Basic things younger people don't know.

Yes i tried to teach youngest about switching lights off but it doesnt stay in his head so i follow him around too!?

That although I no longer work 9-5 I m not always free to sit waiting for a parcel from Amazon/ Etsy etc any time: any day
Bless them ❤️

One of my mums very young carers asked if one of the photos she has up was her husband!! It really made my mum laugh, it was a picture of Elvis!??

A friend of DD 1 (a single parent) needed a new fridge freezer as hers had broken. We had a spare one which we offered her if she could arrange a remover. When the guys took the fridge they accidentally damaged the plug and took it off.
I was amazed later to get a message from her saying the fridge was broken and useless! on investigation it was the missing plug, and she had no idea how to obtain a new one or how to put it on!
I was shown how to wire a plug by my DF when I was about 12, and I taught my 3 how to do so as well, along with simple changing fuses etc; so it had never occurred to me that someone in their 30’s would not know this.

I do rely on children & grandchildren when I have a tech problem.

It's not just young people! My BiL, who is 60 and a Cambridge graduate, got a kitten for his daughter who was struggling with her emotional wellbeing. He made no provision for a litter tray etc then phoned his aged mother to ask what to do because the house was starting to smell!

JaneJudge

All electrical items come with a plug attached now and an isolated fuse which you can remove and replace. There must be a reason this adaption was brought into production, safety perhaps?

Wyllow, I think you raise a really good point. I've been talking to some of the young people I work with about registering to vote as they are all worrying about their energy bills but most of them don't vote. They say (quite a lot of them) they don't know how it works. So I have told them, they need to register and then read up on the candidates and each election/by election/council election and chose someone who fits their view (not fool proof I know ) and believes in things that matter to them. I have said to them, they cannot be complacent that other people will vote in their best interests.

Re cutlery, I also work in a multi cultural environment and some people <gasp> eat dinners with their hands Some cultures are not taught nor find it necessary to use a fork. I just can't get excited about it.

I'm concerned young people don't know how lovely they are. There is so much pressure on them to look and be a certain way, from their own looks to cars, houses and the interference from the 'the outside world' is immediate via phones/social media. It can't be healthy for them

No they don't! They may do so in the UK, but I have not been in any European country that has fuses in the plugs! There may be one or too that do, I haven't been in every country,

We have fuse boxes - the new ones you only need to pull a handle back down from the off position which is up when a fuse blows to "mend" it. The older fuse boxes had fuses that you unscrewed and replaced with a new one when the fuse went.

Being able to change a fuse is important, and voting even more so - but do not British schools teach pupils how a democracy works? Our schools do, with 11 year olds and upwards holding mock elections in an election year. If neither schools nor parents are teaching children their civic rights and duties, I find it easier to understand the mess the UK is currently in.

How you hold a fork, knife, spoon or pencil is basically a matter of custom, although some ways of doing these things are better for your muscles than others.

I really cannot get up in arms about whether people eat with their fingers or with forks! I find it much more important that they wash their hands before sitting down to a meal, but I realise that children are no longer taught this rudimentary form of hygiene.

paddyann54

They dont need to remember stuff...they carry wee computers around with them in the shape of mobile phones .They can find out about anything at the push of a button .
My daughters ex SIL made us howl with laughter when she bought a cheese plant ,because she thought she could grow cheese cheaper than buying it ! She also didn't know chips were made from potatoes She was 30 ish at the time .So people who dont know things isn't new

All very well paddyann54, but what happens when the power is out and batteries can’t be charged?

You mean it’s not?

My daughter thought Al Pacino was a coffee. At the age of 17.

Do think Google maps has meant a loss of ability to navigate without a gadget in hand.

'No they don't! They may do so in the UK, but I have not been in any European country that has fuses in the plugs! There may be one or two that do, I haven't been in every country,
We have fuse boxes - the new ones you only need to pull a handle back down from the off position which is up when a fuse blows to "mend" it. The older fuse boxes had fuses that you unscrewed and replaced with a new one when the fuse went.'
Every appliance has a fuse in the plug, and the fuse box is back-up, in case there's a power surge.

Norah

volver

Maybe they should all get a second job, I hope they are not expecting to have the weekend off.

Indeed.

If a second job, and or weekend work is needed to pay bills rather than relying on the government stepping in with top ups.

When I first moved to London and flat sharing I invariably spent my month's salary within a week of being paid. (having paid my rent etc) So I had a series of evening jobs for a couple of years. I also worked during my summer holidays for 2 years. Once as a tea lady for a large architects' practice and once helping a girl who cooked directors' lunches.
Things changed after I met my future husband because we used to hang out with friends in different flats.

In the fifties my father worked a couple evenings a week for a friendly society.

It is different now with wages staying low whilst everything else goes up in price.

growstuff

Shelflife

I notice young people don't hold / use a knife and fork in a way I consider proper. I suppose it doesn't really matter, but knives and forks are designed to be held in a certain way. No big deal I recognize that but I wonder why?

Maybe because their parents didn't teach them.

and that was maybe because their parents didn't hold fork and knife in the way you consider proper.
but we'd better not derail this interesting thread...

Esspee

I gave a neighbour a housewarming gift of a pineapple plant with small pineapple attached. She thought pineapples hung down from trees like pears rather than like a spider plant’s babies.

that's what i would have assumed too.
i have no idea how pineapples grow, never seen them, never thought about it, never needed to.

My DM was born in Burma in the early 1900s. They had servants and she never learned how to cook.
As a student in London in the 1930s she had to cook for herself. She didn't know how to boil an egg. She didn't know you had to put it in water.
Cookery books don't explain basic things like that even now.

Calendargirl

My GS, when about 14, didn’t know how to get a bar of soap to ‘lather’.

I started using bar soap in Covid, and up to then, he had only used liquid soap.

He looked gone out when he said how useless the soap was, and I said he needed it to ‘lather’.

?

this reminds me of the toothpaste that used to come in a flat tin and you had to wet your toothbrush and rub it on the solid block of pink toothpaste.
then the squeeze out of tube kind came in, and displaced the original. a bit like liquid soap.
someone who had only used squeezy tube toothpaste wouldn't know what to do with the solid block.
i found Mentadent P had the same kind of taste and colour, maybe it's made by the same people.
i like to get it for old time's sake, but haven't seen it for a while.

One sixth former was asked in remedial maths what 7 x 231 was. He wrote the long number down 7 times and added up.

He was furious when he found there was an easier way. Not his fault and don't know how it had happened.

Maps? I have tried to up-date mine, they are hard to find because everyone uses their phones, except me.

I was ashamed to find out in August, my DD 32 had thrown out the apples that had been sitting in the fruit bowl for a week. She thought that, although unblemished nor soft, they must be off. I had to explain that, they had probably been picked last autumn and there was no date limit.

A young man recently told me he hasn't a clue how to write a cheque and a friend was amused when her GD got a cheque in a birthday card and looked completely puzzled and had to ask what to do with it

Grammarreto
Delia Smith wrote a book called, How to boil an egg.
Lots of people laughed at the idea, but if you don’t know, you don’t know.

DS and I were watching the contestants on Pointless trying to answer some science questions. We agreed that the lack of knowledge that so many people seem to have about science subjects probably explains the spread of conspiracy theories.

I sat down with my 2 Grandaughters aged 9 They are twins at the shopping mall
I asked them where the bench we were sitting on came from? They said a shop ! Had no idea it was wooden & came from trees
Same with glass window Metal counter Floor tiles Their clothes etc etc
Simply no idea of where the source materials came from
I was shocked !

Sorry, Jane Judge, but I can't do eating with hands or bad table manners. When in Rome. They won't get far in the west eating with their hands. Can you imagine a doctor, an IT specialist, a teacher sitting down to eat food with other professionals using their hands? If I were in a country where people mostly eat with their hands, I would do likewise.

happycatholicwife
I’m sure that Jane can easily imagine such a scenario, yes.

I don’t agree with ‘when in Rome’.
Wherever I was I would ask for a knife and fork, unless it was someone’s home and it might offend. I’m sure I’d be able to judge the situation.

I haven’t been taught how to eat with my hands; I’m sure that it involves special techniques and etiquette.

Like wise I can’t use chop sticks, so wouldn’t even try to in public.
I’d look ridiculous and make my hosts uncomfortable.

It’s a lot easier all round to accept other’s differences, it’s not a big deal.