(snip)

Besides, I thought it was the parent's job to ensure that their kid's
learned these types of life skills. My kids boys both took shop, but
the vast majority of what they learned about taking care of their cars
and houses either came from me or was introduced by me and then they
took it the next few steps.

I once showed my youngest son how to change his brake pads and the
next thing I knew he was doing a full brake job - rotors, calipers and
pads - on a junker that his older brother bought.

Sometimes they just need to be introduced to the subject matter and I
think that that introduction is my responsibility.

Well, I'm no parent, but I am a big brother. After my parents split up
and my kid sisters were living with our mother 800-some miles away from
our father, I tried. On my monthly trips down there to the old home town
to visit, rather than just fix whatever was broken, or change whatever
they wanted changed, I would show them how to do it. And when they got
interested in driving, I showed them around how a car works, not with
the thought that they would ever actually do much themselves, but so
they would know when a guy (their age or at a garage) was blowing smoke
at them. From ages 11-16 or so, it worked pretty well. But then they
discovered BOYS!, and fell into the cliche of thinking females had to
play dumb about stuff like that. It wasn't until post-college, when they
were out on their own, that I could see some of the knowledge had indeed
stuck, and they were doing some small stuff hands-on for themselves. My
house-warming presents for both of them, for their first post-college
abodes, were small tool kits of the household basics.

--
aem sends...