It can be hard for me to remember that not everyone knows how to do a lot of what I do. I've been hanging around the homesteading groups more and more online, mostly on Facebook, and sometimes, I am surprised by some of the questions or laugh at the lists of skills every homesteader needs that pop up over and over again on Pinterest. Today, it struck me, though, that I don't think my kids have the skills that I was raised with, that most people don't.
I grew up on what, these days, would be called a homestead at both homes. My parents divorced when I was very young, remarrying soon after, which was just not done in the late seventies, early eighties. Not in our rural area of Michigan, anyway. Both families, though, were homesteading types, from Dad wanting to raise our own beef cattle and hogs (just a few times each but enough to really help the food bill) to Mom having horses, from my stepmom putting in a massive garden in an effort to feed all four of us kids (my three older brothers were all in sports and growing like weeds--let's just say I would have done the exact same thing) to my ex-stepdad actually working on the big family farm. It was just how things were, not to be questioned (though all of us kids questioned it more than once, especially when weeding the massive garden). My stepmom had been a home economics teacher (what today is called Family and Consumer Science or Life Skills), and she was better than Martha Stewart. I don't say that lightly. She didn't have the money or the massive staff that Martha does, and she still managed to outshine that woman in every way except in cooking. My mom was a high school art teacher who had grown up on a chicken ranch in southern California, and not only is she still the best cook I know, but she taught me all kinds of things that, when I was a kid, I thought were normal, that everyone knew. I resented the perfection my stepmother required, and I didn't want to learn so many of the lessons she drummed into me, but these days, I thank her for all those tears and periods of sulking anger. I figured out early on that I just didn't have my mom's artistic talent, but Mom, bless her, always kept trying. Mom taught me how to draw, use inks and paints in various ways, throw a pot or make pinch pottery, do calligraphy, cook, dry herbs and apple slices, freeze sweet corn, ride and care for horses, garden, and so much more. My stepmom taught me how to do crewel embroidery (my first 4H project at the age of six), do country arts painting (of which she's a renowned teacher), iron properly, arrange flowers, sew, bake, can, freeze foods, clean things just so, garden, what so many wildflowers and trees are, the different songbirds, tin punch, and so much more. My tin punch skills are horrid, and I cannot paint in any style well at all. My mom taught me how to knit when I was twelve from what she remembered her aunt teaching her as a child, and when I quickly exhausted her knowledge, she took me to the five-and-dime in town and got me a Leisure Arts pamphlet and real knitting needles. I taught myself the rest and then taught myself how to spin yarn when I was 14. I took the required home ec class in seventh grade and signed up for it again in eighth only to find that I already had a lot of the skills and got in trouble, thanks to Eric listening to me and agreeing with me, when our group's tacos (not cooked exactly as told) were considered the best tasting and the most popular. I'm not great at sewing (hand sewn or machine), but I can and do okay. My embroidery skills are all right, and I indulge in those, mostly during the winter, even though what I produce isn't perfect. So, I put foods up from our garden, and while I always read up on things and do a lot of research, a lot of what I do is just what I learned growing up. Taking care of the ducks' bedding isn't much different than mucking the stalls in my parents' barns growing up. I can sew a little, enough to get by, and I bake our family's bread at least once a week. Every season, I change the decorations in the house, including the kitchen towels, silk flower arrangements, and door wreaths (making new ones if needed), just because that's what we did growing up and my house doesn't feel like a home if I don't. Honestly, even though I've tried to show my kids how to do all this and they've helped from time to time, I really don't think they would know how to have a small homestead or mini urban farm. They would be like so many others, turning to social media to ask questions from those of us who were taught by parents and grandparents and have been doing it for years. A lot of it is that I didn't want to force anything on them when they were young other than the most important skills, but a lot of it is that I didn't want the surly pouting or the anger at being forced to learn something they didn't want to have anything to do with. While they enjoy the jams and pies and eat entire loaves of bread in a day, they don't want to know how they're made or where they are from. Which is a bit sad. I do wonder about the future. When times get hard, and they will again because they always do, how will my children and their friends make it? Will there be a Victory Garden program to teach them how to grow their own food and preserve it? Will I still be around to help them learn how to keep a sourdough starter alive and bake their own bread or know when to pick the squash and how to pressure can it or make pumpkin butter? I do wonder, though I am heartened by so many Gen Xers like my husband and myself returning to this harder-yet-simpler life and so many Millenials jumping in feet first. Maybe I will find a way to pass along these skills yet.
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CarinaI'm a 40s something disabled mom living the life on our small urban farm. Archives
April 2022
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