BTW as far as the kids doing housework thing goes, my kids are lame, you'll all be mocking them in a couple years. They've been "folding" clothes since kindergarten, but I always have to redo them if I want them to actually look folded. Both kids have changed the sheets, but they need to be coached through it. Really, they can't even be trusted to straighten up their bedrooms, and they are asked to do that daily. Same with setting and clearing the table. And I was equally incompetent at their ages.

I think there's a long period of "crap at doing it" which is why some parents give up or don't bother in the first place.

Much of the basic home maintenance tasks that I know, I learned either from working as a custodian in college, or from the "home maintenance checklist" at the group homes. I did, however, learn basic cooking and cleaning from my parents. Dad taught me more about cooking than he did about taking care of cars. I think he saw me as someone he could not teach something that came so naturally to him. This is not the same thing as believing that I could not learn - but it felt like it at the time. I spent a lot of time in the decade or so after he died mastering things on my own and having "So There, Old Man!" moments.

One task I was really happy to see in the rearview mirror as a teenager was mowing the lawn; our electical mower shorted out when I was in Middle School and we never replaced it.

Of course, my parents hiring the smoking hot wrestler classmate of mine who mowed in his gymshorts and sneakers was at least as much cause for cheering as not having to do it myself.

When I had my first apartment my mom gave me a how-to manual called something like, "Where's Mom Now that I Need Her?" It had a lot of basic info like how long various foods lasted, doing laundry and stain removal, some basic repairs and living space upkeep, some car stuff (change the oil, this is what a dead battery sound like, etc.). Very useful. So yes there is (or was) a manual. It just came out in the 80s.

I was doing the dinner dishes nightly at 8, but my kids never do the dishes. They do fold laundry, and I am teaching Casper how to use the washer and dryer (Dillo is too short), and they can stir stuff on a burner (we have a gas stove which they are afraid to light), and we're working up to Casper following a recipe by herself. They can vacuum (Dillo is CRAP at it still) and Casper can sweep ok.

I always wanted a How To Be Adult manual for social situations. Sometimes I felt like I was raised in a barn. I actually became sort of obsessed with Miss Manners in my early 20s - look! There is a manual for this stuff! (Not, like, forks - I lived with a Parisian family for a month at 16 and mastered forks - but, like, hostess gifts, and polite chit-chat, and that stuff.)

I did laundry, grocery shopping, gardening, cooking and painting from a young age, but never learned day to day cleaning things. I think mostly because my family didn't really do them. Or possibly because there were so many grown ups in my house it was invisible. But I am pretty sure we only washed and waxed the kitchen floor about once a year, as it involved moving furniture. I understand how to clean, but not when, and I find it frustrating that you have to keep doing it. Sometimes I would be sent away for a few weeks in the summer, and my grandma would clean my room.

Writing a check was the first thing we learned in bank teller training.

I find it frustrating that you have to keep doing it.

Oh yeah. I inherited that one from my mother.

Ellie just turned 8 and when she gets back for Hawaii, I'm going to start her on doing laundry for herself and maybe Sammy, or i guess whatever it takes to fill the washer. I got the soap pod things so there's no mess. I'm still trying to find a good chore for Frisco (5) that he can do well but is actually useful.

I also think they may have stopped teaching envelope writing in school, as well as formatting of a letter. My student workers almost always have to have it explained to them. To me, the funniest is when they address large envelopes in portrait, rather than landscape. And/or when they put the return address where the stamp goes.

Of course, I think I have told you before the problems they have distinguishing manila envelopes from manila folders!

And, one of them didn't know who DAVID BOWIE was!!!!