3000 sq ft of living space.) Vacume all the bedrooms and living room. Water about 70+ plants and feed all the animals twice a day.

Every other week I had trash added to my above chores and also straighting chores such as the pantry, linen clost and so forth to make sure everything was tidy.

Oh and we also had a housekeeper but my mother's rules were that she was there to clean not pick up so we always precleaned before our hk arrived.

As I was an average teen, I had to go to public school and had after school activities and had to go to my volunteer jobs at the library and the retirement home. So I would be out of the house on average 60 hrs during the work week and not counting the weekends. My parents believed idle hands caused trouble, so until I was old enough to work I had to have full time volunteer jobs. As my parents both worked very long hours and none of us really got into trouble, all the chores and stuff must of worked.

Anyway, if all I had to do was boil up hot dogs and maybe serve some mac and cheese I would have been thrilled.

[Doomed Harlottt]

Spaghetti and a baked potato as a meal??? That is completely . . . just . . . wow.

(Hey ladypuglover, I am totally impressed with teenaged you!)

[Kitten]

I could bake my own bread when I was in 7th grade, not because I wanted to be a happy homemaker, but because my mother refused to do for me. She figured I was smart enough to read a recipe and follow instructions. I also come from the days when they still taught (mandatory) Home Ec. in junior high (girls only, of course), and with only two 45 min. classes per week for a nine-month school year, I could still make a dress from a pattern that included set-in sleeves, darts, set-in zipper, facings/bindings, and buttonholes, and cook basic dishes, including such items as a pie from scratch (Custard! I got an A+ for that one!), stuffed pumpkin, apple jelly, etc. We also learned to set a table, including that stupid "One inch from the table edge" rule. We didn't do too much on childcare, I will admit, but that was because back then, the emphasis was all on cooking and sewing.

Her story is sad in that she expects her daughters to grow up to be housemakers, but expects so little from them in the way of learning basic homemaking skills, but happy (from my perspective) in that her daughters appear to be passively and actively resisting the roles she is trying to force them into. I (hopefully) see a life without patriarchy for these young ladies...

Go Girrlz! Break freeeeeeeeee! :lol:

[PBrooke]

I still wish my school had home ec by the time I came around - I have zero sewing skills, and though you can learn cooking any old time (ya gotta eat) it's harder for me to decide to learn to sew (and no one nearby could teach me, and it's probably easier in person than a book or webpage). Oh, hold on, youtube. I love youtube.

When I was in the 5th grade, my ebil public school system DID have a unit on learning how to write a check, balance a checkbook, etc. Even though I didn't have to write my own checks 'til several years later, by the time the need arose it was old hat. So maybe not so ebil after all.

[annalena]

for people who put SO much emphasis on doing housework and home making what is it with fundies not knowing how to actually do any of it?

i'm reading a blog mentioned in one of the other posts and this is a gem i find:

thelegacyofhome.blogspot.com/2010/02/teaching-home-economics-through.html

her daughter's "apprenticeship" in making a dinner consists of cutting up hot dogs and following instructions on a pasta roni box. she is proud of teaching her daughter to make hot dogs and pasta roni? seriously? When i think of an apprenticeship style cooking lesson I think of 3 course dinners or at least some chicken cutlets, fresh mashed potatoes and homemade salad.

It has been discussed on here severeal times, but it ALWAYS bothers me how they claim to cook from scratch when really all they eat is crap. Here in Bavaria ;) we have a traditional " Brotzeit" (snack/easy meal) which consists of bread, cold cuts, maybe eggs, fruit. Traditionally cold foods, super-easy and quick to prepare. Better than hot dogs, though. I guess my point is it's not THAT hard to think of fast AND healthy meals. The chicken cutlets are a good example. HOW hard is it to have a piece of fruit with every meal? You don't even have to cut it up before!

I yet want to see one of those self-anncounced super-SAHMs bragging about a freshly made fruit salad or similiar. Not cookies or pastry, for once.

She also brags her other daughter is able to make pillsbury quick bread. I mean, ok. Not everyone likes to bake. But for a "homemaker", how hard is it to bake your own bread?? Seriously?

(Think I'll make some today!:))

Amy does apparently not LOVE the kitchen. Oh well. So it happens. Maybe she has other talents. But we all know where those are going....

[FlorenceHamilton]

I was an ebil working mom. Besides the interactive fun adventurous learning stuff we did, my children accompanied me while I did my house chores. They would keep me company while I did laundry or prepared meals or cleaned up the house. Gradually, as we were talking and spending time together during these activities, I encouraged them to participate.They went shopping with me as well. Because they had participated in meal preparation, they were engaged in the procurement of supplies. By the time they (A boy and two girls) were 11 or 12, we could zip up a healthy meal when I got home from work in no time. Laundry folding was much less tedious with company and conversation.

I will admit that I have never been one to do my own sewing. One of my daughters learned on her own.

One of my daughters graduates from law school this May and the the other from Med school in 2013. My son is living on his own. They all can cook a healthy (and when motivated a glamourous) meal, care for their own clothing and keep there homes clean and neat.

These are important skills. But it is entirely possible to do them well AND have a career. I really do not get the strict division of labor thing. Life is unpredictable. We all need a variety of survival skills.

[fundiefan]

I do the quick bread or at most, use the breadmaker. I don't bake. I never got into it and it drives me crazy to even try. I adore cooking and will cook anything, or try to, no matter how many ingredients or steps or methods. Baking? I'm very glad to live in a time when the grocery store is chock full of bread choices and has a good bakery for more creative options.

I had Home Ec in Jr. High. It was not for girls only. I had it for one year, 7th grade, I believe. Then in 8th grade I had wood shop. Both were mandatory. That damn public school education, insisting I learn to hammer and nail and sand (and you better believe those are usefull skills, particularly as a home owner) and how to cook and do basic sewing. I hated the sewing part but that's just me.

In high school, along side our drivers ed class, we had to sign up for a six week maintenance class. We couldn't get our license to drive if we didn't know how to change a tire, check fluids, read gauges, etc. It wasn't all inclusive and was really bare bones, but it was enough to put the evil public schooled teenagers on the road with some basic knowledge of how cars work so they're not driving in ignorance if something should go wrong.

Stupid public school. Combined with my grandmother, I managed to learn manly man stuff and how to keep a house. Who ever would imagine?

[annalena]

I do the quick bread or at most, use the breadmaker. I don't bake. I never got into it and it drives me crazy to even try. I adore cooking and will cook anything, or try to, no matter how many ingredients or steps or methods. Baking? I'm very glad to live in a time when the grocery store is chock full of bread choices and has a good bakery for more creative options.

Not implying everyone needs to bake their own bread.:) But someone who brags about being able to make quick bread, umm.

I had to take "handwork" class, that just sounds odd in translation;) in elementary school and also "handirafts". I don't remember all too well, but I think it was for both boys and girls, but that just changed like 1990. Handwork class was for the "girly" things like sewing, crocheting, knitting and handifracts fpr the manly things like sawing, soldering, carving.

I HATED it. Both of the classes. I'm just not a very crafty person. I still can't even fix a loose button until the present day. If a kid does not want to do it, by forcing it upon them it won't get better.

[easternabeille]

Wow, fundies would have hated my parents! I was taught to cook and bake by my father, who also made the majority of meals in our house (parents both worked, he just loved to cook!). I have really wonderful memories of my father and I making homemade pasta, homemade breads, sauces, etc. Don't get me wrong, my mother is a wonderful cook but it was my father who instilled a love of baking and cooking in me :). My father is nearly 70 and he is still giving me baking tips!