Basic Skills and self Esteem.
By
William FernShaw.
Basic skills are becoming forgotten relics in today’s society. Modern convenience have replaced even the most rudimentary of basic skills. Surprisingly simple things now are performed for us by machines. Robot servants that perform these menial tasks without compliant or sometimes even our knowledge. One of the benefits of grown up in a modern industrial age I suppose. That is right up until Disaster strikes and leaves us for one reason or another reduced to bear skins and stone knives .
A dramatic way of describing the aftermath of a natural disaster or even a manmade calamity I will admit. More and more we hear of circumstances forcing people to rely on skills and knowledge they no longer possess. Having not had the basic tot to the when they were children. To often we see news stories of entire families suffocating during power outages. Because someone fled to consider the oxygen consumption and or toxic gases produced by their substituted heating or power supply.
It use to be mommas taught their daughters and daddy’s instructed their sons. Now though it seems households more often than not our lacking one parent or the other. Or neither one has the time to teach the basics its easer just to do it the new way. If that is either one had the skills to start with. After all its not something that comes up every day. However I for one believed that it should. In years past our forebears passed on their basic knowledge and simple know how. Through programs such as scouting and other such organizations. But even they have fallen prey to simple modern convenience. Or just don’t have the time or availability to demonstrate through practical application the skills of which I speak.
Yet these skills still exists we need only to look for ways of passing them on to our youth. However keep in mind that care must be taken not to give our children the wrong message. Just because it makes sense to have a professional perform an installation or repair. Does not mean the job had to be professionally done. Believe it or not some people still make meals from scratch. They still designed and sew their own clothing I personally like to call it building close but that’s just a man’s point of view.
Children not only learn from doing for themselves. They learn from watching adults perform these tasks. Our kids are becoming more and more helpless as they are restricted from even simple observation. Strapped in to the back seat of the family car given DVD players and Video games to keep them occupied and off the drivers nerves. They travel around oblivious of traffic negations forced to learn from a book what could have been implanted as a reflex by years of observing adults. They will pick up the bad habits easily enough can assure you. One of the reasons I wave with all my fingers if not for the benefit incorrigible minds in my car then for the ones watching from surrounding automobiles.
The same can bee said for the conduct we demonstrate at home. Our children see us striving to better our self’s. Then this is what they’ll do when they have families of their own. When we take a ill-fitting world and alter it to fit our needs. Then they’ll be able to do the like wises when their need arise. I know this because I grew up in a single parent home. I didn’t have the covenants my friends enjoyed but I learned to make do with what I had. And to make what I didn’t.
A lesson brought home by my grand mother efforts to save a fat little kids dignity by teaching me how to sew. Every bit as wide as I was tall the crotch in my trousers lived vary short lives. Waist wide enough to surround my round abound possessed legs fare to long for my chubby nubbys. Leaving me in constant need seem repairs.
With an old sewing machine set up in my room I fixed and/or repaired one rip and a tear at a time. My old grand dad saved misconceptions of my man hood. As in toughs days young men didn’t have sewing machines in their bed rooms. By stating in front of a potential mocking friend that it was about time I got that darn thing back to gather. It wasn’t long after that we had the housing of and watching with fascination the potential mocker sewed seem after seem just to watch all the internal parts moving around. There is a certain attraction for little boys and disassembling things.
Fortunately many of the stigmas attached to the perceptions of man hood have been stripped away. Making it possible for little boys to learn and enjoy the benefits of skills once reserve for the opposite sex.
Not that the old perceptions don’t still have prevalence in to days society because they do . Learning to be tuff and not show your feeling is not only for boys. The sexual revolution has made it necessary for our dotters as well. The competitive world of business eats weakness up like candy.
So when your young man is teased and mocked for learning a useful skill like sewing. Remind him that foot ball players take ballet to sharpen their balance and coordination. Men of all walks of life learn to knit weave braid and crochet all the time. And William Fern Shaw one time security company owner body guard, bounty hunter, actor, writer, heavy equipment operator and three hundred pound guerrilla makes his own shirts.
And most importantly when all is said and done. And some one wants to impose his or her opinion on his life and man hood. The only opinion that truly maters the one that he’ll set his life by the one that will make the difference when all appears lost is the one he has of him self.
Here are some books you can find on my Books for Sale page.
The first is my own E-book
Heck I Could Have done that
Then
How To Repair Your Sewing Machine
Click Here!
Sewing 101.
Click Here!
Common Sense Fitting & Sewing Techniques.
Click Here!
Home Sewing Secrets.
