Until recently, my wife and I were feeling pretty good about our parenting skills. Our children seem to be kind, hard working, well-adjusted, and ready to face the world.
But this confidence was recently shaken when my 21 year old daughter had to mail a letter. She had to fill out a form with a social security number and because of that, the recipient wouldn’t accept email. She put the form in the envelope and came to ask me “Is this where the stamp goes?” I was shocked and confused. Somehow she became 21 years old without ever mailing a physical letter! I get that she communicates with chat, messenger (and email if necessary), and that she pays all bills online. But not knowing how to stamp a letter?
I now wonder what other parenting failures will reveal themselves over time.
Are we the only ones? Any other parenting failures out there?
There’s no success or failure until the game’s over (everybody’s passed from this physical sphere). Every instance is an opportunity to learn and improve.
My daughter is unable to peel a carrot in less than ten minutes. It’s so painful and frustrating to watch that I have to walk away or I’ll snatch it from her. She can bake anything, but she’s going to die of starvation before she ever manages to cook herself a real meal.
In a similar vein, I’m sure you’ve seen the (now) classic video of kids trying to figure out how a rotary phone works. If not, treat yourself. You can google it.
My kids are among the very few people they know who understand how a turntable works. We actually have a working one in our home. Some of their friends have stared at it in wonder when we’ve played it for them.
My kids had to write thank you notes since they could write. Didn’t address envelope when they were really young but eventually they had to do that too. They also help send out holiday cards each year. So they know where stamps go.
When my son got his first post-college apartment, he had to write checks for his deposit and first month’s rent. He had checks for a while but apparently never had to write one. He really had no idea. My daugther doesn’t even have a checking account so pretty sure he has no clue either.
My son can’t tie a tie. I have showed him how several times but he doesn’t tie one often enough for it to really stick. I learned to tie one in 4th grade and wore one 5 days a week for decades.
I made my kids change a tire before they got their license. Doubt they remember how at this point (son hasn’t had to since and my daugther had one flat but called AAA).
Now that it’s been mentioned, I’m fairly certain that my 40 year old husband has never written a check. Ever. I remember last year teaching my teen how to deposit a check for the first time.
My kid does all her banking electronically. When she was setting up her new bank account at school she was asked if she wanted a check book. She had no idea why she would ever need checks. On the flip side, she had to explain Venmo to me. Times change ; )
But change a tire? Their cars don’t even have spare tires. They have that can of whatever it is instead.
The only time they went into a bank was to actually open a new account at a local bank.
My big fail…I really wanted to teach my DD to knit and she wanted to learn, but she is left handed and I am right handed. I tried teaching her right handed knitting but she couldn’t do it. I guess she could find this on YouTube now.
The other day one of my sons was watching a commercial for a pickup truck and looked puzzled, asking, “why would anybody ever buy a pickup truck?”
:-0
That was especially shocking for me since I was raised in a very blue collar setting where most people in my family and neighborhood had pickup trucks and I still drive an SUV (loaded to the gills with tools and equipment for my sport) and regularly do DIY home repairs, so it’s not like he’s never seen or done work projects. I guess he just didn’t realize the SUV + trailer is a form of pickup truck, or something… Couldn’t help but think of that Charles Murray assertion that the country is increasingly being lead and run by people who are so far removed from physical labor and the actual work a huge chunk of the nonprofessional working class people do that this “bubble” is going to cause problems.
I just think it’s a sign of how different things are done now. Sending letters, writing checks…they just don’t do that. My D has had a checking account for 2 years and has never written a check. She does all her banking electronically.
I remember the first time we were in a hotel and she picked up the phone to call a friend in another room. She had no idea you had to pick up the handset before dialing. And the dial tone was baffling. When her friend came to the room we asked her to call someone and got the same results.
When she was about 4 she had to do a speech test (she was being evaluated for speech issues) and they showed her a bunch of objects and she had to name them. She had no idea was a bar of soap was. The person doing the test said she was thinking of taking that item out of the kit because most kids did not know what it was.
That said, she can order herself an uber, venmo money in a flash, and find us a nearby restaurant as we drive down the highway in about 1 minute.
The same kid who asked me why anybody would buy a pickup truck (I’m sensing a theme here…) went to order food from one of our favorite neighborhood ethnic places. He said he couldn’t because their phone must be broken, nobody’s answering and it’s just making a funny, repeating noise. Um, honey, that’s called a “busy signal.”
That’s awesome! I’m not sure my daughter would call to order. If she couldn’t get it through a food delivery service (uber eats, grub hub, door dash, etc.) or order online, she would probably just not bother.
I’m sure it did, but I do all that stuff in and with my SUV, so I’m guessing that might have been part of the disconnect.
But it does worry me a little. He’s not a dumb kid and he’s incredibly empathetic, so if he’s missing the connection about how pickups are often used as work trucks, I’d be surprised if that connection isn’t also missed by many others.
This isn’t my fail (of which I have plenty), but I hired a young man into my group at work. He had a good college degree, had been a touring lead guitarist for a top country musician, and was a terrific young man. He addressed an envelope by putting the entire address up in the corner where the stamp would go…
@hebegebe. Better copyright this title. Great title for a book or chapter in a book. Just made me laugh
My kids both don’t understand why you need checks. They pay their rents etc through apps. They met with our banker and she showed them on to pay everything from their apps on their phones. Yes they Viemo and showed us as well.
Their lives are so different. I am not even sure they actually know where the post office is… Lol…
No wonder at banks tellers are scarce.
They do so much online. Like why go to the store. Sure it’s hyper convienent. My son recently needed something and used Amazon. When asked why he just didn’t get it at the store in his college town it was like why should I. I can use that time studying or doing other things… Well… Maybe he’s right?
My daughter is anti these things but has been known to order books and such once in awhile. When I ordered a router /modem when the one at home died, I was able to use prime and get it in like an hour. She actually yelled at me… Lol
.
But was happy when the internet was back uo5… Lol.
I laughed at the tying a tie. We lived in London for 3 years. Daughter wore a tie everyday. DH made her learn how to tie it.
Fast forward to high school. The school had a dress code. On game days the boys soccer team had to wear a dress shirt and tie. One day after PE, one of the players came to class with his tie untied. He was in a panic because he didn’t know how to tie it. None of the other boys knew how to tie one, so DD said “here, give it to me”. She proceeded to tie it without using a mirror. The boys were all dumbstruck. So funny.
As others have said, thank you notes since they were tiny.
Yup. I question it to. In the past 5-10 years, it has become very popular among a certain type of guy to have a oversized, over-accessorized pickup. Most of these guys aren’t using them as working trucks or doing any hauling. They are the most aggressive, obnoxious drivers, too.
My son’s new debit/card card came in the mail last week, of course just a week after he left for college. I already was putting together a package of other things he needed so I stuck the envelope in - the card still had the sticker on it that says something like “to activate, call 1-800…”
I told him his card was expiring last Friday so he would need to activate the new card that I was sending right away. So I get a text on Friday morning from him that says “can you talk?” I said yes, worried something was wrong. He calls me and say, “I got the card, what am I supposed to do?” Um, you call the number and follow the prompts. He says, “wait, I think I can just do it online, but can you stay on the phone with me?” Then he asks me “what is my username?” Seriously? He has the bank app on his phone so obviously he logged in with his user/pw at some point. But why do I have to be the keeper of everyone’s log ins and password? I can’t tell you how many times I get texts from my kids asking for the Verizon or Netflix account info b/c they can’t be bothered to keep the info stored somewhere safely.
He’s lucky that at some point he (or maybe I) logged in on my Mac at home so I had his user/pw stored in my keychain, so he didn’t have to go thru the trouble have them reset.
Meanwhile, he had no problem setting up Venmo on his phone in high school and connecting it to his account without ever even mentioning to me.
I’ve come to the conclusion that sometimes kids are just being lazy and want you to do everything rather than figure it out. Because they can certainly figure it out when they really want or need to.
