Study finds millennials can’t perform basic household skills

Many pieces of what was considered ‘essential knowledge’ in in the 1950’s, ’60s and ’70s has now been lost in time. Young people don’t seem to have the capacity to sew a button onto a shirt, cook simple meals and maintain a household.

To be fair, there was more of a focus on housework back then, but the knowledge gained was very useful. Nowadays many people would rather throw out a shirt with a rip rather than trying to fix it.

A new study has proved that young people are in the dark when it comes to performing simple household tasks. The UK study conducted by the Good Housekeeping Institute found that British residents under the age of 34 were lacking in areas of basic cookery, textile work, metalwork and woodwork.

The study surveyed the abilities of 2000 people carrying out 18 domestic tasks. The study revealed one-third of respondents believed they could shorten a hem, descale an iron, make white sauce and roux.

Less than half knew how to bleed a radiator (not as much of a problem for those living in warmer climates). Perhaps those living in places like Australia might not know how to efficiently clean a fan or air conditioner?

Surprisingly, the study also found that millennials don’t know what ‘darning’ means. It seems the tales of darning your stockings before Christmas night have been lost on this generation.

On the bright side, 86 per cent of young people knew how to iron a shirt in comparison to 99 per cent of parents. However, only one in four knew how to repair an item of clothing.

Some of these results don’t come as a surprise. More and more schools are getting rid of home economics classes, cookery and sewing in favour of information technology, engineering and computing.

Many also attribute the drop in the basic knowledge to the fact that many young adults are living with their parents for longer periods of time. Therefore not needing to learn the skills involved in maintaining a home.

Do you know how to perform all the household tasks listed in this article? Do you find your children and grandkids lack a few basic household skills?

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