WHY are you old style?......

rosieben

HariboJunkie wrote: »

... I should also say that luckily my sister is considerably older than me and learned much from our mother which she continues to pass on to me on an almost daily basis. Isn't that right Pink-winged? :A:kiss:

:rotfl:

debtmess

like rosieben i started using this forum due to financial problems it was a great help then and continues to be so now.

i am considering to ask my mum to teach me to knit she has tried before and failed miserably maybe because back then i didn't want to learn

Caterina

I come from a time, place and family where the women had and practiced daily all the old-style "female" skills: knitting, sewing, cooking etc... and the men all the "male" ones: woodwork, plumbing, car repairs, even a few hunters in my family!

However, there was such a separation of the sexes when it came to duties (and also what was learnt in school) that all the younger generation of females (myself, sister and cousins) rebelled against what we considered anti-feminist. The male skills were passed to the male children, who did not rebel of course, as they did not need to rebel, they could do just what they pleased! In fact my brother now lives the good life for half the year (the other half he teaches ski in the mountains) and is very good at survival skills.

If, like me in the 60s, someone perceived the female skills as tools of male oppression (and believe you me, in Italy in the 1950-60s this was absolutely the case!) then it felt not only reasonable but necessary to rebel - and rebel we did!

Now in my 50s I have reclaimed these skills because I have the choice, I can choose to knit but if I wanted to I could also choose to repair an engine if the fancy took me, and go buy the jumper, or tell my husband to go and buy his own jumper, even!

In the past women did not have these choices, you had to cook, knit, sew and put up with men's rules.

Yes it is a shame, yes it would have been great if we were all taught these skills, but for so many women of my age there was no alternative but move away from that sort of thinking and make a stand by living in a different way.

I am now living a simple and frugal life by choice, also a bit as a rebellion (yet again! Will I even stop rebelling?) against the consumer society and the inane waste of earth resources. My politics are no longer fueled by feminism but I still subscribe to principles of equality, they are now much more fueled by a desire to conserve the environment (I have acquired a "green" perspective, for want of a better word, over the last few years).

It is good that people are slowly but certainly reclaiming these skills, the need for a more natural life is being felt by so many people, it is fantastic that the Make Do And Mend philosophy is becoming much more widespread. I hope that more and more people decide to lighten their step on this Earth.

Cheapskate

Angel_Jenny wrote: »

.

I am thinking of joining a WI although I am worried that I am too young. I

Angel Jenny :A

Just started reading this thread - fascinating! I've just joined a newly-formed WI in my town; the oldest of us is about 45 to 50-ish, the youngest about 17, so don't let your age (at either end) stop you angel_jenny. Even though we're quite a new group & still finding our feet, we really enjoy getting together, so go for it!

I grew up in the 70s/80s, but we had no money & my parents were war babies, so knew how to manage on nothing from their childhoods. My childhood home had one coal fire downstairs & the odd Dimplex heater upstairs but only when it was REALLY cold! :eek: Mum made lots of clothes for me & my sisters, always cooked from scratch and sometimes grew her own veg. One Christmas there was so little money that she made everything - gift wrap from unprinted newspaper, her own cards (long before it was trendy!), all our presents etc - we thought it was marvellous - none of our friends had presents like them!

In lots of ways, we lived like kids from the previous generation - I didn't think it odd then, but now am grateful that I've got those memories to remind me that with a bit of ingenuity you can feed/clothe/keep warm even with very little cash.

Over the years we've had some money but now don't have a lot, so I'm resurrecting the skills I had when I was younger that I'd picked up from my parents, in addition to all the stuff I find out on here - even just as a database (friendship aside) this site is fabulous - like having thousands of parents/teachers on hand! :j

I'm learning new skills as well & discovering that I like some of the things I hated doing before (how mad is that?:p), like sewing, mending clothes, polishing shoes! :rotfl: I think some of it is pride in being able to do it yourself & not just paying for a service or goods.

What couldn't I do without? T'internet, of course, how else could we swap all this info?; steam iron; electric sewing machine; books!

A xo

Linda32

When I was at school its was called Home Economics, taught be a teacher who hated with a passion 1st years, so that went well :eek:

I remember being taught how to make Spag Bol, which I promptly forgot and learnt again from books and how to lay a table so that all the spoons on the saucers were facing the same way, thats really all I can remember from senior school.

I remember being taught sewing, blanket stitch comes to mind in the junior school (around 9-10) the above was in the senior school.

My Mum must have taught me a few things as since I've learnt more about cooking, (from here/books/magazines etc) things have come back to me, folding in with a metal spoon etc.

Mum dosn't have the first clue about gardening, although for part of my childhood we did have a nice garden. I've learnt again by reading/watching TV, and now call myself a "very amature gardener"

As for Old Style, well it makes sense to me, and OH for that matter. Someone a few posts before said something that My OH says quite oftern, we have an hand-me-down TV from his parents, (they got rid of it because it had a "big bit" at the back and bought a flat screen affair) two "old bangers" never go abroad - no interest. Where I used to work, I remember one lady saying "I bought in odd things to eat", by this she meant home made soup.

Interesting thread

WartimeScrapingofMarmite

Great thread:T

I find the WW2 era and how people coped with shortages fascinating and inspiring.

My Nan taught me to knit, sew and crochet when I was very small, skills which I have remembered nearly thirty years on and still love. (And am proud to say I have just finished my very first patchwork quilt, which my Nan started before she died...I finished it using all her old fabrics and even her paper hexagons:D)

meritaten

for me its the Fifties! when I was growing up most mums and nans had a 'wartime' mentality still! NOTHING was regarded as disposable! my mum is still like that..........we joke that hers is the only house in the country, where disposable plastic dishes have been washed up and reused about 50 times now! the kids are never given drawing pads to draw on but she doles out ONE sheet cut into four (one for each of them)! and makes them use the back of them too! I think thats going a bit far tbh - I even gave her a pack of Printing paper, explaining how cheap it is compared to drawing pads - but she still tears them into four!

mum isnt such a great cook, I learned more from my nan and at Domestic Science in school, but mum taught me to knit and an aunt-in-law taught me basic crochet. any other skills I have learned from books or the internet.
I am not extravagant, and we eat much better than a lot of people in our income bracket, have a nearly new car and our only debt is the small mortgage we have!
But, some friends pity me because I keep the same sofas for ten years or more, most of the rest of the furniture is hand-me-downs (or as I prefer to call it 'Tomorrows Antiques') and I dont wear designer labels unless they happen to be in the charity shop!
and I dont feel in the least deprived!

kezlou

Lovely start to a thread

Well in our house and circumstances, its a case of lack of money.
When i had my first child i decided i had to learn how to cook, yes it frozen produce but hey the microwave queen had to start somewhere.

Now 85% of food is home made, i'm now making our own curtains etc as they just to darn expensive. Mmy partner is a plumber so he brings those skills, as well as plastering, me painting, tiling, electrics, you name it we do it.

My mother (really my grandmother, but she adopted me at birth) didn't teach me how to do anything, as by the time i was old enough, she was too tired to do so.

I think schools should teach all children how to master these skills and be a part of the curriculum.

For me i couldn't do with the internet, without it i'd be up the creek without a paddle.

Me and my partner are now teaching my boys how to cook, sew, garden, change tyres, change car oil etc

So between us hopefully our boys will have a wide set of skills for life.

katholicos

With regard to being taught OS skills in the home; I would also like to throw into the equation that not all children WANT to be taught how to cook/crochet/knit/sew/fix things etc. Although my DD makes some cards from scratch very occassionally, she has little to zero interest in crafting or learning OS skills, no matter how many times i try to encourage her. I figure, she is 19 now, maybe when she has her own family she may want to learn such skills and may ask me for me to show her how to do some things :-)

I have a few rusty memories of domestic science lessons at school...i made a fruit salad, sewed a cushion...think i made a wonky looking teddy bear...but the lessons did not run throughout all of the school years, only the first year or so of high school. The inconsistancy meant that all those skills that had been learned, then fell by the wayside. And there was simply no money for threads, materials, fabrics etc at home, where every last penny had to be accounted for.

My parents were poor and worked damned hard all hours of the day and night to make ends meet....at Christmas when Mum had a little more time i might make mince pies with her, but really, my folks were too busy keeping a roof over our head and trying to pay the bills to teach me or my bro OS skills.

My grandads both died before and shortly after i was born, my favourite gran lived 200 miles away...and she DID encourage me to learn a bit of sewing, but she was dying and wasn't long for the world, so i didn't learn very much...my nan lived closer but wasn't very involved with any of her grandchildren really...she was an OS Goddess by all accounts when she raised all her 6 children through the 30's and 40's on next to nothing....but she was really quite 'old' for her age and by the time i was old enough to be interested in anything she may have taught me, she was enjoying having a bit more of a social life with the over 60's club and good on her for that. She'd worked bloody hard all her life!

Myself, I recall me and my brother arguing at the dinner table about who had the most pieces of kidney in their homemade steak and kidney pie...we had meat so rarely! Mum did fabulously well, as did Dad, and they've been hard workers both in and out of the home and now enjoy a more financially stable time in their lives, though bless, their health is so poor that they are often unable to enjoy it as they should.

I don't think it especially matters how we come to walk the OS path, rather that we embrace it willingly and share our ways of doing things with others who are willing to learn.

Me? I want to live more simply. Financially I am obligated to do so, but spiritually, emotionally, physically and in every way I am damn sick of clutter and confusion and materialism and the artificialness and busyness of living.

I want to live more simply by choice, even though my finances dictate that i live frugally. It gives me great satisfaction and pleasure to know that I can bake my own bread, cook from scratch, live on what i have stored in the pantry and freezer etc and not worry myself illy about what we will eat.

What skills i don't have, i learn from books, the internet and from other people who are generous enough to share their talents and time with me. A little while ago i taught myself crochet (i'm not so good at it yet, but i'm not giving up)...my mum recently asked me to teach her how to make a granny square and so i did...she hasn't crocheted for decades but is enjoying re-learning the skill and thrill of crocheting a granny square!

Rebob

I do some OS things such as cooking from scratch and repairing stuff as I hate waste and it helps us have a better standard of living than most do on such a limited income. Between me and hubby we can do almost anything and when we have had to get someone in to do a job I have not been impressed by their attention to detail on jobs such as pointing etc. Our home is a mix of stuff but a lot of it is second hand, sometimes its for the style of things such as 1950's mirrors!

Growing up I had my Nannan that showed me some crafting things and then I had a friend that looked after me while my parents worked. She showed me how to use a sewing maching, crochet, cook and general homemaking skills. Her hubby had an allotment where he grew most of their veg and I used to enjoy watching him. Until I was about 9 years old we had nothing and then mums business took off and she went full on with ready meals etc which is understandable given she worked 60-70 hours a week.