Should Domestic Science Be Brought Back for School Kids, An Opinion

When I went to the school in the 1960's, what would eventually become "domestic science" was called "cooking" and "sewing". Beginning in sixth grade, girls were required to take sewing. Beginning in seventh grade and through eighth grade, girls were (as I thought of it) forced to take sewing for half the school year and cooking for the other half. Boys took woodworking or "shop". (By the time my younger brother hit junior high, which was five years after I did, boys were also required to take cooking and sewing.)

Beginning in ninth grade, it was no longer required that college-bound or "business" students to take "Home Ec". "Home Ec" was for students in the "General" course, and that "course" was essentially seen as one for those kids who were biding their time while waiting to graduate (or drop out of) high school.

One would have thought such courses would have been useful to someone like me. Although I had "the best mother in the world", she had never really spent much time teaching me how to cook or sew. Actually, I don't think she ever told me a thing about either. She did try to teach me how to knit, but I had no patience for that. She did try to teach me to crochet, but I had no wish to make anything that involved yard, thread, or twine. My interests were drawing (particularly figure-drawing), photography, writing, and reading.

In defense of my mother, it seemed as if she spent my entire childhood, trying to teach me about how to be a good mother. My mother (and father too) saw children as the most important people in the world, and she saw childhood as "not for housework". Both of my parents wanted their children to excel academically, and both believed we "could be anything we wanted to be". I suppose my mother's attitude that doing domestic things was part of life but not part of dreams rubbed off on me.

Somehow, though, in spite of my mother's apparent "domestic negligence" when it came to showing me how to wash clothes, iron them, or sew on a button; I just kind of turned into a teenager who could manage doing those things just fine.

Still, one would think that a course in "domestic science" ("Home Ec") would be  great for a kid like me. Well, such courses were useless to me. As young as eleven years old and in sixth grade, I found the sewing class a giant waste of time that could be better spent on academics. Do you want to know what I learned about sewing that year? How to make stupid-looking, elf slippers out of washcloths that were folded in half. They weren't even good slippers because they had no sole in them, so walking around was essentially like walking around in stocking feet - only I was walking around in washcloth feet (and only did that for the purpose of "trying out" the so-called "slippers" I had been forced to make).

Oh - and another thing I was supposed to learn in that sixth-grade class was how to do the "T" stitch. The problem was I couldn't learn it because the teacher had a sing-song thing she did in trying to teach it ("In behind the last stitch and out to form the letter, 'T'.") Well, I never saw "the letter, 'T'." because this grouchy, old, teacher neglected to mention that the "T" stitch wasn't supposed to look like a "T" and that, instead, the "T" was formed by a plain old, regular, stitch and the needle!  (Five years before I was in this class, my sister went through the same "T stitch" issue with the same teacher.) 

Seventh grade brought "Home Ec". I will admit that I was a snob about it, and that I had no intentions of EVER wearing an apron (the way the Home Ec teacher required us all to wear one). I will admit that I tuned out during discussions of how to use an iron or how to select a centerpiece for our tacky-table-clothed Home Ec tables and stupid sit-down eating affairs. (My group never got to eat anything, because we just fooled around during the time we were supposed to be cooking. None of us wanted to know how to make muffins or meatloaf. In fact, one meatloaf made its way out the open, second-floor, window and onto the grass below.)

Eighth grade was no better. Both grades involved grouchy, "old-lady", teachers who acted as if they thought what they were teaching was important. In the meantime, my classmates and I just thought it was stupid that someone thought they needed to teach us how to use a stove, grease a cake pan, or select one of several horrible-looking rags that they were trying to pass off as "tablecloths". Yes, we were snobs. Yes, we thought we were too smart for such "basic" lessons. Do you want to know what I learned in the two years of Home Ec? One very important lesson: Make sure to turn the pot handles so they aren't hanging out over the edge of the stove. (I'm not being sarcastic here. That one, valuable, lesson is one from which I continue to benefit to this day. In fact, each time I turn a handle that someone else in the house left sticking out I actually think of Mrs. Ames' words.)

I was fourteen years old (ninth grade) when my parents gave me a very nice sewing machine for Christmas. I read the book. I bought patterns. I bought a few sewing books. There was a certain type of cotton, short-sleeved, dress that all the girls were making for themselves; and I taught myself to make my own selection of dresses as well.  Some things we tend to learn best outside of school and on our own terms.  It turned out I liked sewing to make dresses for me, my niece, or dolls.  I guess what I saw as "stupid" were things like the washcloth slippers. 

Beginning in ninth grade I had begun a four-year plan to take extra academic courses during high-school, so that I could both get into college but also have business training. The guidance department allowed me to take more classes than was generally recommended because they knew I did well on a number of things. I was so grateful not to have to be required to take Home Ec after eighth-grade, and I was so happy to be able to take advanced English classes, literature seminar, the math courses required for college admissions, but also business math and English. I took psychology, but I also took typing and shorthand. There was chemistry, but there was also an extra reading course. Finally, my time was not being wasted in classes that tried to teach what anyone with a shred of common sense could figure out for himself!

In my late twenties I got married, adopted a child, bought a house, and had two more children. The house was well organized and sparkling clean. I repaired or ironed clothes as needed. When my children needed costumes I made them. In fact, when my two younger children were in an ice show I participating in the making of the costumes.

Somehow, in spite of having a mother who never showed me much about "domestic science", I just kind of discovered that I was completely capable of ironing clothes, washing them (in a machine or in the sink), and removing any number of stains. Somehow, I just kind of knew (or somehow learned) how to unplug a toilet, grout a bathtub, remove wax build-up, and do any number of other things associated with taking care of a family and home.

Like my mother, I have come to view "domestic" tasks as part of life, but not part of dreams. Neither should they be part of curriculum, particularly in view of the fact that so many schools do not offer students the high-quality academic challenges that today's kids need.

More than four decades after being required to endure those boring, "stupid", Home Ec classes, I now see that the "bad attitude" I had at thirteen wasn't a bad attitude. It was seeing domestic tasks for the basic, easily-figured-out, tasks that they are. All these years later, I still resent that even that much of my school time was wasted on those classes. All these years later, I have still never worn an apron - not even once. (Oh, now that I think of it, I made a baby-blue, gingham-check, apron in the half-year of eighth grade that was devoted to sewing. I wonder whatever happened to it.....)

One final note: My first son was in fifth grade when he decided that he liked a certain type of shirt and pants, and that he wanted them ironed in a certain way. I offered to iron them for him, but he said he'd like to do it. With the ironing board safely set up within my view, my son would get up early each school day and iron himself a shirt and pair of pants. I think he liked feeling very grown-up at the time. His younger siblings would not turn out to care about ironing unless necessary, but all three children have grown up to be people who have used a washing machine and repaired their own clothes.

I know that we are not born knowing how to do domestic tasks, but - boy oh boy - sometimes it does seem that way.