So home ec is NOT passe — it’s still relevant today, and perhaps even more so — and goes hand-in-hand with finance education. So it’s really throwing out the baby with the bathwater if we don’t teach our girls (and boys ) sound home economics because we somehow think we’re ‘liberated’ from managing the home.

Case in point: I know several young adult women whose mothers never taught them how to cook, and so they don’t know the first thing about making a good meal. So they end up eating out or getting expensive take-out because they have no kitchen skills.

DB

As a previous commenter stated… polish these videos up a bit and kids can be inspired. All kids want to grow up to be heroes and with a little integrity and good teaching, they can be.

Seriously, with just a little spit and polish we should be showing this exact little film to high school students across our (stronger when stuff like this was the norm) land.

I especially liked the closing thought which was all about each individual having full responsibility to utilize everything available to them to go out and excel in life.

db

I couldn’t get my speakers to work this morning but I read the blog and I actually like the simplicity of the “list of ten key attributes”. I don’t think that the writer was lazy at all. I think that most of the people in our country back then didn’t need long explanations of character and citizenship. A lot of the attributes mentioned were being modeled all around them.

Those were simpler times of course. It reminds me of watching I Love Lucy re-runs. The humor, while still funny, is not as sophisticated as the humor now is. Lucille Ball was one of the pioneers of her type of humor and other who came after her expanded on what she did.

The money and career writers of today are expanding (if indirectly) on decades, perhaps centuries of similar, timeless advice.

I also don’t have a feeling of “yikes” when home management and the like are said to trains girls to be good housewives. Although the man bringing home the bacon and the woman keeping the home fires burning is not for everyone, it is a model that has been very successful for many families. I seem to recall reading in “The Millionaire Next Door” that a large percentage of successful millionaires in this country are men who have supportive wives at home that keep the home running smoothly, take excellent care of the children and mind the financial shop. This is a priceless service and can be beneficial to everyone. I know it’s not for everyone, but I think it can and does work for a lot of successful couples.