A few weeks ago I met a woman who has a home business selling home economics textbooks that teach young women how to be traditional wives and mothers by teaching such skills as cooking, sewing, and various other sundry Little House on the Praire type skills like quilting and cross-stitch and knitting/crochet. Oh, and she travels around the country to homeschool conventions selling the books.
Besides the irony of traveling all over the country, away from family and husband (not exactly what a traditional wife/mother would do), to sell books about how to be a good traditional wife and mother, the thing I wonder is whether books like that are missing skills that a twenty-first century homemaker should have.
What I mean is that sure, knowing how to sew and quilt is all well and good (I'm pretty handy with the sewing machine myself), but the question I have is whether focusing solely on traditional skills is shortchanging girls and if it might be better to come up with textbooks that teach other more modern skills as well. It seems to me that it would be practical to include topics such as home networking and other computer skills (ok, maybe that's just the geek in me coming out), basic carpentry, basic auto mechanics, and stuff like that. In this modern era, it's possible to get by without being able to sew an entire wardrobe or knit sweaters for the family, but it seems like even a girl who doesn't want to do anything other than be a wife and homeschool mom should have some of the skills I mentioned.
My mom keeps telling me that instead of complaing about what I think is wrong with traditional textbooks that I should do something about it like write my own home economics book to sell to homeschoolers. Whaddya all think?
Posted by kathryn at Agosto 11, 2003 02:04 AM | TrackBack